What Happens When You Die? Secrets Of Death

The zest for life is complimented with the quest for knowing more about the being.
Here is an excerpt of this interesting conversation on the mystery of afterlife.

This post is also available in: हिन्दी

The Mystery of Afterlife unveiled

The zest for life is complimented with the quest for knowing more about the being. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, awareness of death brings us in touch with the reality of life.

Here is an excerpt of this interesting conversation on the mystery of afterlife.

Questions and Answers

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1. What does one experience during death, and what is the journey after that like?

   Gurudev: Why do you want to know everything right away? However, the curiosity about death will also bring curiosity about life.

   Death only indicates that life is eternal. It is like changing your clothes; moving from one room to another. There are many scientific evidences of after-death experiences too. Millions of people have gone to the border, have had a near-death experience and come back.

   The very question gives a bigger dimension to life. It expands our awareness; Makes us think much bigger than the day-to-day events and circumstances of life.

2. Is it possible to choose the time of death?

   Gurudev: If you are a good yogi, you can do that. If you know life thoroughly, you know death. If you know death, you know what life is.

3. What is the soul? Is it a wave function? Where is it and how big is it?

   Gurudev: The consciousness is all pervading like the wave function, and when with certain attributes to it, becomes a soul.

   What are they? Iccha, desire; dwesh, dislikes, aversions; Sukha, happiness – Every soul experiences happiness; Dukha, unhappiness; Sanghaata, meeting, uniting, merging; Chetana, consciousness and Druthi, the force that upholds the consciousness. So, these seven aspects together is the soul or a life force. And it is of the same size, whether for an elephant or for an ant. You can’t say elephant has a bigger soul and an ant has a smaller soul. Only difference is that the soul expresses itself a little more as it moves from an ant to an elephant to a human being, where it becomes fully blossomed.

4. Are there realms other than the physical realm that the soul visits?

   Gurudev: Of course there are many realms, but the brain is only attuned to a particular bandwidth. So we are able to perceive only a certain bandwidth of the whole range of existence that we are. Like how our eyes can see only to some level, while a cat can see more than you and an owl can see at a much higher bandwidth.

   So, the concept of creation as per our cognition, as per our perceptual ability is very limited. What we cannot perceive from our five senses do exist and we cannot deny the existence of other realms.

   After human life, the soul leaves the body, and becomes a pretatma; from pretatma, it becomes Pithru and then moves on to higher realms.

5. Does the soul continue to evolve between lifetimes, does it drop impressions or does it have to take human birth to evolve?

   Gurudev: It has to take human birth to evolve, because the impression goes with the soul; and they keep manifesting within that realm as in dreams.

   Look at practical experiences. When you laugh the whole day, you may be laughing in your dreams too; and if you are crying during the day, you may start crying in your dreams too. Haven’t you had dreams where you are happy?

   That is why human birth is very important. When the soul leaves the body, it remains in different realms, but to become free, it has to come back.

   And when the soul leaves the body, it sometimes leaves through the eyes, sometimes through the mouth. Sometimes it goes through the ears, through the anal region; and also through the toes. And in the case of Yogis, Dhyanis, it goes through the Brahmarandhra, the top of the head.

   When we keep our mind free of cravings and aversions, agitations and hatred, we become more sattvik and move upwards; when Rajasik it moves through different parts, and if Tamasik, it moves through the anal region.

6. The way we breathe impacts our life. Does the breath also impact death and what happens after that?

   Gurudev: Breathing assumes its own rhythms and cycles when the soul leaves the body. So the Nadi starts working according to ones karma. The soul leaves through the left nostril or it goes through the right nostril. When it exits through the right nostril, it is free. It goes with the knowledge, with more awareness of its wisdom. If it goes through the left side, that means, it has certain intentions and emotions and then it causes it to come back.

   In life also, if you see, when the right nostril is functioning, you will find there is more left brain activity and so you are more alert, you are more conscious and logical; but when the left is functioning, then right brain is more active. That means, you are more emotional and you have intentions to do something. You have plans – So when you have plans, you have to come back soon.

   When both are functioning, that is Sushumna naadi, which leads to Samadhi. Then you will exit in a meditative state; you have no obligations and you don’t have to come back. You are merging with the infinite instantaneously. Even if you have to come back, it is by a grand plan; for the sake of others, not for your own sake.

7. How does the time of death affect the next life?

   Gurudev: It is all connected to Karma. That is why I said, like the time of birth is important to make one’s chart and to get an overall view about what one’s life would be, the time of death also has a meaning.

   Like we say, “Panchak lag gaya” – When the soul leaves the body at the time of the last five stars of the zodiac, Dhanishta, Satabisha, Poorvabadha, Uttarabadha, Revathi, it is said that the soul is very earthbound. It doesn’t quickly move on. It is similar to how there is a season to sow the seed, only then the seeds will sprout.

8. When a person dies, the soul is reborn. Then why do we do Shraadh? How does Shraadh help the soul that has already been reborn?

   Gurudev: No, Shraadh is for yourself. Shraadh means Shraddha – that which is done with Shraddha, faith and expresses your sense of gratefulness, your sense of acknowledging their contribution to you.

   Like prayer goes beyond the physical realm, similarly faith, gratitude, acknowledging somebody and their wisdom, also transcend the physical plane and reaches people on the other side. All these positive feelings emit vibes that surpass the material realm, reach the subtler realms and that is what makes these rituals meaningful.

9. The Garud Puran very vividly describes some fearful events that occur after death. Is this in fact the journey of the soul and is this journey different with or without a Guru?

