Revelations & occult-spiritual answers provided by Sri Aurobindo and 'The Mother' on the mysteries Of Death, Fate, Karma And Rebirth as gleaned from Their works.
I
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 plunging it in the desert sand.
Now, this fear of death is something universal; it does not leave anyone untouched, be he a child or an old man, an educated person or a man of no culture. Also, this fear has two sides to it: (i) the apprehension about one's own possible death; and (ii) the dread to face the demise of one's near and dear ones. The first one arises out of one's total unpreparedness to face calmly the extinction of his personal existence; while the second one has its origin in not being able to bear the pang of eternal separation from a beloved one through the latter's death and disappearance.
Of course, one cannot deny that some counter-examples of fearlessness are at times seen around us. For example, an ardent patriot or an idealist with a passion for his cause may be ready to face the worst disaster in life and smilingly court physical death if the love for his country or for his ideal so demands it. But how few are these exceptional cases when compared with the huge multitude of men who constantly suffer from the fear of impending or inevitable death? The present chapter deals with the psychological disposition of the majority of men.
Now, the fact is that all those who would sincerely seek to do spiritual sadhana and especially follow the path of the Integral Yoga, must reject in toto the nagging fear of death. Sri Aurobindo's
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direction in this regard is definite and unambiguous. He says:
"... the repulsion to the death of the body which is so strong and vehement an instinct of the vital man must... be thrown away. Thrown away it must be and entirely. The fear of death and the aversion to bodily cessation are the stigma left by his animal origin on the human being. That brand must be utterly effaced." (The Synthesis of Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 334)
It is, of course, true that one essential element of the last Siddhi of the Integral Yoga will be the divine transformation of the physical body itself and a consequent conquest over physical mortality. For, in the case of a divinised body, there will be neither any illness, nor any decay and degeneration, nor even death: "Na tatra jarā, na mṛtyur na vyādhiḥ." But that is an attainment located far far into the future and pertaining to the most advanced state of sadhana. Besides, the important point to note is that even for achieving this conquest over physical mortality, the first essential victory the sadhaka has to win as a pre-condition, is the conquest over the fear of death. We should never forget in this connection what the Mother has pointed out:
"... the essential condition even to prepare for it [the earthly immortality] is to completely abolish all fear of death.
"You must neither fear it nor desire it.
"Stand above it, in an absolute tranquillity, neither fear it, nor desire it." (CWM, Vol. 3, p. 188)
Yes, such is the Mother's recommendation. Yet the fact is that this fear of death acts like a stubborn leech and does not spare even the inmates of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, who have consciously and deliberately resolved to follow the strenuous path of the Integral Yoga. Let us listen to the Mother's comment in this regard:
"There is one thing I have noticed, that every time somebody dies in the Ashram, many people are seized by panic. Now, I can-
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not say I appreciate this very much!... For truly it is high time we were free from these things - a sort of trembling." (CWM, Vol. 6, p. 46)
Yes, it is absolutely essential that every sadhaka of the Integral Yoga should liberate himself from all fear of death. But it is easier said than done. For the problem is almost intractable. And the reason is that the fear of bodily cessation has struck its roots deep into the recesses of man's consciousness, into the abyss of his dark subconscient. The result is that even if we succeed in chasing it out from the upper reaches of our consciousness, we shall find to our agonised surprise that it is stealthily lying in wait behind the opaque veils of our surface consciousness. In the words of the Mother:
"Even if the inner being is enlightened enough to be above all fear, the fear still remains hidden in the cells of the body, obscure, spontaneous, beyond the reach of reason, usually almost unconscious. It is in these obscure depths that one must find it out, seize hold of it and cast upon it the light of knowledge and certitude. (CWM, Vol. 12, p. 82)
The very first step on the way to the conquest of fear of death is for the sadhaka to take the firm resolution that he must achieve total mastery over this ignoble vital weakness, at whatever cost of effort and at the end of whatever length of time. He should not allow any compromise or dilution in this serious undertaking.
After this preliminary resolution is taken, the sadhaka has to be convinced that this tenacious fear of death has its real origin in the matrix of ignorance. For, it cannot be denied that we have no assured knowledge about what death is or why is there death at all or, again, what happens to the being after the physical event of death. In different ages and climes, poets, thinkers and mystics have deeply pondered over this mystery of death and expressed their uncertainty and misgivings in the matter in various characteristic ways.
Thus Tagore, the Nobel Laureate poet, sang:
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"Where is the journey's end and what is there beyond?
All our hopes and desires, and all our efforts,
Where do they peter out at last?
A deep darkness is looming in front,
Is there anything tangible beyond it?"
(Translated from Gita-Bitan, Bengali edition, p. 242)
And what about Timothy Findley? He bluntly confessed in his Inside Memory:
"After all that I have said and done I have come to know for certain that no sure answer will come to my query, not at all: I have given up expectation of any reply."
Another thinker has pinpointed the central mystery of death in these words:
"The fear of death is at bottom the fear of the unknown and that of losing the known."
But we have to remove by all means this utter ignorance about the true nature of the riddle of death; for, otherwise, it is impossible to gain any meaningful victory over the fear of death.
We may recall with profit in this connection what the Mother said about the interconnection between ignorance and fear, and about its reverse corollary, the interconnection between knowledge and courage. While addressing the Ashramites on March 10, 1954, the Mother said:
"Fear is a phenomenon of unconsciousness. It is a kind of anguish that comes from ignorance. One does not know the nature of a certain thing, does not know its effect or what will happen, does not know the consequences of one's acts, one does not know so many things; and this ignorance brings fear. One fears what one does not know....
"That which knows has no fear. That which is perfectly awake, which is fully conscious and which knows, has no fear. It is always
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something dark that is afraid." (CWM, Vol. 6, p. 50)
And this applies equally to the case of physical death and the fear attendant upon it. We shall surely come in its proper time to the discussion of the important issues of how to clarify the enigma of death and remove all ignorance as regards its nature and raison d'être. But first things first. As the present chapter primarily deals with the means of overcoming the fear of death, it would be appropriate here to make a brief mention of a few preliminary points concerning the matter.
The first point is that there is more than one procedure for tackling effectively the problem. These procedures vary with the state of consciousness of individual sadhakas and the modes of their nature. Thus the procedure which may help me to overcome my fear of death may not be applicable in the case of another sadhaka. Every sadhaka has to be clear about this matter and choose one or more particular procedures which may effectively help him in gaining his end. No unique procedure can be prescribed with its universal application irrespective of the different factors operative in the case of different sadhakas.
