By Way of Explanation Death! Oh that ominous word and still more ominous fact of universal existence! And Fate and Karma! those two chilling ideas that fill the weak human heart with anxious thoughts! And finally Rebirth! and the trepidant query: Will I come back upon earth again in a new human body? Or, is all an eternal zero and silence after the dissolution of my present physical body? There is not a human being who never asks himself some such questions even for once in his lifetime. Death is a constant phenomenon facing man with its grim ruthlessness. Who is there amongst us who has not encountered death in his family or amongst his friends a

III WHERE DOES THE "JIVA" GO AFTER DEATH? After exiting from the physical body at death, the departing "jiva" does not understand for some time where he actually is. He goes on moving about in a state of confusion; he wonders if he is really dead or is still alive. This is especially so if he has had to quit his body suddenly, passing all his apprehension. And there is no end to his troubles if he has foolishly ended his life through an act of suicide, while in a state of intense emotion or passion. Many departed "jivas" linger for a short or a long period of time in a state of half sleep and half wakefulness. Some of them may hover near their

-002_Publishers^ Note.htm Publishers' Note We are happy to bring to the reading public a seventh research work from the pen of Jugal Kishore Mukherjee who happens to be a senior faculty member of the Higher Course of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry. We have already published six of his previous English works which are: 1.The Destiny of the Body (The Vision and Realisation in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga). 2.From Man Human to Man Divine (Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Evolutionary Destiny of Man). 3.Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny. 4.Sri Aurobindo: The Smiling Master (Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings).

VII THE MYSTERY OF REBIRTH On a dark but clear moonless night if we gaze at the wide expanse of the sky, billions of star-clusters from millions of galaxies will meet us with their inscrutable silence and lifelessness. Except for one small-sized planet (earth) of a medium-sized star (sun), the whole immensity of the physical universe shows no sign of life anywhere, and that from the beginning of our cosmos since the mysterious moment of the Big Bang. And, relatively speaking, only in the recent past life suddenly sprouted on that one privileged planet and went on flourishing with prolific variety. But why? What can be a greater mystery than that?

II WHAT IS DEATH? AND WHAT HAPPENS AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH? "Jātasya hi dhruvo mṛtyuḥ", "death is sure to come one day to all that is born." Whoever undergoes the process of birth has to meet the contrary phenomenon of death; and this law is universally valid and applicable, whether the subject in question is humanly great and noble, or the gods Brahma or Vishnu, or a miniscule organisms like the amoeba. None can escape this sombre fate and, what is more, one has to experience death all by oneself, one cannot share the "experience" with any other person. No comrade will be able to accompany us when we will be pushed on our las

IV THE MYSTERY OF KARMA At times, events and accidents occur in our lives or in the lives of our friends and relatives, which seem apparently totally unexpected. At these moments we become utterly confused at the turn of circumstances and cry out in a mood of despairing helplessness: "Alas! such was the ordainment of the ineluctable Fate, such was the unseen writing of Niyati! And who does not know that "Niyati kena bādhyate" - "None can prevent the Niyati from being realised." Others may perhaps offer an alternative hypothesis and affirm: "No, there is no such thing as Adṛṣṭa or Fate. It is an absurdity to imagine that events occur according to the m

VIII SOME KNOTTY PROBLEMS OF REBIRTH (In Questions and Answers) The process of successive rebirths of an individual human soul in different physical bodies upon earth is not a simple affair. It is an issue bristling with many problems of understanding; man's rational mind becomes inquisitive to know more about many of the tricky factors involved in this mysterious phenomenon. We give below a representative list of questions which puzzles man's mind faced with the prospect of rebirths he may have to undergo in future. The questions have not been put here in any logical order; they have been mentioned pell-mell as they have been actually r

I THE FEAR OF DEATH AND THE WAYS OF CONQUERING IT The consciousness of most men is always afflicted with many types of fears; and amongst these fears the most deadly one is that of death. Death! Cessation of bodily existence! O my God, the very evocation of the word 'death' whether uttered by someone else or evoked by self-imagination immediately rattles our heart and makes it lose its composure. And it is because of this that most of us try by all means to avoid the thought of death as far as possible, mimicking in this respect an ostrich bird which foolishly thinks that all dangers will spare it if it can only hide its face by p

-009_Fate and Karma and a Sadhaka^s Duty.htm VI FATE AND KARMA AND A SADHAKA'S DUTY We have advised our readers at the end of the preceding chapter that a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga should not torment himself with the apprehending imaginary thought that some of his unknown "prarabdha karmas" may be all the time hiding behind the veil and pounce upon him at any moment to bedevil his life. No, he should know that whatever the heritage from his past, it is possible to wipe that out without any residue left behind; there is no "karma-seed" which cannot be prevented from germinating. The chain of Karma is not unbreakable; it is not that only actual experiences can exhaust the effect of a ka

V THE LAW OF KARMA AND THE INTEGRAL VIEW "Karma-vāda" or the "Theory of the Universal Chain of Karma" is one of the basic constituent elements of all the religions and philosophical systems that have sprung up in India. Whether we consider Buddhism or Jainism, post-Buddha Puranic Hinduism or Sikhism, or the orthodox philosophies like Vedanta, Mimansa, Patanjal, etc., we shall find Karmavada occupying everywhere a central position in these doctrines and viewpoints. The Buddhist philosophy has gone so far as to assert that everything in the universe is mutable and transitory with one sole exception which is eternal and true and that excepti