   Gurudev: When you have a Guru, it is a different journey. This is also mentioned in the puranas. Because you are connected to the lineage of the Guru, you are moving at the speed of light. On the other aspects, as stated in Garud Puran, after the soul leaves, it lingers on its preth yoni for ten days. Because the transition is so big that it gets confused. Though it has dropped the body, it is still not used to the other side. And after sometime, when it gets used to the in between state, it moves on. This is where knowledge helps.

   When someone dies, the chants that are recited say, ‘you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not your intellect, move beyond this; let this Earth element absorb the Earth element in your body, let the water in your body go to the water, let the fire element engulf this entire thing’. So we merge our body back into the nature.

   Till the time the soul holds on to the body, it thinks this is me. But when the awareness starts happening, it is said, holding the tail of a cow, the soul crosses the river Vaitarani.

   ‘Gau’ in Sanskrit means knowledge, it means movement, liberation and it also means cow. Even if you hold on to the tail of knowledge, you can cross oceans. The ocean may be very big, but a small life jacket is good enough for you to keep yourself afloat. This is the knowledge that the children give to the parents, the deceased as Tarpan, which indicates, all that you see in the world is insignificant, equivalent to and as tiny as a sesame seed. So, drop all the desires and incomplete missions you had in your life and move on. We will take care of it. Such encouragement by the near and dear ones through Tarpan is to bring fulfilment to the departed soul. One then understands that they have moved on from the Preth yoni to Pitru Loka and there on to conjoin with their ancestral lineage.

   That is what Shraadh is all about, and it is said, after the 13th day all rituals are complete and there should be only celebration beyond that.

10. We’ve heard that the last few seconds before death decides what happens to the person after death, irrespective of how they have lived their lives. Is this true? And is there an ideal way to die so that we are not born again?

    Gurudev: There are instances in the puranas that say, a person called out to ‘Narayan’ in the last minute before his death. Though it was only his son’s name, he got liberated. But those are exceptions. The last minute will have only those impressions which you have been nurturing the whole life and the strongest of them will prevail. You cannot create a last minute impression. And that’s why Lord Krishna has said in his Gita, ‘Keep me in your mind all the time, such that you make my impression so strong that you will attain me and get liberated.’

    So clear the mind of all the impressions and keep it hollow and empty. Keep it free. And that is meditation. Those who are regular meditators, you will find that the meditative mind takes over in the last moment.

11. It is said that if you die in a place like Kashi we get liberated. Is this true?

    Gurudev: Kashi is not a physical place. Kashi is where knowledge is. It refers to the Sushumna nadi, the third eye place. It is also called Prayagraj. When someone’s attention is on the third eye during the last breath, and when the Sushumna nadi opens up, they get liberated.

    And Kashi is called Kashi because, in those days it was the seat of wisdom, where scholars lived. In every lane, there were discussions only on Brahman, the infinity. So this discussion of Vedanta, Ved was so prevalent there that, there was no craving, no aversion, no yelling or shouting. Even if anybody comes into such a Sangha, they would feel elevated.

    There are many more such seats of wisdom. If someone passes away in Prayagraj, they are said to attain Mukti. Likewise in Haridwar, Muktidham of Himachal Pradesh and Muktinath of Nepal.

    Same is the case with Badrinath, the place where Lord Krishna sent Uddhava to. Adi Shankara went to Kedarnath and Maharshi Pathanjali left his body in Rameshwaram. Kerala is called Parashurama Kshetram. It is believed that if you leave your body in such holy places, you will attain Mukti.

12. Is it true that a soul can choose the family it is born to and what drives the choice?

    Gurudev: Samskaras. A soul picks up a person, a family because of Samskaras, Karmas – you can’t even say it chooses them. It just comes into that body. It has no choice.

13. There is no experience or knowledge of death while we are alive. Is it possible to have that experience while we are alive so that the fear of death goes away?

    Gurudev: You do experience when you are in deep love, that, you are not the body. When you are in deep meditation, you experience – I am not the body. When you do Sudarshan kriya, what do you feel? You feel you are not the body, you are consciousness. These experiences will take away the fear to a great extent.

    There might be a little string of fear; when nature feels it is needed in you, it will keep. That’s why it is called Abhinivesha – a little bit of klesha Avidya, a little bit of ignorance and a little bit of fear, which is more like the shell, that membrane around the seed. The membrane leaves when the seed is sprouting. But till then, it protects the seed. In the same way, a child is induced with little fear so that it goes here and there, and runs back to the mother. Suppose it has no fear, it will go away anywhere. The fear brings the child back to the mother. Similarly, nature keeps certain fear here and there and Meditation and Wisdom are the ways to overcome that.

14. Is it possible to bring the dead back to life?

    Gurudev: Well, there are instances where people have come back to life. Near death experiences are those where people who were clinically dead have been said to come back to life. There are so many such cases that have happened. But there is nothing like somebody is dead and you buried them, then you do some mantra or tantra and bring them back to life. Just don’t believe or keep such things in mind.

15. Many people who have had near death experiences describe it as a very beautiful, peaceful state to be in. So then why do they come back to life? And who decides that they can come back to life?

    Gurudev: Karma – It is the karma which decides. Whenever a soul exits from this realm, it doesn’t even feel this realm is bad. It just feels good; you had a good time. See, people like horror movies, don’t they? You don’t say I like only comedy movies. You like tragedy movies, thrillers also. Likewise people feel life was overall good. Nothing has affected you; nothing could take away your sheen and shine.

    When you are total, when you are intact, and when you are invincible, you won’t mind. It’s like taking a mud bath. For a while, you soak in sunlight and then you go and take a bath. How do you feel? You feel good. In the same way, whatever role we had to play, we assumed, we chose – that was good.

    That is why there is an eternal peace. A peace that cannot be destroyed – Shashwath Shantim Nigachhatti.

    Lord Krishna says, one who comes to me, they attain such a permanent peace that nobody can shake.

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