The second point we have to note is that these different procedures for the overcoming of the fear of death widely vary in their qualities and effectivity. For the sake of convenience, they can be hierarchically arranged in an ascending order. But even before we come to the elaboration of this point, let us succinctly mention a few gross methods that one can possibly adopt to distance oneself from the fear of death. These are as follows:
(i)To develop in oneself a firm sense of personal dignity which abhors as impermissible all nature's weaknesses, fears and anxieties, - in particular, the fear of physical death, for one strongly feels that these fears and foibles are incompatible with the self-respect of a sincere sadhaka.
(ii)To keep awake in one's consciousness the precise conviction that fear as a psychological movement does not belong to the sadhaka himself: it is not intrinsic to his true nature. It is something imposed upon him from outside through the malignant intervention of some adversary forces. Now, so long as one feels and
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considers something as an integral part of one's own being, it becomes psychologically difficult to give an effective fight against it; whereas one gains in fighting zeal and strength of will if one believes and feels that the manifestation of the present weakness is entirely due to a foreign intrusion which has the diabolical intent of sadhaka's sadhana.
(iii) To be entirely convinced without the slightest reservation that the fear of death is absolutely inimical to the progress on the spiritual path; and to indulge in it in any way is tantamount to the harbouring of a deadly enemy in the citadel of one's spiritual self-defence. This conviction, if made genuine and strong, will electrify the sadhaka in his fight against the fear of death as soon as it appears on the scene.
But we must know that the procedures for vanquishing the fear of death, based on the three above-mentioned psychological attitudes, are no more than convenient palliatives; they fail to produce any result when the fear is already ingrained in one's nature or, alternatively, suddenly comes upon him with an over-strong invading force. In such cases we have to take recourse to procedures far more deep and internal and therefore far more effective. These procedures are based on the following principles:
(i)a just application of a luminous common sense;
(ii)to resign everything to the care of the Divine and to have unreserved and unwavering faith in the love, justice and wisdom of the divine Dispenser of our destiny;
(iii)a judicious use of our enlightened rationality which can act as a hammer to break down all emotionally biased judgments and imaginations;
(iv)to establish oneself in the experience of one's immortal self within, through the sustained practice of yogic sadhana;
(v)the practical application of one's knowledge of occult science.
We shall discuss the methodology of all these five procedures, a little later, but before that it will be advisable to cast a penetrating look into the psychology of most men and observe carefully what sorts of thoughts and feelings and questions occupy and trouble the outer field of their consciousness when they fall prey to an
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insistent fear of death. If we can clearly recognise the physiognomy of these psychological movements and know their nature in their unclothed forms, it will be easier for us to unmask the fallacies involved in each of these disturbing thoughts and moods and bring an effective cure to them.
Let us then bring out one by one into the open all the vague, unpronounced and ill-formed queries and misgivings that agitate the subconscious terrain of our being when we succumb to the anxiety concerning physical death. These can be succinctly categorised as follows:
(1)Fear of the extinction of one's personal existence for all time to come: an unavoidable trepidation at the possible prospect of the total annulment of one's personal consciousness.
(2)An anxiety that death will lead to one's permanent separation from all those whom he loves so dearly and from all the objects of desire he cherishes.
(3)A sense of a terrible dread on the score that if I am suddenly snatched away by an untimely death, there will be none else to take charge of my responsibilities. Everything will then be in doldrums the very thought of which fills me with disturbing imagination.
(4)I thought of fulfilling so many of my dreams; I had planned to achieve so many of my tasks. Even before these are brought to a happy and successful conclusion, cruel death may suddenly appear and cut short my life. How can I equably contemplate this vicious prospect?
(5)A nagging anxiety about the total uncertainty concerning the time of the advent of death. To live constantly with the harassing thought of possibly meeting death at the very next moment is not a very pleasant experience. It is galling to live all the time under the threatening shadow of a total uncertainty of life.
(6)A sense of impotent rage before death, being poignantly aware of the fact that this implacable enemy may appear at any unforeseen and unexpected time and strike me down dumb at its arbitrary fiat and I can do absolutely nothing to avert it!
(7)Fear of the terrible physical agonies one may have to undergo at the time of the final dissolution of the body. The visualisation
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of these death-agonies whether directly seen in a dying man's case or evoked into vivid imagination by the narration of somebody else, is an important element in the process of creating an irrational fear of death.
(8)Fear of the dark and sombre face of ignorance: we mean, ignorance vis-à-vis what is going to happen to us on the other side of death. This is a disturbing question bringing with it all sorts of imaginary fears and anxieties.
(9)We are so much attached to the pleasures and enjoyments and to the variegated experiences of our present physical existence upon earth, and, at the same time, so much under the mistaken impression that there are no comparable compensatory experiences beyond the death of our body, that the very mention of death makes us shudder at the prospect of an utter Void beyond. This assumed nullity on the other side pitted against the richness of our physical life induces in us an intense urge to cling to life and avoid and postpone the experience of death as long as possible.
(10)For the religious-minded people there is another source of fear and worry. Lying on the sick-bed and apprehending the sure arrival of death, sooner or later, they suddenly become repentant about the past misdeeds of their life, bemoan the time they have uselessly wasted so far, and fearfully imagine that they may have to go to hell after death and expiate their sins there through an unimaginable variety and intensity of torture. But alas! - so they think - it is too late to repent now, with no hope of redemption. Fear of such post-mortem punishment makes them dread death itself.
(11)A different type of disabling fear haunts those who happen to believe in the Theory of Karma and in the doctrine of rebirth. At the thought of impending death, they become restless and worried about the possible nature of their next physical incarnation with all its daunting imponderables. The present life has been somewhat tolerable to them, because they have adjusted themselves to its known defects and imperfections and even calamities; but what about the next life which is bound to follow death? The ten thousand and one unknown sufferings, physical-vital-mental, that
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may befall them in the next life, cannot but unnerve them now, on this side of death.
We have tried to enumerate above eleven different causative factors that habitually operate in the psychology of a normal man and create in him almost a morbid apprehension vis-à-vis the sure prospect of physical death. But how to nullify the debilitating effects of these eleven commonly occurring factors? What are the counter-measures one should adopt in order to be free from all fear of death?
The very first means available to the rational man is the prompt and effective application of his robust common sense. Let us elucidate.
One of the axioms of occult science is that whatever you fear most is what will feel itself as if magnetically attracted towards you. To fear something is almost equivalent to being already a prey to its probable attack and invasion. Our emotionally charged vital being refuses to be convinced about the veracity of this occult principle. On the contrary, it almost believes that to maintain a constant trepidant anxiety about something is the best defence against its onset and is therefore, the right procedure to adopt to avoid it. But the truth is really otherwise. And this is applicable to all cases of fear, whatever may be the objects or situations one has dread for.
Thus, to take the specific case of the fear of death: if one is abnormally fearful about the advent of death, one is almost signalling to death: "Here am I; come, come to me."
