Death is a Celebration🔗

Our concern for karma is rooted in our fear of death. It is a primal fear, that of the unknown. Our actions in this life are for the most part driven by the desire to be in a better place after death or the fear not to be in a worse place after death. This fear of leaving the body and mind has existed through the ages.

There is a nice story in Mahabharata', the great Indian epic: There was once a king by the name of Yayati. He lived extremely well for hundred years, enjoying his kingdom and all the physical and mental comforts of life. At the end of 100 years, Yama, the lord of death, came to take him away as it was time for him to leave the earth. The king was shocked to see Yama and started crying, "Why have you come so fast and that too suddenly without any notice? I have not lived my life fully yet. Please give me some more time to live." Yama replied that there is no extension possible to one's life. But Yayati pleaded with him and begged for more time. Yama finally agreed that if any one of his sons was ready to give up his life for Yayati, then the king could live for that much more time.

Yayati called one of his sons. The son agreed, "I will give up my life, let my father live." He gave up his life. Yama extended Yayati's life by a hundred years.

Yayati continued to enjoy all the material comforts in the same way as before and lived another hundred years. At the end of this period Yama returned to take him. This time too Yayati was shocked to see Yama again so soon. He felt he had hardly lived his life and begged Yama saying that he was not prepared to die and wantedsome more time. Yama gave him another chance; another of Yayati's sons gave up his life for his father and Yayati got a lease of another hundred years of life.

Yayati enjoyed another hundred years and again Yama came back to take him. Again as before, Yayati asked for more time but this time Yama refused to play the same game again. Instead of agreeing to the king's plea, this time Yama asked Yayati compassionately, "O king! Do you think you can put a fire out by pouring oil into it? Do you think that you can fulfill your desires by living them out more and more?" In just a few beautiful words Yama explained the whole purpose of life to Yayati. Yayati finally realized the Truth, followed Yama and rested at the feet of the Divine.

You cannot feel fulfilled by offering sense pleasures to the senses. You cannot feel that you are ready for death if you never lived intensely. Trying to satisfy the senses, pouring pleasures into your senses, or living as you want does not mean living intensely. When you really live intensely, automatically you will be liberated.

We are afraid because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change in life. The master Chuang Tzu says beautifully, 'Man's thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.'

We are afraid because we do not know who we are. We hold an identity of ourselves inside us, based on our family, relationships, job, wealth, social image etc. Death removes this very foundation on which our identity is built, so we feel death snatches everything that is ours.

Our understanding about death, or rather our misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience. The man who resists death dies even while he lives. He dies every moment because he is tortured by the very idea of death. When I say ‘death’, I don’t mean only physical death. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing your comfortable life is one form of death, losing your relatives is another. Please understand that loss in any form is nothing but death.

There are two issues: the incident of death that happens at the end of our lives, and psychological death. Real death happens only once, but psychological death, the fear of death, permeates our life. The idea and fear of death decides our entire life structure. Every part of your body is connected to someone or the other. Your being is not an individual being. It is not alone, separate, as you think. We are all interlinked. That is why we undergo terrible suffering when we lose someone or something. Every missing that you experience, no matter of whom or what is what I call death. Fear of death is just the fear of continuity or discontinuity. We are afraid about the ‘what next’.

Once, in USA, a young lady asked the great Indian monk Vivekananda, "What is life?" Vivekananda said, "Come with me to India. I will teach you." She asked, "What will you teach me?" He said, "I will teach you how to die." If you know the secret of death, the quality of your life will be different. Your very understanding and attitude towards everything will change.

Death is not a mere incident at the end of your life. It is a profound knowing. If you know how to die, you know how to live. Living and leaving are two sides of the same thing. Your life will be totally different once you understand death.

Almost all the traditions have tried to conquer death, to outlive death. But one group of really intelligent, intuitive people understood after much struggle that we were approaching death in a completely wrong direction. They decided to take a 180-degree turn. They started working with death in a different way. They used meditation as a technique to take them where others had not dared to go before. Those few intelligent ones were the rishis' of the Upanishad' age. The report they submitted on their research into the phenomenon of death is called the Kathopanishad.

These rishis researched deeply on death and finally came to the conclusion that death cannot be understood or overcome by resistance. By resisting death, you cannot go beyond death. The only way to break free from the vicious cycle of birth and death is by becoming enlightened - entering into death, dropping the fear.

Please understand that death has power over you because of your belief, your faith in it, that’s all. If you take a little time and look into your fear of death you will see that it has the power to transform your life in the most positive way. You will realize that it is not contradictory to life but complementary to life.

Death is a deep relaxation. It is the ultimate ‘letting go’. It is the dropping of the old and starting with the new. When your being recognizes that it cannot achieve what it wants to through this body it decides to move on. This ‘moving on’, this ‘passing over’ is what is called death.

When your brand new house becomes old after the passage of years, you either try to repair it or if that is too inconvenient and frustrating, you decide to sell the house and move into a new one. In the same way when you feel that you have not lived your life totally in the way you wanted to, you leave this body to take a new one. Your choice to start all over again is what is called death.

There is a beautiful story in the great Indian epic, Mahabharata‘: The prince Yudhishtra'' was asked by a yaksha (demigod), What is the most mysterious thing on planet earth? '' Yudhishtra replied, "Every day so many lives are going to the abode of Yama, the lord of death, yet the people who stay here think they are going to live forever."

We always think that it is someone else who will die, not us. Death is truly the mystery of all mysteries.

There are only two things that are certain about death. One is that we will die at some point in time. The other is that it is uncertain when or how we will die. Everything that is born has to die. That is the nature of life.

