Homicide and Capital Punishment If suicide is anger turned upon oneself then homicide is anger turned against others. Anger, gloom, frustration, self-depreciation, these are part of the internal constitution of a suicidal man which attracts the dark adverse forces. The homicidal man is under the sway of very similar forces. He is caught up in a net of a morbid lower-vital state of anger, jealousy, frustration, suspicion, etc. Some of those committing homicide (and this may be a sizable number) are seized by beings with a strong and vital impulse to kill. Driven by this uncontrollable urge to slay, these beings and their human representatives combine

Natural Aging Natural Aging: Aging is supposed to be regulated by the genetic makeup. It is scientifically believed that each species has a more or less fixed average lifespan. Normally in other mammals, this span is limited to the reproductive cycle except in man. Man's lifespan is delinked to the reproductive age. Nevertheless it has so far been believed that the physical being of man is so constituted that after a certain age, a progressive decline will inevitably follow. There is a gradual decline in the mental capacities like memory, a decline in stamina, a decline in the capacities of the heart and lungs and other vital organs, a decline in physical pro

Death - The Hooded Mask of Life This question regarding the why of death has little sense for the physical scientist who does not give any more importance to the existence of life upon earth than in the formation of a lump of hard rock. For him this world and its events are a play of chance without any definitive aim or purpose. But what about the occult scientist and the spiritual realist? Here too we often find a dead end. Most philosophies simply accept death as part of nature and of life. It is a fact that has to be accepted, that's all. Is that really all or is there more to it? For in the vast economy of nature death too must serve a deep purpose

The Tragedy of Inner Death Thus we see that death is not just the stoppage of the body machine but even more importantly the driver-soul leaving behind a broken and frail machine. As the driver moves away, the force of life using the fuel of matter soon wears out. The machinery thence comes to a complete halt. We may envisage a situation wherein the soul leaves the body but the machinery continues. In such cases certain forces of the vital world may possess or inhabit the body temporarily and use it for its own destructive purposes. Such instances of a vital possession may arise following a seemingly spontaneous recovery or after an artificial resuscitatio

The Traditional Spiritual View of Immortality The energies of mind, life and body, however powerful, are as yet subordinate energies moving in the fields of a cosmic ignorance. The issue of death cannot be settled here. This is not the plane where the power for physical immortality can be found, though a relative mastery and prolongation of life may be possible by tapping these powers. This relative mastery is 7. Story from the Vishnu Purana (The legends of Lord Vishnu): Dashavatara. Koormavatara retold in English Page-264 also useful and necessary as a first preliminary step towards the final mastery. One of

The Grim Accountant One of the roles ascribed to death and his dark angels is to keep an unfailing account of our deeds and misdeeds. Precise and unswerving, meticulous to the penny are the grim accountants who refuse all barter and bribe. There are neither temples dedicated to the god of death, nor offerings made by devotees (if indeed there are any) since all these are of no avail. Yet are there legendary instances like that of Nachiketa and Savitri, who have shaken off the noose and the snare, snatched back from death what was truly theirs and returned triumphant from the dark and dangerous kingdom where hope thrives not, nor earthly longing and love. Even if

The Gita If the Upanishad lays down the broad theoretical framework for the subject of death and immortality, the Gita turns it masterfully into its practical application. The problem of the average worldly man is not so much of a striving after immortality but a cognitive frame to face the spectre of death that haunts his life and interferes with the right law of action due to his blind and nervous-sensorial attachment to life. The Gita enlightens our will and teaches us the attitudes we need to develop in facing death in our everyday life. Gems from the Gita That which really is, cannot go out of existence, just as that which is non-existen

-018_Death - The Spirit's Goad and Soul's Opportunity.htm Death - The Spirit's Goad and Soul's Opportunity But is this the only possibility? What about the spiritual man? What about faith and attitudes and beliefs? Well they would arguably modify the stages or even totally surpass them. There are other ways of looking at the phenomenon, which comes with our higher development. The sense of evil and suffering as we have seen comes at a certain stage of human development and passes off at another stage. The purpose that this sense of tragedy serves is to help man seek for a life and Truth that is greater than the sense-bound formula. It is more of a goad and a spur to look beyond the present. T

Killing of Animals This important issue has somehow received scant attention of mankind so far. Though there have been certain individual efforts or even sometimes general efforts guided by religious or humane sentiment, it is only recently that the plight of animals being slaughtered is being noticed. So merciless has been the hand of the killer that some species have come close to extinction. Here we need to remember the spiritual as well as material truth that 'man-animal-plant-material' form a single chain linked by such a oneness that an unenlightened disruption of any part of the whole threatens the entire chain itself. But that apart the issue involves

Appendix V The Ancient Debate (The following excerpts have been taken from 'Life After Life' written by Raymond Moody.) The Myth of Our 3-Dimensional Universe Many people have made remarks to the effect that, "There are just no words to express what I am trying to say", or "They just don't make adjectives and superlatives to describe this". One woman put this to me very succinctly when she said, "Now, there is a real problem for me as I'm trying to tell you this, because all the words I know are three-dimensional. As I was going through this, I kept thinking, "Well, when I was taking geometry, they always told me the