And if such is the case, does not an unbiased practical common sense clearly dictate that it is nothing but utter foolishness to fear death, when one is genuinely seeking to avoid it? It is the lack of this common sense which makes one prone to nurture a mood of fear as regards the object or event one would like to avoid. Let us listen to what the Mother has to say in this connection:
"...there is a small remedy which is very very easy. For it is based on a simple personal question of one's common sense.... You must observe yourself a little and say that when you are afraid it is as though the fear was attracting the thing you are afraid of. If
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you are afraid of illness, it is as though you were attracting the illness. If you are afraid of an accident, it is as though you were attracting the accident. And if you look into yourself and around yourself a little, you will find it out, it is a persistent fact. So if you have just a little common sense, you say: It is stupid to be afraid of anything, for it is precisely as though I were making a sign to that thing to come to me." (CWM, Vol. 5, p. 318)
The same thing is applicable in the case of the fear of death which is the subject of our discussion. It is in one's own interest that one should by all means try to eliminate any fear vis-à-vis death. Also, one should know that fear is a thing which is very very contagious. It spreads easily from one person to another. It is much more catching than the most contagious of illnesses. You breathe an atmosphere of fear and instantly you feel frightened, without even knowing why or how, simply because there was an atmosphere of fear. (See CWM, Vol. 5, p. 319)
If such is the fact, we should be extremely vigilant so that we may not inadvertently expose ourselves to an attack of fear through the reading of the narration of fearful events or by listening to other people's discussion of threatening happenings. 'To nip fear in the bud' is the technique to be applied in the cases of all fears in general and, in particular, in the specific case of the fear of death.
But this too is no more than an external measure. There is a second method of conquering the fear of death which behoves a real sadhaka and falls in the domain of sadhana of love and devotion. The fundamental siddhi of this method is to establish in one's consciousness in an undeviating, unreserved way a basic attitude of which the constituent principles may be summed up as follows:
(i)a total resignation to the Will of the Divine;
(ii)an unfailing conviction, in all situations and circumstances, that all that the Divine Providence brings about in one's life, including one's physical suffering and death, is always for the good of the soul, for the sure necessity of its progress: there is no exception, not even a solitary one, to this universally valid truth.
And this is no mere hollow consolation we are offering here. It is based on an indubitable fundamental truth of existence. The
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Mother has formulated this truth in the following pithy sentence: "In truth, everything is for each one as good as it can be." (Notes on the Way, p. 196) She elaborated this point in her evening conversation of April 23, 1951: "... there is no arbitrary decision! On the contrary, for each one it is the best and most favourable conditions which are given." for the attainment of the maximum progress of the inner being. And such being the case, the Mother has preconised a sure method for the eradication of the fear of death:
"... as soon as one begins to feel afraid of something... [the best course] is to think of the Divine and then snuggle in his arms or at his feet and leave him entirely responsible for everything that happens, within, outside, everywhere - and immediately the fear disappears. That is the cure for the mystic. It is the easiest of all." (CWM, Vol. 5, p. 319)
The Mother has felicitously described in her book Education this state of entire and unreserved self-resignation to the Will of the Divine. We should get these words by heart and imprint them for all time in our deeper consciousness so that we may be able to translate into our life's daily practice the potent and luminous ideas embodied in these words:
"... those who have faith in a God, their God, and who have given themselves to him.... belong to him integrally; all the events of their lives are an expression of the divine will and they accept them not merely with calm submission but with gratitude, for they are convinced that whatever happens to them is always for their own good.... They have made an absolute surrender of their will to his and feel his unvarying love and protection, wholly independent of the accidents of life and death. They have the constant experience of lying at the feet of their Beloved in an absolute self-surrender or of being cradled in his arms and enjoying a perfect security. There is no longer any room in their consciousness for fear, anxiety or torment; all that has been replaced by a calm and delightful bliss." (CWM, Vol. 12, p. 84)
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That a perfect self-surrender to the Divine's Will may turn even the act of death, and of a grievous violent death, into something of a glorious experience has been testified by many instances abounding in the annals of the human race. We content ourselves with mentioning only three of them here.
The first example that comes to our mind is that of the death-scene of St. Stephen, a direct disciple of Jesus Christ. When he was taken out of the town by a howling mob and was being cruelly put to death by repeated hits with stones, he first prayed to the Divine, "O Lord, take my spirit," and then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Lord, for my death do not lay the sin against them." And with these words he fell asleep. (New Testament, "Acts of the Apostles", VII. 54-60)
Let us now come to the classic instance of the famous martyr, Mansoor Al-Hallaj. This Sufi saint of the Middle Ages, after having attained spiritual self-knowledge, publicly declared, "Anal Haq, I am the Truth." Because of this so-called heresy, he was sentenced to death by the Calif of Baghdad. And was it a simple death? Not at all. His body was first tortured to an unbelievable extent, cut to pieces limb by limb and then finally put to a horrible death. The day was March 26 of A.D. 922. The last words Mansoor uttered before he breathed his last were:
"O Supreme Lord, you have made me know what other people do not know: accept my infinite gratitude for this act of Grace. You have revealed to me all the divine mysteries which are sealed to others. Please forgive those servitors of yours who are assembled here to kill me. Have compassion for them. For, I know they would not have done this if they too would have had the privilege of knowing the Truth which you have made accessible to me." (Idries Shah, The Sufis, p. 375)
What was most striking in the case of Mansoor was that all throughout the long period of grievous torture his body was subjected to, he did not wince even for a moment nor ever express the slightest fear. Such was the happy consequence of his loving resignation before divine Providence.
Let us now come down to a well-known instance in more recent time, which happened almost a hundred years ago. We are,
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ofcourse, referring to the case of a particular disciple of Bahaullah, the founder of the Bahai sect of Iran, This disciple was a great poet and he too had to meet death because of his unflinching adherence to his religious belief. As in the case of Mansoor cited above, his death also came as a sequel to unimaginably cruel torture to his body. He was tied and hundreds of burning candles were placed upon different parts of his whole body. The super-hot molten wax came into contact with his body in slow but continuous trickle and went on burning him to an apparently agonising death. The justness of this expression, "apparently", will be made clear from what follows.
Abdul Baha, son of Bahaullah, approached the dying poet, sympathised with his unfortunate state and asked him in a sad voice: "How intense must be the pain you have been suffering from at this moment!" The mystic devotee answered apace: "Pain? Where is pain? On the contrary, I am facing the most beautiful moment of great contentment of my life," To his greatest surprise Abdul Baha found the tortured poet "in an ecstasy of joy." (Vide CWM, Vol. 4, p. 317)
While speaking of the different possible means of scoring victory over the fear of death, we have so far mentioned two methods: (i) application of the temperament of a robust common sense; and (ii) unreserved surrender, at all times and under all situations, to the wise and loving dispensation of the Divine Beloved. Let us now refer to a third method: the method of putting to use the faculty of liberated reason with its chain of effective arguments. This method is especially congenial to those who are basically intellectual in their turn of nature and habitually live in the world of ideas.