A beautiful story from the life of Buddha:

Once a woman came with her dead son to Buddha. She was mad with grief at the death of her only son. She cried to Buddha, "Master please give me some medicine that will get my boy back to life.'' Buddha replied, "Get me a handful of mustard seed.'' The woman got up immediately and rushed to get a handful of mustard seed. Then Buddha added, "The mustard seed must be from a house where no one has lost a dear one — child, husband, parent, friend.'' The woman went from house to house. Out of pity for the desperately crying woman, people gave her mustard seed from their house. But when she asked whether they had lost a dear one, they had someone or the other who had died in the house. She went from house to house till sunset but found no house where a death had not happened. Slowly the truth started dawning on her — death is inevitable. She buried her son''s body and returned to Buddha. She fell at the feet of Buddha and asked hinn, "Master please teach me the truth. What is death? What exists beyond death?''

She became Buddha''s disciple and allowed Buddha for the rest of her life.

There is a beautiful saying, ‘Tomorrow or the next life, which comes first, we never know.’ The topic of rebirth is not popular because it cannot be proven by science. Ofcourse, now Near Death Experience (NDE) has become a hot subject as many doctors and psychologists have recorded their experiences. There are many people who have recorded thousands ofNDEs, almost all of which fall into a similar pattern. They all relive the events of their lives. Hypnotists have regressed people into their past lives. These too fall into a pattern. They are similar to what the rishis said over 5000 years ago about what happens when you die, which is recorded in the Kathopanishad.

This incident is from the days of my spiritual journey before enlightenment. I was near a small village in North India called Ghaziabad, a place near Varanasi, the spiritual headquarters of Hindus. Hindus traditionally visit Varanasi at least once in their lifetime. The city has a floating population of at least two hundred thousand people every day.

I was there with an old monk who had been hospitalized and was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). According to the vedic tradition, young monks take care of the elderly monks and sannyasis“. As a young monk staying in that village, I started taking care of the elderly monk.

One day, while I was attending to him, suddenly it became obvious that the man in the bed next to his was about to die. He started struggling for life. I was able to see very clearly what was happening inside him. By that time I had had my deep spiritual experience or satori but I had not become fully enlightened; the realization of the purpose ofmy life had not happened. I was still seeking and my body was getting prepared for the explosion of energy that was to happen after enlightenment.

Several doctors were trying to give him critical medical care and support. The man was gasping for breath. I could see very clearly how death was happening in him. I could see very clearly how the life source was moving away from the body.

That is the strongest experience that has happened in my life outside my body. Inside my body, the strongest experience that happened was realizing the mission! I was able to see what was happening, but I was not able to bear it. An important thing you should know is, if you see somebody in physical pain, it will affect you only about thirty to forty percent. But if you see somebody in depression and you can relate to the person and feel the depression, it will affect you more - say around sixty percent. Further, if it is emotional pain and if you are able to connect and understand the pain, it will affect you much more - about eighty percent. The more subtle the pain, the more you will be affected. I saw not only the physical, mental or emotional pains of the dying man, but I also saw the being level pain. It was almost like I was going through the pain myself. I wanted to just run away from there but the elderly monk got afraid and just held my hand begging me to stay. I had been taking care of him for two to three months, so he had got really attached to me. Since a young age, I have loved serving monks. I used to take food and clothes from my house and give it away to the monks! Serving monks has always been my passion. I have always felt that this whole vedic tradition is alive even today only because of such monks. They have kept this science alive.

For doing research in any science, you need great support in many areas. For example, in the West, a lot of research happens in the outer world science because there are people and organizations to support it. If it is research on medicines, a pharmaceutical company may support the research. If it is some research related to space and astronomy, the government may sponsor and support it.

In the same way, in India, the whole country supports and sponsors spiritual science research. The whole country has taken up the responsibility to support an inner world scientist by providing him food, shelter and clothes so that he can continue his research in the inner world without spending time for basic outer world requirements. So I have always felt that it is my responsibility to take care of the monks and inner world scientists.

The elderly monk who I was taking care of in the ICU did not want me to leave because he was afraid seeing the man next to him dying. The man was going through such a hard time. It was like the whole six feet ofhis body was being torn apart! Imagine the pain if you have a small cut in your finger. Now imagine how painful it would be if the skin on your whole body is literally being peeled. It is something like a thousand scorpions stinging at the same time! I could clearly see the pain the man was going through.

On one side, the individual soul associated with all the unfulfilled emotions like desire, greed and guilt was undergoing terrible suffering. The individual soul wanted to stay in the body and fulfill these, but the body was tired and wanted to relax! It was a fight between the body and individual soul. It was as if the body wanted to leave but the individual soul was trying to hold onto it. If the right hand was gone, the soul was trying to hold onto the left. If the right leg was dead and gone, the

individual soul was trying to hold onto the left leg. Whichever part of the body it could hold on to, the individual soul was trying to hold onto it. Part by part the body was dying. I saw that with the lower body there was not much struggle. But when it came to the upper body, the whole body was vibrating and pulsating with pain.

Slowly the individual soul started moving out of the physical body. Understand, when the breathing stops, that is the moment when the individual soul actually leaves the physical body. There are seven layers or bodies in you. The body of flesh, bones and blood that you see is the physical body. The energy moving in you as prana" or life energy is the pranic" body. There are five kinds of prana or air movements that happen in the body: air that enters into the body, air that circulates inside the body, air that spreads all over the body as life force, air that comes out of the body, and air that cleanses. These form the second body or the pranic" body.

The third body is the body where inner chatter continuously happens. Inner chatter is nothing but the continuous stream of words or thoughts that move within you. The fourth body is made up of emotions like fear, anger and greed which spread as feelings all over the body without even words coming into play. An emotion by itself can simply shake you. This is the emotional layer.

The fifth layer is the body that you experience in deep sleep. This is where all the engraved memories or engrams are stored in the seed or causal level. The engrams are not active but they are not dead either. It is like a deep coma where you are neither living what you want nor are you dead. You are just stuck in this layer.

