Beyond Death Death - A Passage Through the Inner Worlds Belief in any form of world other than our own has been common to all spiritual and religious traditions of humanity. While the eternal sceptic has continued to argue against its existence since the time of the Vedas and perhaps even before, it has not deterred others from believing in it. Some of course try to explain these other worlds as if these were material worlds existing in some other corner of the universe. Others have simply denied it without even giving a thought or investigating them. It is however probable that if these worlds exist then they would not be accessi

The Shroud of Mystery Death is the last veil where the limits of our knowledge cease to be. It is the last earthly barrier we must cross to be a candidate for truth and immortality. In the famous legend of the Sphinx, we see this truth driven home. Sphinx, the strange devouring beast and the symbol of death, has an even stranger puzzle to ask of all who would cross the Theban desert to the other side. "Who is the creature that walks on four in the morning, on two at noon and on three in the evening." None can answer correctly and are therefore devoured. But one man, the legendary hero Oedipus says with remarkable wisdom, "I am the answer." And now it is the t

Music for the Departing Soul Does music help the departing soul in any way? We now know for instance the role of music in health and illness. Several studies indicate that the type of music we hear can help us recover or set in motion within us the forces of disease and disruption. But what about the extreme disruption that death itself is? We have in Greek mythology the interesting tale of Orpheus whose soul-stirring music following his beloved's death moved even the king of Underworld Hades to give back to Orpheus his beloved. Was it just another myth or like all myths contains in its core the seed of a profound truth hidden from our earthbound sigh

The Ideal of Mukti/Moksha/Salvation/ Nirvana/ The Ideal of Mukti/ Salvation/ Nirvana/ Moksha: Life, seen from the surface appears as a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."19 Few can ever escape the sting of life which is also a sting of death. Death seems to put a final seal upon the futility of all human effort. So much has this surface orientation preoccupied the human mind that even mystics and saints have declared that the only real utility of human life is to somehow find a door of escape from this impermanent, unhappy world. Called mukti in India, salvation and nirvana elsewhere, the highest goal kept fo

Some Practical Suggestions Some Practical Suggestions: Death is an event with a unique significance for each one. While the process of working through the pain takes some time, life must move on. To stagnate for long or to hold on to grief as a prized possession is only to prolong the misery. To get back to work, one's routine of life and pick up the scattered threads and restart the journey is most essential. The sooner it happens the better it is. The flying squadrons of the Air Force know this only too well. If there is a crash, the other squadron pilots are told to continue their flying, thereby diverting their minds from the tragedy and even b

An Extraordinary Death I returned to Pondicherry in the evening. Next morning I went to the daily Balcony Darshan. The Mother caught sight of me and smiled and kept looking at me for a long time. After this I went straight upstairs to see her. It was a lovely meeting, with the Mother looking deep and long into my eyes. I asked her if she would meet me for five or ten minutes alone in the course of the morning. She at once consented. I had my interview at about 11:30. She was sitting in her chair with eyes half shut and I went and sat at her feet, placing my hands upon them. I asked her whether she had received the letter I had written after my Mamma's

Heaven and Hell - Fact or Fiction? Myths and legends in every religion describe the presence of these happy or gory worlds, at times in elaborate detail. The description is sometimes so precise as to what kind of hell or heaven one would go to for a particular good or bad deed. Philosophically the position of these hells and heavens is not very tenable except that they fortify our belief in a fair and just world where ultimately the offender will be punished and the virtuous rewarded. But strangely the punishment and the reward seem to be disconnected to our earthly life. For the wicked is punished much later in a hell that gives no moral satisfac

The Two Faces of Death Not only philosophy and mystic lore but science also recognises two forms of death. One that is natural and normal as a process complimentary to life, called Apoptosis; the other as something unnatural and superimposed upon the organism, called Necrosis. Death, through apoptosis is woven into the very fabric of life. The fingers of a six-week-old embryo separate following the death of cells located in the web between the fingers. The death of these specific cells allows the appearance of the hand as it is. Even before the full organism begins to breathe and before the heart begins to beat with new life, the game of death and life has

Quest for Immortality - The Two Approaches The Indian tradition has given a lot of attention to this subject of immortality. Through a significant series of myths it has pointed out basically two different approaches to the problem. One is the asuric or the demoniac way typified in the tales of Ravana, Hiranyakashapa, Trishanku, Jarashandha and others. These beings were attracted towards immortality for the sake of prolonging their ego's empire indefinitely. Meaning thereby they wanted physical immortality without changing within in their consciousness. For this they try many outer, inner, subtler and occult means, including great tapasya

The Sheaths of the Soul The soul is clothed in many sheaths which are like integuments that protect the divine seed till it becomes ready and mature to express itself. For a long time in its journey of growth this miniature divinity experiences the world-Self through these sheaths which are arranged hierarchically as an evolutionary ladder. These sheaths reflect only one or few of the several aspects of the world and are therefore also called as casings of Ignorance. Yet these partial and imperfect and indirect glimpses are necessary before the individual soul can wake up to its true divinity and the experience of the integral truth and undivided reality o