If one deeply contemplates the following arguments and becomes convinced of the underlying truth of the situation, one cannot but be freed from all irrational-emotional fear of death.
The first argument is as follows: Physical death is the last ineluctable destiny of all bodies, without a single exception to the contrary. This has been so always in the past; this is universally valid even today; and, to all intents and purposes, this will be so even in the future. "Jātasya hi dhruvo mṛtyuḥ". - "All that is born is certain to die." And if this is so, it must be a vain and absurd act
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of stupidity to seek to avoid such an ineluctable eventuality in a mood of trepidant anxiety Rather, it would be wise on one's part to calmly accept this inevitability and apply all one's energy and effort and utilise the still remaining span of life to make the utmost progress possible and remain ever ready for the moment when death will at last knock at one's door. We should be psychologically so well prepared that at that long foreseen moment we can raise our head high and smilingly declare: "Yes, here 1 am; I am ready." Death should be turned into a convenient door of a glorious exit. This is surely a wise and dignified approach, and not the other state of trembling all the time and finally being forcefully dragged away through the dismal portal of physical dissolution.
The second argument against the futility of any fear of death follows a different line. The vital man is in passionate egoistic love with his physical life and is strongly attached to all its possibilities. To him death is altogether antithetical to life and is therefore evil in its very nature. But this way of looking at death is fallacious and has therefore to be discarded, the sooner the better. The truth is that the so-called death is a prelude to a greater and more glorious life beyond. Also, it serves the purpose and interest of life itself. It has an important function to fulfil for the further progress of the inner being of man. Its advent at a particular moment of an individual's life is neither accidental nor arbitrary. It has its meaning, necessity and proper time. Hence, to the clearsighted sadhaka, death is not something basically negative and therefore to be shunned, but rather something to be welcomed as a friend of life itself, making the latter's further advancement possible. We have no scope here for a greater and more cogent elaboration of this point. However, those amongst our readers who are eager to know more about it, may consult with profit the chapter "Death at the Service of Life" included in the present writer's book, The Destiny of the Body. Here, it will be sufficient to remember what Krishna has said in the Gita: "I am both in the form of death and in the form of immortality. It is I who manifests himself as death."
In her books Questions and Answers 1929 (CWM, Vol. 3, p. 37) and On Thoughts and Aphorisms (CWM, Vol. 10, p. 168), the Mother has explained how the presence of periodic death helps in
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the attainment of ultimate immortality. A careful perusal of the Mother's words is bound to change one's normal but erroneous outlook on life and death and help in the cancellation of one's natural fear of the dissolution of the physical body. Here are two passages from those writings which throw an altogether different light on the insistent problem of life and death:
(1)"... opposition and contraries are a stimulus to progress.... opposites are the quickest and most effective means of shaping Matter so that it can intensify its manifestation.
"As an experience, this is absolutely certain.... When one sees this, there is obviously a similar experience from the point of view of what we call life and death. It is this kind of constant 'brooding' or presence of Death and the possibility of death, as it is said in Savitri: we have a constant companion throughout the journey from cradle to grave; we are constantly accompanied by this threat or presence of Death. Well, along with this, in the cells, there is a call for a Power of Eternity, with an intensity which would not be there except for this constant threat. Then one understands, one begins to feel quite concretely that all these things are only ways of intensifying the manifestation, of making it progress, of making it more perfect." (CWM, Vol. 10, pp. 167-68)
Thus, the death of the body, instead of being a contradiction of life, is in fact a spur to immortality. But why are the physical forms periodically dissolved at all? What is the raison d'être of this dissolution whose other name is death? Let us listen to the Mother:
(2)"Death as a fact has been attached to all life upon earth.... It was the conditions of matter upon earth that made death indispensable. The whole sense of the evolution of matter has been a growth from a first state of unconsciousness to an increasing consciousness. And in this process of growth dissolution of forms became an inevitable necessity, as things actually took place. For a fixed form was needed in order that the organised individual consciousness might have a stable support. And yet it is the fixity of
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the form that made death inevitable. Matter had to assume forms; individualisation and the concrete embodiment of life-forces or consciousness-forces were impossible without it and without these there would have been lacking the first conditions of organised existence on the plane of matter. But a definite and concrete formation contracts the tendency to become at once rigid and hard and petrified. The individual form persisted as a too binding mould; it cannot follow the movements of the forces; it cannot change in harmony with the progressive change in the universal dynamism; it cannot meet continually Nature's demand or keep pace with her; it gets out of the current. At a certain point of this growing disparity and disharmony between the form and the force that presses upon it, a complete dissolution of the form is unavoidable. A new form must be created; a new harmony and parity made possible. This is the true significance of death and this is its use in Nature." (CWM, Vol. 3, pp. 36-37)
The two long passages from the Mother's writings make it abundantly clear why the occasional visit of death becomes a healthy necessity for the very progress of the consciousness of the individual. We feel tempted to quote in this connection three aphorisms of Sri Aurobindo which impart a touch of delectable wit to the whole affair of sombre death:
"O Death, our masked friend and maker of opportunities, when thou wouldst open the gate, hesitate not to tell us beforehand; for we are not of those who are shaken by its iron jarring."
"Death is sometimes a rude valet; but when he changes this robe of earth for that brighter raiment, his horseplay and impertinences can be pardoned."
"What is this thing thou callest death?... O thou who fearest death, it is Life that has come to thee sporting a death-head and wearing a mask of terror." (Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms (2000 ed.), Nos. 282, 283, 374)
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The long discussion above coupled with the excerpts from the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's writings makes it clear that death is not something intrinsically evil and unnecessary; on the contrary, it makes a great contribution to the necessary progress of life and consciousness. Therefore, a truly rational man should not harbour in his heart any fear of death but rather welcome it with open arms when it appears in the course of life's earthly journey.
So far so good. But even when we accept that death is necessary for spurring life towards immortality or that the periodic dissolution of physical form-units has become unavoidable because of their lacking in sufficient plasticity, a nagging question still remains pricking the consciousness of normal men. It is as regards the inevitable annulment of an individual's personal consciousness at death. New forms may be constituted but what gain will that bring to me as a person if I vanish for ever from the scene of existence with the break-up of my body? - yes, such is the nature of the misgiving, and unless this point is satisfactorily cleared, fear about death is bound to linger on.
But is it really the fact that with the death of the physical body, the embodied being also dies at the same time? No, from the spiritual-occult point of view, the fact is otherwise. There is no such thing as death; it is no more than a necessary change undergone by the gross and visible physical frame. Is it not too patent a fact that our same body progressively passes through the successive stages of infancy, adolescence, youth and old age? While confronting changes, we do not indulge in any ado or lamentation. Then, why in the case of the last change death, we make so much row and give vent to sorrow and fear?