From the causal body, the individual soul moves to the cosmic body. The sixth layer is the cosmic body where you experience bliss. This is what continuously inspires you to be a seeker. If you are a seeker, understand that this layer is strong in you. If you enrich this layer, your life will be blissful. If you have any engram remaining in this layer, you will assume another body and come back.

If you continuously enjoy pleasurable experiences, then you are said to be in heaven. If you are stuck in pain, then you are said to be in hell. Depending on how much pain you experienced in life, you will stay that long in the pain body or hell at the time of death. Depending on how much pleasure you experienced in life, you will stay that long in the cosmic body or heaven. Hell and heaven are purely psychological. This is the truth. Based on what engrams you have, you experience heaven and hell. That is why different cultures visualize heaven in their own way - because heaven is not a place, it is an experience. The seventh layer is the nirvanic" layer which corresponds to enlightenment.

At the time of death, there is a powerful fight between the owner or the individual soul and the object or the body. The object says, 'I am tired, I can't function any more.' The owner says, 'No, I want to use you.' When the object wins, the physical body dies and the individual soul moves to the next layer, the pranic body. This is the layer you are in when you normally dream. While dreaming, your logic loses its power over you but your desires remain active. The very definition of dream is the state where logic has no power but desires and engrams remain active. Even when you are unconscious or in coma, your logic will not be active.

As long as you are in the physical body, you will have desires with the logic to analyze whether the desires are needed or not and which one of the desires should be fulfilled etc. Desires are under your control; there is a balancing mechanism. But when the desires exist without the supporting logic, the individual soul will be kicked around like a football by the desires. On one side there will be guilt and on the other side, desires that play on the individual soul. When I saw the man dying, I could see that the individual soul was slowly moving out layer by layer. I could see the soul suffering intensely when it went through the unfulfilled desires. The soul was literally being eaten by guilt when it realized, 'I did not fulfill the purpose and mission ofmy life.' Understand, you will remember the purpose of your birth only during death.

When you are born, your body travels through the birth canal of the mother, and because of the intense pain that you go through, you go into coma or the deepest unconscious state, and you forget the whole purpose of taking birth. It is like this: you booked the flight ticket and sat inside the aircraft also, but during the flight you were put in coma and so when you landed, you forgot all about why you came to that particular place! Only when you leave the place and board the flight again, you suddenly remember why you had come to that place! In the same way, when you die, you feel the strong guilt of not fulfilling the purpose of your birth or what we call the prarabdha karma.

After passing through this guilt, next, all the pain experiences of your life will come up. So at the time of death, you first pass through physical pain, then through all desires, next through all guilt, then through all emotional pain and finally through all the pleasures that you experienced in this birth.

Normally, as soon as you reach the cosmic body or the sixth layer itself, you return to assume the next body, the next birth. That is, the individual soul returns to assume the next body. Sometimes, rarely, you go beyond the sixth layer into the nirvanic' body. Then you don’t come back to assume another body.

When you travel through these various bodies and experience your unfulfilled desires, deep guilt and intense pain, you decide strongly, ‘Let me take another body, another birth. When I do, I will not forget the purpose of my life and get caught in these illusive games. I will straightaway follow the path of Truth.’ But when you actually take birth the next time, again because of the intense pain during birth, you drop into coma and forget all about your decision!

Finally, the man died. But the experience left a strong scar in me. It left a very strong impression in my mind. The fortunate thing was that the elderly monk became alright and he was discharged from the hospital. I continued my journey, and after a few months, I had my own death experience and I became enlightened, thus realizing the mission and purpose ofmy life. My life as a liberated being started at the age of twelve itself when I had my deep spiritual experience. But the clarity about the mission, and what was exactly going to happen through my body, dawned when I became enlightened.

After my enlightenment, I came back to South India. I was in Bangalore in a devotee’s house, healing people who sought me out. At that time, a devotee was admitted in the ICU and I was requested to heal him.

There again, while healing, the person in the bed next to the devotee started dying! The moment I saw that the person was about to die, the first thing I felt like doing was to move away from the suffering that was about to come! But the devotee was afraid and not ready to leave me!

Suddenly I saw that this person who was dying, was not going through any suffering like the earlier person. I was shocked, and I became very curious. Earlier, the movement of the individual soul from

layer to layer was great suffering and torture for it. But this soul was moving so smoothly from layer to layer just like how a knife moves through butter, or a snowball rolls down!

In the first layer or physical body, there was a little pain. Then suddenly the pain disappeared and the individual soul moved to the pranic layer. It moved from layer to layer like a royal guest! It was so empowered, that the desires, guilt and pain were not able to attack it at all. Even in the causal layer, it did not fall asleep. It was so energetic, and it finally entered the nirvanic layer, relaxed and just disappeared!

I thought that this person must be an evolved being. I asked his relatives whether he was a spiritual person or a meditator. The family was surprised and replied that the man had never meditated or done any spiritual practice in all his life! He had lived a completely materialistic life.

I contemplated as to why the first death I had witnessed was terrible while the second one was so wonderful. What I am about to tell you now is the honest and straight truth, and I am saying it because I have the great responsibility of telling it to you. When I meditated to know the difference between the two deaths, the revelation happened: at the time of the second death I was an enlightened person. The second person had died in the presence of an enlightened being! In the case of the first death, my presence could not help,because I could not radiate the energy of enlightenment at that time. So the first person died an ordinary death, while the second person died a wonderful death in the presence of an enlightened being who had realized the Truth.

