SINCERITY Afflicted by the sorrows of the world we earnestly pray for the Divine; but when the Divine comes to us we hesitate to accept it— such is the falsehood and contradiction in our earthly nature! The central being in us aspires to the divine life, but the different parts passionately cling to the earthly life, and obstinately refuse to give up the old ways and the old habits. We seek to open us to Thee, Mother, but ourmind brings in all sorts of rambling thoughts, which veil Thy presence from us. We seek immortal joy, yet our senses persistently pull us towards the poor, mixed, limited pleasures of the earth. We pray for heavenly light, but when it comes to us w

DIVINE PRESENCE Thou art always with me, Mother, Thou art inside my heart and above my head; if ever I do not feel or realise Thy presence, that is entirely my own fault, due to a still lingering play of the old nature in me Thou art not only with me, but Thou art also helping me always to realise Thy presence and by all means trying to draw me towards Thyself. Thou descendest into my mind in the form of luminous truths; Thou descendest into my work in the form of omnipotent will; Thou descendest into my heart, removing all dryness from it, flooding it with the divine joy of Thy love. External Nature, ever renewing its forms of beauty, indicates Thy play of

PRAISE AND BLAME When we depend on the estimation of others, we bring ourselves to their level. Regard for the opinion of people is a help in the lower scale of life, but it is a great obstacle when we would rise higher. It is the ego in us that hankers for praise -and is afraid of blame. When we seek the aggrandisement of our egoistic life, we try to please others and avoid their criticism. In doing so we may often have to give up the path of truth and accept that of falsehood. Those who would realise truth in their life must give up all. such selfish desire and self-seeking, and must be ready to accept with equality all the consequences of following the truth.

Staring into the Eyes of Death (Predicting the Unpredictable and Altering the Predictable) Authentic instances are known wherein people predicted their own death. Among some well-known instances are those of great yogis like Swami Vivekananda and Paramhamsa Yogananda among others. Obviously one does not expect a yogi to go around beating his drum and make pronouncements that sound extravagant. Yet the hints are sufficient and point towards the subtler mystery of death and the fact that self-mastery is also one of the keys towards the mastery over death. Even though seers may be able to predict the precise moment and place of dea

The Passport to Immortality Death to this new vision becomes a spur towards immortality. If it were not for death man would rest content with ignorance and mistake his ego-identity for the true self. What is worse, he would continue to expand the empire of his ego and prolong ignorance and its by-product pain indefinitely. Therefore must we pass repeatedly through the portals of death so as to reach a greater life. Death stands across our path as a stern ticket collector and does not allow any premature passage to the other worlds. By doing this it binds our sight to this material world. This too is a great service, since an early and easy visa for ot

Near Death Experiences Near Death Experiences (NDEs): The pioneer work in this field was done by Dr. Raymond Moody who is the first medical doctor to have done a systemic study of these experiences in people who seem to have been revived after death. These revivals were not only medical. Many were instances of spontaneous recovery after a close brush with death, often unrecorded by the medical physicians who were understandably busy with the pulse and the breathing. Besides as is well known, the eye does not see what the mind does not know. Dr. Raymond Moody took up the challenge and interviewed many such persons who had escaped from the clutches of death fo

The End of Death, the Death of Ignorance "To free the self is but one radiant pace"... "A first betrothal of the Earth to Heaven..."9 But not the last word, not the final seal of God's work or the sign of His sanction to our efforts. There is a still greater work to do, a still greater problem to be understood, and a still greater mystery to be solved. All that we realize by discovering the immortal soul in us is who we truly are. Knowing our true self frees us individually from the clutches of sorrow and suffering. But to know oneself is only the beginning of another line of progress. It consists in knowing what we came here to do, ou

The Question of Cremation As to the method of cremation, it actually does not matter so long as sufficient time has been given for the connection to be cut. However, two considerations follow. One, the custom of burning is generally considered as more hygienic and acts as a last rite, even a symbolic one of cutting the earth-bound ties. Second, the giving of body to the fire is also a powerful symbol of purification since the soul has often been represented as Page-78 fire by the Vedic seers. There is also the advantage that the relics left behind in the form of bones can be dispersed at the place of one's possible preference. Howev

Towards a Vision of the Future Behind the Veil of Death Death is our present reality yet is immortality the secret aspiration in man and therefore our future potentiality. Whatever higher things we seek in life have already been granted by the highest Self in us. Mankind has aspired deeply among other things for permanence of life; for vanquishing suffering, evil and pain; for conquering old age, disease, infirmity and death. Each age of mankind has seen the revival of this aspiration of terrestrial perfection and permanence albeit in a language appropriate to the age concerned. Thus in the early intuitive dawns of mankind the aspiration of immortal

-005_Death - The Annihilator of Time's Works.htm What is Death? Death - The Annihilator of Time's Works For all our knowledge of life, death continues to remain a mystery. Just as we know something about the processes of life rather than about the life-principle itself, so also we know a little about the process of death rather than about the death-principle that exists as a universal force in Nature. We (the sense-mind at least) normally associate death with the visible dissolution of the physical form. But the principle of death is much more universal than that. There is first the process of decay and disintegration that is almost a part of all material forms that we know upon earth a