The other side may possibly promptly retort: "The answer is simple and obvious. While undergoing the changes of adolescence, youth and old age, the continuity of my personal consciousness is in no way compromised. I concretely feel that it is I and I alone who am undergoing these outer changes in my body while my personal existence remains the same and perfectly intact. Why should I fear then these changes? Whereas in the act of physical death, my personal consciousness itself gets disrupted. Where is the sense of continuity there? It is this sudden and definitive
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annulment of my personal existence that makes me anxious and fearful before the prospect of death."
Ah, this is the root cause of the fear of death. And once the cause has been laid bare, the remedy too is bound to be easily found. For, the whole thing is based on an utter misconception arising out of our original metaphysical ignorance. It is this universal ignorance shrouding our egoistic way of living which has made us erroneously identify our body and soul and concretely feel that the dissolution and disappearance of the physical body is tantamount to the dissolution of the soul itself. For, if the continuity of the body-form is lost, how can the soul retain its continuity? It is bound to be disrupted and disintegrated at the same time with the body.
It is this false identification of one's soul with one's concrete body-sense which makes physical death so frightful to the vital consciousness of ordinary men. And Arjuna of the Bhagavadgita was seized by a similar horror of physical death because of the same type of delusion vis-a-vis the phenomenon of death. Lord Krishna had to expound before the Hero of the Mahabharata the real truth of the matter so that the latter's rationality could assert itself in full strength and clear the heart and mind of Arjuna of all anxiety and misgiving about death. Here is a short synopsis of Krishna's exposition of the relationship between the body and the soul of man (deha and dehī):
"The soul is unborn, immutable, eternal and imperishable. These bodies which are the instruments of manifestation of the soul have a beginning and an end but not the One who embodies himself in the body. The soul is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being only once and, passing away, will never come into being again. The embodied soul casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new. As far as the body is concerned, certain is death for the born, and certain is rebirth for the dead. Therefore, what is inevitable ought not to be a cause of any sorrow or anxiety."
After all, what is a single life? It is, in Sri Aurobindo's words,
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"only [a] brief episode in a long history of spiritual evolution..." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 461)
If so, does it behove a sane person to be so much excited and agitated at the thought of death, the inevitable ending of this present life which is a mere bubble in the ocean of the everlasting existence of the soul? Here is what Sri Aurobindo says about the truth behind the principle of death:
"One thing only is the truth in which we have to live, the Eternal manifesting itself as the soul of man in the great cycle of its pilgrimage with birth and death for milestones, with worlds beyond as resting-places, with all the circumstances of life happy or unhappy as the means of our progress and battle and victory and with immortality as the home to which the soul travels." (Essays on the Gita, Cent. Ed., p. 58)
Through our long discussion so far, we have come to know much about the mystery of life and death and the essential truth about them. This knowledge will help us to come to the right conclusion about whether the eleven psychological factors which we have mentioned in the beginning of this chapter (see pp. 7-9) and which generally create the mood of fear and anxiety in the consciousness of an ordinary average man, have any real validity behind them. If we find on scrutiny that they are without any real foundation and therefore entirely fallacious in nature, the irrational fear of physical death is bound to disappear at the dissolving touch of this light of knowledge. We, therefore, take now to this task of a careful scrutiny, and pick up one by one all the eleven factors of fear for a close analysis and disposal.
First Factor - That one fears death so much is primarily due to one's suspicion and belief that one's personal identity will be eternally ended along with the fall of the physical body. One is almost convinced that death is sure to bring about the total and permanent annulment of one's personal consciousness. Pātanjal-yogasūtra, the basic text of the Raja Yoga, has termed this universal fear as abhiniveśa. The word "abhinivesha" has not here the connotation of "deep and sustained attention". It has a technical
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sense: its derivative meaning is "the universal dread of the elimination of one's existence". It has come from "abhito na viśate", that is, "something which is universally present in every living creature."
Yes, indeed, every creature, be it an insect, a bird, an animal or a human being, is afflicted with this fear of death. The only difference in the case of a man is that he has made it sharp and enduring with the play of his memory and creative imagination. Of course, this is true that this "abhinivesha" or morbid fear of death is not active in every man all the time. It remains mostly subdued and in a tenuous form because of the individual's engaging preoccupation with a multitude of other absorbing interests. But this too is true that given the favourable occasion and circumstance this fear of death becomes in the case of every man acute and active, labdha-vṛttika, and disturbs his consciousness inordinately. Maharshi Patanjali has in Yogasūtra, his famous book of aphorisms, characterised this "abhinivesha" or "fear of self-extinction" as svarasavāhi and viduṣo'pi tathā rūḍha; that is to say, (i) without the need of any training, instruction or conditioning from outside, almost instinctively, this fear of death invades and occupies the heart of every creature; and (ii) none can escape its assault, be he so great a scholar.
Let us now probe this first causative factor operative behind the genesis of the fear of death and see how much the apprehended annulment of one's personal consciousness is at all based on fact.
The truth of the matter is that personal survival after the body's death is assured to every mental being. The basic consciousness of a man is in no way dependent on the existence or non-existence of his physical body. It is entirely separate and independent. Here is an adaptation from what the Mother said on March 10, 1954 regarding the issue we have been dealing with:
The consciousness that goes out of the body remains fully conscious outside. It has a separate independent existence of its own. It undergoes no change because of the accidental circumstance of whether it remains linked to the physical body or delinked from it. It continues to possess the same knowledge and the same power. In order to be conscious, one does not depend at all upon
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the body. One can have an altogether independent existence.
Sri Aurobindo also has referred to the same truth in a somewhat different way. Here is what he says in one of his aphorisms:
"Shall I accept death or shall I turn and wrestle with him and conquer? That shall be as God in me chooses. For whether I live or die, I am always," (Thoughts and Aphorisms, No. 373. Italics added.)
The issue is unambiguously settled by the following words of Sri Aurobindo which he wrote to two of his disciples when the latter grieved over the loss of two of their near and dear ones:
"For the spiritual seeker death is only a passage from one form of life to another, and none is dead but only departed....
"Of course, that is the real fact - death is only a shedding of the body, not a cessation of the personal existence. A man is not dead because he goes into another country and changes his clothes to suit that climate." (Letters on Yoga, Part One, p. 463)
So, it is abundantly clear that with the dissolution of the physical body, life and consciousness of a man do not come to an end at all. It is thus absurd to indulge in some unfounded imaginary fear that with death one's personal consciousness will come to a dead halt and the book of life will be closed for ever.
The upshot of all our discussion so far is that the first causative factor giving rise to the fear of death has no basis in fact; it arises out of one's sheer ignorance in the matter.