When this revelation happened, I saw a deep compassion coming out of my being. I felt that if at all I can give this as a gift to every individual, my mission will be accomplished. A peaceful death is such a powerful and wonderful gift which nobody but an enlightened being can give. I started meditating as to how I can give this gift to everyone. Obviously I can't be in the ICU of all the hospitals and wait for people to die! I contemplated on the science behind the whole thing, and understood what really happens at the time of death. Let me explain: As long as you hold onto your ordinary logic and remain in the physical layer, the master is just a simple faith for you. The material world appears more solid and real. But when you travel to the deeper layers, the master becomes reality while the material world becomes vague and blurred.

It is like how during your night dream, the dream world looks real and the waking world looks vague, whereas when you are awake, that is when you are with a higher consciousness, the dream world becomes imagination while the waking world becomes reality. In the dream state, the dream world that you see appears alive, like a 4D colour film! When you come out of the dream, the whole dream appears black and white.

In the same way, if you are raised to a still higher consciousness, this waking world will become dull, while things like spiritual truths and the master will become alive and real! When you disconnect from the body and rise into higher consciousness, the master and the superconscious energy will become a gross reality.

When the second death happened, the intense enlightened presence straightaway caused him to connect strongly to it.

Understand, as you sit now and here, what is stopping you from connecting with the enlightened energy of the master and merging with it? Only your own logic and reasons. As you sit here, there are still doubts in your unconscious like, If I drop my possessions and surrender, the master may take it away!' The other problem is, presently, as of now all other things in this world also appear as reality, and you think the master is also real to that same depth.

You experience me as the same frequency as the rest of the material world. In the case of the second dying person, all his outer world things became inaccessible to him at the time of death. He could not

sign his checkbook or drive his car! Whatever was holding him back in the material world was automatically being taken away from him. When he looked around, only I, the enlightened energy was there! He saw the strong light energy and just held on to me! The surrender automatically happened to him because I was there at that moment. Even in his case, if he had seen me while he was alive, he may have struggled to surrender and connect to me! Only when everything was taken away from him, there was nothing to hold him back from connecting to me.

There is a beautiful story in the Bhagavatam' which is a beautiful account of the enlightened master Krishna's life: There was once a rich devotee. He asked Krishna, I want more wealth and possessions.' Krishna granted him his wish. There was also a poor lady, who had a cow and a small house. Krishna once visited her house, ate the food she served, blessed her and left. That very same day, her cow died.

Somebody asked Krishna about the strange happening of how a rich person got more wealth while the poor lady was deprived of her only source of income!

Krishna beautifully explains, 'The king was already in heavy illusion of the material world. So I gave him what he wanted so that he will ultimately get tired of material things and turn towards enlightenment. In the case of the poor lady, there was only one thing that she really wanted, and that was to connect to Me. And the only thing that was stopping her from that was the cow. I took away the cow so that she could completely merge into Me!' In the same way, in the case of the second death, the cow was taken away. In the physical layer, the man was not able to connect. But in the pranic layer, the consciousness entered a different space, and the man was able to clearly see me there.

The master's presence is such an intense light. It is much stronger and of a higher frequency than this world, just like how this world is ofa higher frequency than your dream world. The man realized that there is something of a higher frequency and he completely surrendered to it. When he surrendered, all his other engraved memories lost their power over him. The individual consciousness became empowered. Desires, guilt, pain, pleasure, everything bowed down. Straightaway, the individual soul's frequency increased. Understand, when the seer is strong, the seen has no power over you. This is the science of death.

In the case of the first death, the seen was stronger than the seer. In the second death, the seer was stronger than the seen.

I intensely meditated how to transmit this science to people. Suddenly, a revelation happened to me. Understand, energy is not constrained by space and time. It is just like the satellite waves that are present in space. If you have a set-top box converter, you can see the channel that you tune into. An enlightened master's energy pervades the whole cosmos. I just need to place the set-top box in people. It is like a pacemaker, just that this is a peacemaker! Once it is placed, the person can connect to it while leaving the body.

There is a beautiful story in the Upanishads, the sacred Vedic texts: A rishi called Jadabharatha somehow became attached to a deer he had rescued. He was living the life of a renunciate but he got attached to this deer.

From morning till night, he used to spend his time taking care of that deer. When he was dying, he was not able to forget the animal. He started worrying about the deer "Oh! Who will take care of the deer? What will happen to it after my death?" When he died, in the next birth, he was born as a deer.

Beautifully the verse in the Upanishad says that whatever you think in your last moment - you become that!

Some people think very cleverly, 'Let me live my whole life the way I want to live. In the last few moments, I will remember god and chant His name and enter heaven somehow.' Please be very clear, only that which you thought of in your whole life, will come up when you leave the body. Don't think that at that last moment you can play the game! No! Actually, when you leave the body your whole system will be in such agony, because 80 or 90 years of your life will be run through in a fast-forward mode. All that will be seen are the scenes being fast-forwarded. Whatever experience you had intensely, only that will come up before you. Your spiritual experiences will come up in multicolor.

Please understand that 'thoughtless awareness' is the strongest experience you can have in your life. Even for a single moment, if you had that experience, it is enough. Naturally, when you leave the body that will come up. That will act as a light and you will be able to move into the Consciousness.

Let me narrate to you my own conscious death experience in Varanasi. I always used to think that I should have an experience of death, that I should face death directly. But somehow, that thought never became a priority. For any experience to happen, the related thought has to become the topmost priority. It should not just be in one corner of your mind. Usually on our "to do lists, we have washing, cleaning, paying the rent and phone bill, and finally if time perm its, enlightenment also! No! Enlightenment will not happen if it is this way. Only when it becomes a top priority, only when the urge becomes urgent, everything around you will start aligning itself for the experience to happen in you. This is the case not just with enlightenment. With anything, it is true.

Understand, if at all you are complaining that what you wish to happen is not happening, it is because it has not become the topmost on your priority list, nothing else. Nothing else and no one else should be blamed for it. You will see that the moment it becomes the topmost priority, there will be an energy play that comes into being and it will simply happen. Until then, it will wait for you, that's all. The death experience was not my top priority and so somehow, it was getting postponed.