Second Factor - Let us now come to the consideration of the second causative factor giving rise to the fear of death. This fear, when analysed to its basic character, is as follows:
Death will inexorably separate me from all my near and dear ones, also from all the objects of my attachment in life. How can I then bear the pain of this terrible loss? It is no use denying that it is because of this I dread physical death so much.
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So, it is attachment which is the root cause of this second type of fear. Bellecius, a Catholic 'man of God' of the Middle Ages, wrote in this connection:
"That death, even the very thought of death, is so much full of sadness and bitterness is solely due to the fact that a man feels and believes that he has to lose contact and companionship with all those persons and objects with which he has tied himself so closely during his life. And with this he will be forced to give up all his love and affection and emotional satisfaction that he has invariably associated with them. This is too painful a prospect to contemplate for him. And it is because of this that he is so much afraid of physical death, becomes so agitated and melancholy at the approach of the physical dissolution of the body."
Well, this type of fear is beyond cure by any ordinary means or by the application of one's reason. For, this morbid fear is the fear of something which is inexistent in fact but appears concrete and living because of emotional delusion and involvement.
But we should not forget that love and attachment are two different things: they need not be, should not be, inseparably linked. We can love, we should love, universally, but without the intrusion of any darkening ego-attachment. And therein lies the solution to the second causative factor of the fear of death. As Sri Aurobindo has so trenchantly put it:
"... attachment and desire must be utterly cast out; there is nothing in the world to which we must be attached.... And this does not mean that there is nothing at all that we shall love, nothing in which we shall take delight; for attachment is egoism in love and not love itself.... A universal love we must have, calm and yet eternally intense beyond the brief vehemence of the most violent passion; a delight in things rooted in a delight in Cod that does not adhere to their forms but to that which they conceal in themselves..." (The Synthesis of Yoga, Cent. Ed., pp. 314-15)
So one has to learn in time how to love men and objects without
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out any inordinate attachment. The Baul mystics of India have a principle of sadhana which they significantly call "jyanté mora" "to die while still living": that is to say, to eliminate attachment in all its forms and from all objects and persons and situations and circumstances in the world. Psychologically' speaking, this is equivalent to "dying" with respect to them, As Bellecius said: "An aspirant while in robust health 'dies' daily to himself, that is to say he daily detaches his heart from ill-regulated earthly affections, and day by day accustoms his soul to separate itself from the body, so much so that when death actually arrives at last, far from fearing it he may even ardently desire its arrival, And as he has never been
the slave of an inordinate attachment to any creature, disengaged from all earthly bonds, he willingly parts with them following the indication of the Divine Will".
Conclusion: To be completely detached in one's love is the sure cure for the second cause of the fear of death.
Third Factor - The next causative factor behind one's feeling so apprehensive before the inescapable advent of death is a feeling of agonised helplessness which can be expressed as follows:
"Alas, death has come too soon to forcefully snatch me away from my field of activity. So many tasks I had thought of accomplishing which I have not yet been able to do. So many of my hopes and plans still remain to be fulfilled, and yet I have to quit life leaving the debris of my unrealised aspirations behind! Is it not a valid reason for feeling a legitimate fear of death?"
The answer is: No, there is no validity even behind this third sort of fear. For, one particular life is not all the life for an individual; there are many, many lives to follow. Death indicates the disruption only of a particular body but the consciousness maintains its continuity with its urge to progress and its possibility of achieving later on in other lives what could not be accomplished for whatever reasons in one particular life.
When Uma Bose. the talented young musician of Calcutta, whom Gandhiji used to address as "the nightingale of Bengal", died at the premature age of twenty-one years, her loving music-preceptor Dilip Kumar Roy wrote a long letter to his Guru Sri
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Aurobindo, bitterly complaining about the injustice of God who did not allow a flower to bloom and brought all its glorious potentialities to nought. This type of untimely frustration of unmanifested possibilities is surely something to be complained of and dreaded - so argued Dilip Kumar in his long letter.
Sri Aurobindo, in an equally long reply, explained to his beloved but confused disciple the whole mystery of life and death, and the nature and course of an individual's earthly existence, and finally consoled Dilip Kumar by saying:
"The non-fulfilment of her [Uma Bose's] capacities could have been a final tragedy if there were this life alone. As it is, she has passed towards the psychic sleep to prepare for her life to come." (D. K. Roy, Sri Aurobindo Came to Me, p. 521)
So, even here, it is not wise to bemoan death by putting forward the argument that the dissolution of the physical body shatters for all time to come all the unfulfilled potentialities of an individual man. But still a misgiving may possibly trouble the heart of the individual. He may argue back:
"Granted that another life may follow this present life of mine when it is ended by death. But how to know that my next life will be a better one with greater possibilities and opportunities; it may be, on the contrary, a life beset with many difficulties frustrating the fulfilment of my untapped talents. In that case, why should I not fear the annulment of my present life? For, is it not a fact that a known evil is far easier to confront than an unknown uncertain one?"
In appearance, this argument seems to be plausible, even convincing. But a deeper probe shows that the truth of the matter is different. For the Divine is conducting his world-play in such a supremely wise and ordered way that, from the point of view of the advancement of the consciousness of an individual,
"All life is fixed in an ascending scale
And adamantine is the evolving Law..."
(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Cent. Ed., p. 342)
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Even the Rishi of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad declared a few thousand years ago: "Anyat navataraṁ kalyānataraṁ rūpam kurute" - "A body discarded will be followed not only by a new one but by a better-adapted, more auspicious one." Therefore, one need not entertain any undue anxiety on this score. If by divine dispensation, death has to come to me at any time, I should rather happily welcome it and prepare to go to a newer and better situation.
Fourth Factor - This factor is occasioned by a fearful and unsettling imagination as regards the possible agonies attendant on the dissolution of the physical body. One visualises many types of disabilities of a dying man such as acute pain, distress due to breathlessness and suffocation, an unimaginably troubling unquenchable thirst, a total loss of control over the functioning of the limbs, progressive extinction of all sense-power, the terrible feeling of being dragged into a pit of impenetrable darkness, etc., and one shudders at the prospect of such a vicious death.
But why should one be bothered with these temporary problems of the physical body? The soul which is the real and eternal principle in the individual remains totally unaffected by these disabilities: these cannot touch it in any way. Did not Krishna try to console dejected Arjuna with these words? -
"Weapons cannot cleave the embodied soul, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. It is uncleavable, it is incombustible, it can neither be drenched nor dried. Eternally stable, it is for ever and for ever, acalo'yaṁ sanātanaḥ (Gita, II, 23, 24)
But this spiritual truth may not be able to rid an ordinary man's heart of its shrinking from the physical agonies of death. For he may retort:
"To talk about the soul and its immunity may be all right for a spiritually advanced person who has already 'realised' his soul, ātman, and consciously dwells in its bliss, cidānanda. But what about me, an ordinary mortal, and people of my genre who have
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not been able to separate their consciousness from its identification with the body? How can we not then fear the unbearable agonies of a dying physical body?"