In my wandering days, I had been to Varanasi, the holy city for Hindus, which has an estimated 300,000 daily floating population. Further, every day around 100 dead bodies are estimated to be burnt in a place called Manikarnika Ghat on the banks of the sacred river Ganga". It is traditionally believed that of somebody dies or somebody's body is burnt in that area, they will be liberated. They will have direct enlightenment.

It is not just a traditional belief. The enlightened master Ramakrishna Paramahamsa confirms it with his own experience. He says, "I saw very clearly Shiva,, himself going near every burning body, taking the soul, unclutching it from the body-mind and liberating it! " So, you can't say that it is a mythological belief. It is a solid experience of an enlightened master.

I had the fortune of going to Manikarnika Ghat. Traditionally, it is not only believed, but it is true that for the last 2000 years, the fire that is used to light the pyres has never been put off.

Whether it rains or shines or floods, people never bring fire when they come with the dead body to Manikarnika Ghat. The fire will already be burning there and they will just take it to light the dead body, that's all. The fire just continuously burns the bodies as they arrive. Sometimes I would see that two to three bodies are burnt at the same time, so many bodies keep coming!

Especially in the evenings, the bodies will be more in number. From the place where the person dies they will walk carrying the dead body, chanting mantras 'such as, "Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai (Lord Rama's name is the ultimate and eternal truth). By evening they will reach manikarnika Ghat.

The scene there, the very experience of just being there, I cannot describe to you verbally. You have to be there to experience it!

To tell you honestly, by just being there, the fear of death just disappeared from my system. You see so many bodies continuously being burned every day. You feel, "I am also going to go like this one day...all right", that's all! You feel there are so many people giving you company! It is like one more trip that you make, that's all. You don't feel lonely about death at all.

In your life, you may see one or two bodies being burnt, so you still have the fear of death. But at Manikarnika Ghat, there will be no ritual done. They will bring the body and straightaway dip it in the river Ganga' three times while chanting, "Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai". By this time, the fire will be ready, and the wood will be arranged. They will bring the body straight from the water and burn it, that's all!

One strange thing that you see there is that none of the relatives will stay there and do any further rituals. The moment they dip the body in the Ganga' and place the body for burning, they will go away, that's all! The people who maintain the ghat will take care of the rest. You will not know how long it will take for the body that you brought to be burnt completely. There will be a queue and bodies will be burning continuously.

I thought to myself, "Let me try to sit here and see what goes on." I sat at the Ghat. In just an hour's time, I felt that death is no more a strange incident which happens once in a while only for some relative or friend. I was sitting there watching bodies arriving one after another. It was like any other queue, that's all. Different sizes, genders, ages, and communities of people arrived to be consumed by the same burning flame. When you continuously see dead bodies being burnt you actually lose respect for death! As of now, you have too much of respect, too many ideas about death. That is the problem. Death is actually nothing but this. The breath that goes inside the body doesn't come out, that's all. Nothing much can be done about it. Neither can you rewind it nor fast-forward it. As I was watching this scene continuously, initially the little fear that I had about death also disappeared and slowly it actually became interesting to watch. I went near the people who maintain the fire and started helping them. As I was helping them, I was thinking to myself, "After all, one day this body of mine is also going to become like this dead body that is burning now."

When you remember that death is going to happen to you, the respect that you carry for your ego will come down. Because, whenever you think that something should vol leave you, it is just the ego, nothing else. When you know for sure that everything is going to leave you, then the respect for the ego just drops drastically. The respect I had for my ego just dropped from me.

Then I decided, "After all I am going to die. Either I should have a conscious death experience now itself and live the rest of my life without the death-fear or really die, that’s all. “I decided that I have to see death happening to me one way or the other. There was a small Shiva' temple around the corner and a small tower above the temple. I went and sat in that tower so that nobody would disturb me. I sat in that tower and from there I started seeing the dead bodies being burnt.

I still remember the strong click, the deep understanding and instant realization that triggered the whole experience that was to follow. An elderly lady’s body was being burnt. She had a big belly. Her clothes were being consumed by the fire and then the fat that was in the belly started melting and flowing. Sorry for describing this so vividly but I have to dO ff to ex plain the strong experience! I could see clearly that because of the fat flowing, the fire was burning with even more intensity. That gave a very strong click to me and I said, "God! Yes, the very same thing is going to happen to this body also!"

That click opened up a deep fear of death inside me. The fear spread all over the body. But I faced the fear consciously. I could see very clearly the fear spreading all over the bod y, and when the fear hit my awareness, that became the experience of death. I went through a conscious experience of my own death and came out of it.

Understand, whenever your fear is suppressed, it stays inside you. Whenever the fear com es out and you are not consciously facing it, it becomes a fear stroke, and shakes your whole nervous and breaks it down. When the fear is faced consciously, it becomes the death experience, that’s all!

I was able to see very clearly the fear that arose. When I faced it consciously with awareness, it became my death experience. The body was dead. It was not moving. For two and a half days I had no food, no water no thought, no question, no doubt. The body alone was there. Only after the experience had passed, I realized that I had been like that for two and a half days! I could see with closed eyes that the body was dead and there was no movement. Suddenly, after two and a half days, the click happened again, "God! The body is dead but I still exist! I am there! That clarity, when it clicked, became such an intense ecstasy in me! The fear of death had left me once and for all.