No, even for the unspiritual ordinary people an assurance is there. For, medical science testifies that most patients die in a state of coma or semi-coma in which they have lapsed into physical unconsciousness. As the supply of oxygen to the brain becomes increasingly reduced, the patient's nervous sensibility goes on getting atrophied and his consciousness becomes dulled and unresponsive. The result is that, although to an onlooker the dying patient's body may appear to be racked with suffering and distress, his consciousness does not register that agony. So, even on this account one need not look upon death with fearful anxiety.
This is, of course, in the case of ordinary unspiritual men. When we come to consider the case of spiritual persons, the situation becomes altogether different. For a "realised" person (siddha puruṣa) the consciousness gets divided into two distinctly separate parts, one the outer superficial one constituting the mind, the vital and the body, the other the inner consciousness where one is in union with the Spirit. This inner one progressively transmits its divine quality even to the outer one, so much so that the surface instruments, including even the physical body, may have a double experience at the same time. It is the experience of "the rapture of torture" in Sri Aurobindo's words. The Mother too paradoxically remarks: "One does not suffer while yet suffering." We are reminded, in this connection, of the case of the mystic Suarez about whom it is written in a Latin book of the Middle Ages:
"The illustrious Suarez joyfully cried out amid the excruciating suffering which preceded his physical dissolution: 'I should never have thought that it was so sweet to die.' How many other holy personages have manifested the same sentiments of tasting celestial joys while confronting [an apparently painful] death." (Bellecius, Solid Virtue, p. 474)
Let us close this section on fear arising out of the imaginary agonies of death, by quoting two passages from the Mother's writings, the first one depicting the state of separation from outer suffering, and the second one the right attitude one should adopt in
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order to turn even suffering into joy:
(1) "These surface things have nothing dramatic about them. They seem to me more and more like soap-bubbles.... I have known suffering also, but there was always a part of myself which knew how to stand behind, apart." (Questions and Answers 1957-58, p. 282)
(2)"... when something extremely unpleasant happens to you, you may tell yourself, 'Well, this proves I am worth the trouble of being given this difficulty, this proves there is something in me which can resist the difficulty', and you will notice that instead of tormenting yourself, you rejoice - you will be so happy and so strong that even the most unpleasant things will seem to you quite charming." (Questions and Answers 1951, pp. 354-55)
Fifth Factor - But even this assurance from the Mother will not shield us from feeling a dreadful anxiety about death. For there are other psychological factors to contend with.
And one of the most potent reasons why man so much dreads death is that he is absolutely ignorant about what will actually befall him after he passes through the exit door of physical death. The existence beyond on the other side of death is a complete void to him: it is all a big point of interrogation. So many anxious questions trouble his mind: such as, Who will look after him there? Who will cater to his needs? Who will arrange his destiny on the other side? Will he have to suffer a lot there? Will the hostile vital forces make his life miserable after death? Is there any guidance there? Any helping hand?
This absence of any reliable knowledge regarding the post-death period, leading to a sense of absolute insecurity, makes man cling to the known field of physical life as much and as long as possible, and seek to keep at a distance the uncertain and obscure domain of post-mortem situation.
But this sort of fear also has no solid basis in fact. An attentive observation of the actual facts of life will help us be free from this unfounded fear. For, it is an indubitable principle of existence that
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everything in this world of manifestation, be it on this side or on the other side of death, is being governed and ordered by the infinite love and wisdom of the Supreme Divine.
Consider the case of an as yet unborn babe which is still lying in the mother's womb as a developed foetus. Hypothetically speaking, let us imagine for a moment that this foetus is endowed with the thinking and reasoning power of an adult human being. In that case will it not be seized with some strong feelings of fear and anxiety as regards its fate after it is delivered from its mother's womb? Without knowing anything whatsoever about the state of affairs in the post-delivery situation, it will start wondering:
"Alas, who knows what uncertainties will confront me when I am once out of the repose and security of the cosy atmosphere of my mother's womb! Who will feed me? Who will give me shelter? Who will attend to my needs and be by my side each time I cry out as a totally helpless babe faced with any difficulty? Strange! I have absolutely no knowledge about these things. Hence is my great fear and anxiety as regards my post-delivery situation. Better to remain in the mother's womb for an indefinite length of time and, if possible, for all time to come."
How do we feel about this train of reasoning? Do we judge it right and valid? For we know this supposed anxiety of the unborn babe is altogether baseless. Even before it is delivered, the supremely wise and loving Divine arranges for it nourishing food in its mother's breasts, instils great love and affection in its parents' heart so that they remain always keenly attentive to redress even the slightest discomfort of the babe.
And what is most striking and wonderful is that this provident situation prevails not only in the case of a human baby; the same principle applies in the case of the offsprings of all the other living creatures, be they birds or insects, animals or reptiles.
And if such is the way the Supreme arranges his manifestation, how can we absurdly think that after our physical death he will leave us to our helpless fate without offering any guidance or governance in the unknown supraphysical world beyond? That is simply impossible. Everything is well-organised in the matter of the proper dispensation in our post-mortem existence.
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After all, there is nothing to make us fear the death of the physical body. Fear of what? Fear of coming out of the rut? Fear of being free? Fear of no longer remaining a prisoner in the body? As the Mother once said:
"And after all, if one must for some reason or other leave one's body and take a new one, is it not better to make of one's death something magnificent, joyful, enthusiastic, than to make it a disgusting defeat?...
"After all, ... One can change this accident [physical death] into a means; if one is conscious one can make a beautiful thing of it, a very beautiful thing, as of everything. And note, those who do not fear it, who are not anxious, who can die without any sordidness are those who never think about it, who are not haunted all the time by this 'horror' facing them which they must escape and which they try to push as far away from them as they can. These, when the occasion comes, can lift their head, smile and say, 'Here I am.' " (CWM, Vol. 4, p. 355)
Sixth Factor — Most men mortally fear death because of another reason: it is as regards the total uncertainty about the moment of its arrival. A man is perhaps enjoying merrily all the pleasurable occupations of life, completely oblivious of his providential future. But all of a sudden death may appear, shatter his physical frame and most cruelly snatch him away from the field of his unfinished enjoyment. What adds poignancy to the situation is the deplorable fact that this dolorous forced departure may occur at any moment of one's life, the individual receiving no prior notice or warning. One has to live all the time under the overhanging shadow of death. How can we not get scared of such an uncertain situation? As one Western mystic has observed: "Death is always there, watching, watching." And do we not remember the chilling verse of Sri Aurobindo's Savitri?. - "Death prowls baying through the woods of life." In the fourteenth century, an unknown Christian mystic, the writer of the justly famous Latin treatise, The Imitation of Christ, elaborated the uncertainty of the moment of death in such words:
"O the stupidity and the hardening of man's heart, which
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thinketh only upon the present and doth not rather care for what is to come!