I was in such deep ecstasy, such joy, and such bliss! I slowly opened my eyes and I was able to move the body. The first thing I felt was such a surge of ecstasy and gratitude. I went down to the Ganga, sprinkled a little Ganga water on myself, took the Ganga water in the kamandalu", took a /fffffe ash from the fire, and went straight to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. I went up to the Shiva linga,,, offered the ash I had brought and did the puja (worship) with such inexpressible gratitude. I saw that Vishwanath was simply alive there! Understand, because I died Vishwanath became alive! Until the day before that, because I was still alive, Vishwanath was always an ordinary stone. I used to feel that to touch this stone, thousands of people are coming every day from so far away... what foolishness! I always felt that the Vishwanath deity was an ordinary stone. I felt that way because I was still alive. When I died, I saw clearly, He became alive!

Only one can be alive, either Him or you. When you see the Truth, He will become alive. You will not be alive anymore as you now think. The fear of death left me once and for all. I can say that this is one of the very strong experiences that transformed me to search for the ultimate experience o[ enlightenment.

Only an enlightened being, a person who has gone through death consciously and come back anew, can exactly explain what happens during death.

I am going to reveal the mystery of death now. This may be surprising, even shocking to many of you. But this is the truth. Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, this is what happens at the time of death.

We do not just have one body. The physical body is just one of the seven bodies we have. It is only the gross body that can be felt and seen in space-time. However, we actually have seven layers or bodies or planes of existence. Since these layers have a subtle existence they cannot be seen or felt by the ordinary eye

A simple representation of the seven bodies is shown below.

Each of the bodies holds a corresponding emotion. For example, the pranic body holds all the desires that arise in life. The mental body holds all the feelings of guilt experienced in life. The etheric body holds the experiences of mental pain felt in life. When the spirit leaves the body it crosses all the seven body layers. The physical body dies. But, the remaining six bodies do not totally die. If you are holding a lot of desires in your life, all those unfulfilled desires are held in the pranic body. So even though the physical body dies, the pranic body does not die. When the life force leaves the pranic body, the being experiences tremendous suffering. When you leave the physical body, your consciousness will be torn from the body and you will immediately fall into coma. According to doctors, coma is the automatic mechanism to make you not to feel the pain. It is automatic anesthesia. If the pain becomes too much, you can't bear and you automatically fall into coma.

When you move from the first body layer to the second body layer, all the unfulfilled desires, all the ways in which you wanted to live but did not live come up. When this happens, it is almost as if ten people are standing in a room kicking a football around. What will happen? Just like how the football is kicked from corner to corner, your consciousness will be kicked from all corners. In each corner, some desire will be standing and kicking it. At the time your consciousness is trying to leave the body, all your desires will be forcing you to re-enter the body so that you can enjoy them further and fulfill them.

On one side, the desires will be forcing you to enter the body again so that you can live and enjoy, while on the other side, the body will say, 'No! I am tired. I can't host you anymore, just leave!' That is what causes the pulling and pushing at the time of death. The pulling and pushing is nothing but the fight between your desires and your body.

Somehow, you manage to move away from the pranic body, and enter next into the mental body. When you enter into the mental body all your guilt rises. All the guilt about the way you felt you should have lived your life but never lived, all the mistakes committed, all the regrets, everything comes up.

Please understand desire is about the future and guilt is about the past. But actually, both are one and the same. The way in which we want to live is desire, and the way in which we wanted to live but didnt, is guilt. Guilt is nothing but reviewing our past decisions with updated intelligence. Like this, step by step, you move through different body layers.

The less the unfulfilled desires, the lighter is the pranic body and the easier it is to leave this body. Similarly, the less the guilt, the lighter is the mental body and the easier it is to leave this body.

One more thing, when the desires, guilt and pain are less intense, you not only have an easy death with less suffering but you also age gracefully. Ageing gracefully 1S what vanaprastha sannyas,, is all about. Being able to live in fulfillment in the latter part of life is the tremendous gift of vanaprastha sannyas“.

All the guilt that we collect over our lives rises as we pass through the mental body. Then we come to the etheric body which is related to all our sufferings. All the suffering that we went through during our life is stored here.

The first four bodies are related to the physical body-mind system. They store all the engrams related to desires, guilt and pain experienced during that lifetime. The fifth body is experienced during deep sleep and when leaving the body. The sixth body is associated with happy memories and the seventh body is beyond sorrows and happiness, the ultimate consciousness.

Please understand, even attachment to happy memories brings us back into the cycle of birth and death. The desire to experience more and more similar incidents that are happy and joyful pulls us back and we take more births.

Happiness is a temporary feeling created by the mind. Bliss, the seventh body, is the true reality. It is the causeless, unending happening inside you of spontaneous energy, joy and auspiciousness. It is like a fountain that continuously happens inside you for no reason. Actually, the reason your favorite candy gives you happiness is that it acts as a trigger to put you into this space of bliss that is your true nature. But you mistake the happiness to be because of the candy, the external object. The happiness is because for those few moments, you come in touch with your inner bliss.

The cleaner the bodies, the lighter they are and the easier it is for the life force to leave the body. Just like its peel comes off a ripe banana, the life force easily moves out of the body.

In the seven bodies, the first four bodies - physical, pranic, mental and etheric, collapse into the causal body every time you go to sleep. The darkness of the causal body is associated with the deep sleep state, which is what rejuvenates you every day. So till you cross the fifth body, this ‘death’ happens every day. This is what happens when you fall into your daily sleep.

When the departing spirit moves beyond the fifth layer of causal body into the sixth layer, which is the cosmic body, the process of death is complete.

If the life force does not have to take another body to fulfill its remaining desires it then enters the seventh layer of nirvanic body, which is enlightenment. If the life force has to come back assuming another body to fulfill its desires, it is death.

One more thing: when you enter into the dream state and start dreaming, this whole world in which you live now becomes black and white because you are in the dream world. You forget this whole

world of your waking state and the dream world becomes very real and seen in multicolor. If you come out of the dream, this whole world that you wake up to is again seen in four dimensions, 4D.

Now when you are in this physical body and in the waking state, you experience this world as 4D, in multi-color. When you are in the dream world, you experience that world as 4D. So, when you are here, the dream world becomes black and white, and this world becomes 4D, and when you are there, the dream becomes 4D, and this world becomes black and white.

In the same way, when you move away from the physical body to the pranic body at the time of death, this whole physical world will become unreal and be seen in black and white. All your achievements, your pride, your efforts, your sorrow, your happiness, everything will no longer have any meaning and will appear in black and white. You will wonder, 'Why did I do all this work? Why did I think of all this as a base for my life?'

Let me explain why this happens. When you are alive you invest in your personality. You build up your personality based upon a few pillars - money, name and fame, relationships, pride that you have a big community, support circle, and so on.

When you move from the physical body, all these pillars, all these foundations will be completely shaken. You can't sign your name on your checks any more. Your signature is not accepted. Your bank balance is no more related to you. You can't handle your bank account. Your car will not be useful to you. At the most, only the ambulance will be useful! Only the conscious glimpse can come with you. Whatever has been the foundation for your being will be shaken. When the foundation is shaken, naturally you won't have anything to hold on to.

As of now, this whole world will appear in 4D. All this talk about spirituality, meditation, growing the inner being, consciousness etc. will appear as black and white. That is why, when I call people for meditation, they tell me, 'I don't have time to meditate. Let me finish all my work and then come. I have a few more years to think about it.'

Be very clear, never say, 'I don't have time to meditate.' Be very clear to yourself and say, 'I don't feel that it is that important in my life right now.' If you are not ready to meditate and say, 'I don't think meditation is so important in my life, then you are honest. But if you say, 'I don't have time, then you are just fooling yourself. Everyone has got the same 24 hours on hand to do what they feel they should. It is not that the few who are meditating are jobless. It is just a question of priority, of what you really want in your life. If spirituality and meditation appear as black and white to you now, you will not divert your energy in that area, that's all.

You see, now we are in two dimensions, the material world and spirituality. Right now, what is happening is that however many pillars we build our personalities and life upon, all those pillars are based on the material world which appears to be 4D. Not a single pillar is based on consciousness or our inner space. Our whole personality is built only based on the outer space - our name and fame, what society speaks about us, etc. If everyone's opinion of us is that we are great, we think we are great. If everybody says, 'You are useless', we start getting depressed. This happens because not even a single pillar of our building, our inner core or our being, is based on spirituality. The entire structure is based on the outer space. That is the reason that when those pillars are shaken by anybody, we start suffering terribly. If we have even one pillar based on consciousness, we can depend on that to stand straight without suffering. If we build at least one pillar based on our inner space, this pillar will shine in 4D at the time of death and help us leave the body beautifully.

There is a beautiful Zen saying, 'Learning the art of dying is the real and the ultimate knowledge that we can learn in our life.' A small Zen story: One day, an enlightened master suddenly declared that he was going to die the next day morning around 6 o"clock. Of course, enlightened people always know about their death. They can declare beforehand when they are going to die. He declared that he was going to die around 6 o"clock in the morning.

His disciples said, "No, no, please wait for 2-3 hours. It will be too cold early in the morning. Why don"t you wait for a few hours so that we can prepare for the last rites?" The master agreed and told the disciples that he would pass away around 12 o"clock. Exactly at 12 noon, he greeted them all and left the body

A true story: The great master from India, Paramahamsa Yogananda,,, had moved to USA in 1920 and settled there. How he left the body is very interesting. Till the last moment he was doing his routine of giving discourses and attending programs. On the day of his passing away, he was attending a banquet in honor of the then visiting Indian Ambassador to USA, Binay Ranjan Sen, in Los Angeles. At the conclusion of his speech, he just relaxed from his body and died.

His body did not deteriorate for more than twenty days. No odor of decay came from his dead body at any time. There is a beautiful write-up about his death in his autobiography as an appendix. It was such a beautiful experience. Even his death was auspicious for him.

You are not the eyes. The eyes are just an instrument. Many times you can see, your eyes may be open but you are not seeing, not registering the scene you are seeing. Just remember you are seeing through the eyes. If you look through the eyes, suddenly you will see you are witnessing everything. You are not the two 'holes' called the eyes. You are only seeing through the two holes called eyes.

If you feel you are the two eyes, you are caught in ego. In your dream, as long as the attention is on the objects, you will continue to dream. When your attention is turned towards yourself— that is from the seen to the seer, you will be awakened. The moment you realize you are something beyond the eyes, your attention is turned to the seer. Then you realize that this world is made of the same stuff of which your dream is made.

As long as you think you are seeing, the whole attention is on the seen. That is what I call ego. When you step back and realize you are seeing through the eyes, the whole attention is on the seer. That is what I call innocence. Innocence means having a clear understanding that whatever you see in the outer world is made of the same stuff out of which your dreams are made. These are the steps: the first is getting the idea that what you see is a dream. The next is having the shakti, the energy, to change the dream. The third is the buddhi, the intelligence to know it is a dream and so there is no need to change it!

To understand this powerful, life- transforming truth, we need to understand about this stuff of which the dream world and this world are made of. We need to know about prana", the life energy that sustains us.

Understand, the air you breathe is just a vehicle in which the prana comes in and goes out. Prana is the life force, the energy itself. Understand this one example. If a truck comes inside this campus and leaves something and goes out, the truck is like the air, the breath. The product that is delivered is prana.

One more thing: as long as the incoming breath is bringing in more prana and going out as an empty vehicle, your life will be strengthened.

If the reverse starts happening, if the air comes with less prana and goes out with more prana, it means death is nearing or the life energy is going towards death. When death nears, just the empty air will enter but when it goes out, it will go with the prana There is a beautiful concept in Ayurveda" called as the ‘peak age’ which is based on this science of prana. Till a particular age, the person will be receiving more prana through the incoming breath and less prana will be going out through the outgoing breath. The moment the outgoing breath starts carrying more prana than the incoming breath, they know now the person is moving towards death.

Constantly, life is slipping and entering into death. Life slipping into death is what we usually call living. Please understand, actually we don’t live. We are just waiting for death to happen. Ordinary human beings don’t live. Life just slips into death, disappears into death. That is the reason however many years you may live, you don’t feel satisfied, and you don’t feel you have lived your life because you don’t even know what life is.

When you become conscious of life, when you start thinking, contemplating about your life, when you bring awareness into your life, you create a new center in your being. Between this life and death, when you bring more awareness into the life, you create a new center, a new space in your life - that is what I call consciousness Whenever you are conscious, you will start deciding about your life. For example, the more you become aware, the more you start designing or choosing what type of car you should drive, what type of house you should live in, and what type of life you want. You start deciding every inch. You become conscious about everything: how you should talk, how you should behave, how you should think, every inch you start becoming aware.

The moment you start becoming aware, you start deciding, and you start controlling your life. When you become completely aware you will start controlling your death also.

These two events of life and death then happen at the conscious level. If you are consciously thinking, it is life. If your consciousness can’t think, it is death.

In the unconscious level, two things happen as well, dream and deep sleep. In the unconscious level, if you are aware, it is dream. If you are able to see anything, if you are able to sense anything, if you are able to feel anything, if you are able to experience any movement, then it is called dream. If you are not aware of anything, if you are not able to feel anything, if you are not able to understand any movement, it is deep sleep.

In the waking state, when you are aware or you are in what psychology calls as conscious state, it is life. If you are not aware, it is death. When you bring more awareness into your life, you take charge of your life. In the same way, in the dream, if you start bringing in more awareness, you will take charge of your dreams and deep sleep.

Controlling life and death and controlling dream and deep sleep both require one important condition: awareness. Awareness Is the main requirement to control life and death and to control dream and deep sleep.

Bringing awareness into your dreams can not only help you control the dream and deep sleep, it can also help you control life and death.

The moment you start moving towards the dream state, the prana starts coming towards the vishuddhi', throat center. The more you move towards the deep sleep state, it moves towards the anahata', heart center.

It is the same in the case of life and death as well. The more you are alive and energetic, the more the prana accumulates and gets centered in the forehead.

When the incoming breath is bringing more prana and the outgoing breath is going empty your prana will be centered on the forehead. If the incoming breath is getting less prana and the outgoing breath is taking more prana, slowly the prana will slip into vishuddhi“, throat center. If the incoming breath is not bringing Prana at all and only the outgoing breath is taking the prana, you will fall completely into the heart center.

Actually, falling from life to death, falling from the waking state to the deep sleep state, are both directly related to prana movement. If the prana movements of inhalation and exhalation are handled properly, you can handle life and death as well as dream and deep sleep. Dream and sleep, life and death can all be handled by this single key, single thread called prana.

If you can be aware when you fall into the dream state, when your consciousness is slowly fading away, when you are falling asleep, you will be able to change the dream itself. If you are able to you be very clear, the first thing you will do is you will stop dreaming. You will stop dreaming because you know the uselessness of dreams. You know you are wasting time and energy in dreams. Person who is aware of dreams will never dream. He will simply stop dreaming.

Person who is aware of life will simply stop the cycle of birth and death. He will not take one more body.

You need to understand this: when I use the word death, I don't mean you will commit suicide. When I say that when you become aware of life you enter into death, it does not mean that you will commit suicide. You will stop living in the normal way. You will stop living with identity. You won't give importance to identity. You will be reborn.

If you can be aware when the prana falls into the heart center every day, you can stop, alter and manage your dreams and deep sleep. If you are aware of prana slipping from ajna to anahata" each time you go to sleep, it means that at the end of the life you will be able to change your life and death. If you want, you can bring it a little early. If you want, you can postpone. You can play in whatever way you want.

This technique has two parts: one that you do when you fall asleep, when you are lying in the bed and the second one that you do whenever you can remember during the whole day. The first one will create more energy to do the second part and vice versa. They are complementary to each other.

First part: when you lie down, before falling asleep, just remember the area near the ajna chakra' or the third eye, the center of the forehead. Do not concentrate. If you force yourself, if you start concentrating, your sleep will be disturbed and you will have a headache. Just remember that area in a relaxed way, the way you look at a flower, just casually. Slowly, you will see that you are relaxing, you are slowly dropping into the deep sleep state. Just be aware of this movement into deep sleep, that is enough. First day, you may feel that you are not falling asleep at all and that your sleep is getting delayed by ten or fifteen minutes. Don't bother about it. Just be aware of the prana movement in the ajna chakra'. You will be aware that you are dreaming. If you want to continue the dream, you will continue. If you don't feel like it, you will come out. There will be no intensity to the dream. The next step, you will start having the dreamless sleep. That is the deeper level. Once you start having the dreamless sleep you will also start having the dreamless day.

Dreamless day means that your energy will be conserved without day-dreaming. If you are aware of the prana, that is enough. It will automatically come back to the higher energy, and your body will heal itself as the flow of prana is directly related to all your diseases. Above all, when you are able to change your dream, when you are able to handle your dream, you will have the intense power and energy to handle the incidents of your life.

Our second level meditation program, LBP Level 2-NSP journeys you through your own life, simultaneously revealing the secrets of death. It makes your inner space pure and clean by unloading the baggage of emotions that you usually carry with you. It teaches you to live blissfully and leave

peacefully. It puts death in the right perspective so that your life becomes more joyful and meaningful.

It is opening up your energy layers one by one. Your pains, pleasures, guilt and desires are opened up. Once these open up and get healed, you experience a glimpse of god within you.