"To-morrow is uncertain, and how knowest thou that thou shall live till to-morrow?
"When it is morning, think thou mayst die before night; and when evening comes, dare not to promise thyself the next morning.
"Many die suddenly, when they look not for it; for the Son of Man will come at an hour when we think not.
"Ah! fool, why dost thou think to live long, when thou canst not promise thyself one day?
"How many have been deceived and suddenly snatched away?" (Translation by G. F. Maine)
Now, it is imaginable that this utter uncertainty and suddenness concerning the moment of the physical death fills man's heart with an undercurrent of vicious trepidation. But is this suddenness really so sudden and unexpected? A deeper study and perspicacious observation reveal to us that there is a divine plan behind every individual's death. Its arrival is neither arbitrary nor purely accidental. For, as the Mother has pointed out, in the end one dies when one has to die; therefore fear has no sense. Sri Aurobindo too wrote in connection with the death of a relative of one of his disciples:
"What has happened must now be accepted calmly as the thing decreed and best for his soul's progress from life to life, though not the best in human eyes which look only at the present and at outside appearance." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., pp. 462-63)
Sri Aurobindo goes so far as to say that all that happens in the progress of the soul, including an individual's death, has "its meaning, its necessity, its place". And "whatever happens in the Divine Providence is for the best". (Ibid., p. 462)
That death is never sudden and arbitrary in its arrival but comes at its own appointed time has been forcefully put forward by the Mother in course of one of her evening Class Talks. To clear away all our
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unfounded fears and place the whole problem in its proper perspective, it is worth pondering over the following words of the Mother:
"... according to experience, circumstances being the same, absolutely identical, in one case people die, in another they do not - why?... it must depend on something which is altogether outside your consciousness - and in the end one dies when one has to die. That is all. When one has to die one dies, and when one has not to die, one does not die. Even when you are in mortal danger, if it is not your hour to die, you will not die, and even if you are out of all danger, just a scratch on your feet will be enough to make you die..." (CWM, Vol. 5, p. 316)
Now, if such is the occult truth, it is obvious that fear has no sense, for, in either way fear has no determinative power to hasten or postpone the advent of death. About the right attitude one should adopt vis-à-vis one's death, the Mother has advised:
"What you can do is to rise to a state of consciousness where you can say, '... we accept the fact because it seems to be recognised as an inevitable fact. But I do not need to worry, for it will come only when it must come. So I don't need to feel afraid: when it is not to come, it will not come to me but when it must come to me, it will come. And as it will come to me inevitably, it is better I do not fear the thing; on the contrary, one must accept what is perfectly natural.' " (Ibid.)
Yes, "one must accept what is perfectly natural." But there is more to it than its naturalness. For, death comes to an individual not only when it must come, it comes with a great purpose, having a most beneficial end in view. Let us listen to Sri Aurobindo and meditate over what he has to say in this connection:
"Although Death walks beside us on Life's road,
A dim bystander at the body's start
And a last judgment on man's futile works,
Other is the riddle of its ambiguous face:
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Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride
The soul must take to cross from birth to birth,
A grey defeat pregnant with victory,
A whip to lash us towards our deathless state."
(Savitri, Book X, Canto 1, pp. 600-01)
Seventh Factor - There is another significant factor which makes an average man vehemently shrink away at the very thought of death. For, being totally ignorant about the shape and nature of the existence beyond death, he thinks and believes that the world on the other side of death is a blank or a drab affair shorn of any rich or happy experiences. To his concrete sensation, the material-physical world in which he is living now is a field of variegated experiences, enriching and enlivening his physical senses, meeting his heart's demands and his mental and aesthetic hungers and passions. The stroke of physical death brings an abrupt and cruel end to all these polychromous enjoyments, without offering any compensatory experiences on the other side of death's wicket gate. For what else can be there after all except, if at all, some bland and colourless neutrality? How can we then welcome death, when it comes, with open arms and equanimity?
The argument as given above seems to be a clinching one without having any possibility of refutation. But the fact is otherwise. For the basic assumptions implied in the above line of reasoning are altogether fallacious. For the physical world does not represent the only world where a conscious individual can hope to have multiform experiences. There are many, many other worlds which are supraphysical in nature and where the embodied soul can reasonably hope to go, after his physical body is dropped and dissolved at death. Let us start with a quotation from Sri Aurobindo affirming the existence of these supraphysical planes and worlds and giving some of their traits and characters:
"... these planes... [are not] extensions of subjective being and consciousness, but... [are] worlds; for the experiences there are organised as they are in our own [physical] world, but on a different plan, with a different process and law of action and in a
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substance which belongs to a supraphysical Nature. This organisation includes, as on our earth, the existence of beings who have or take forms, manifest themselves or are naturally manifested in an embodying substance, but a substance other than ours, a subtle substance tangible only to subtle sense, a supraphysical form-matter." (The Life Divine, Cent. Ed., p. 775)
Readers interested in knowing more about these almost infinitely varying supraphysical worlds may refer to the chapter "The Order of the Worlds" of Sri Aurobindo's magnum opus, The Life Divine. However, in order to dispel from common men's ill-instructed mind the false notion that life is rich and wonderful only on this side of physical death while the other side is bleak and poor, let us quote here a few passages from Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, Savitri. Significantly, these passages occur in Book Two of the epic which the Poet has entitled "The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds"; for, indeed, Savitri is the spiritual autobiography of Sri Aurobindo, and the passages quoted below represent his own experiences gathered during his actual "travel" through these supraphysical worlds. The extracts given here are no more than a few bubbles of the ocean; actually the experiences recorded in Savitri are legion.
(1)
"All could be seen that shuns the mortal eye,
All could be known the mind has never grasped;
All could be done no mortal will can dare."
(Book Two, Canto One)
(2)
"He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile....
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a curved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme..."
(Ibid.)
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(3)
"No term was fixed to the high-pitched attempt;
World after world disclosed its guarded powers,
Heaven after heaven its deep beatitudes,
But still the invisible Magnet drew his soul."
(4)
"All that here seems has lovelier semblance there....
Whatever is here of visible charm and grace
Finds there its faultless and immortal lines;
All that is beautiful here is there divine.
Figures are there undreamt by mortal mind:
Bodies that have no earthly counterpart..."
(Book Two, Canto Two)
(5)
"Marvel and rapture wandered in the ways.
Only to be was a supreme delight,
Life was a happy laughter of the soul
And Joy was king with Love for minister.
The spirit's luminousness was bodied there.
Life's contraries were lovers or natural friends
And her extremes keen edges of harmony..."
(Book Two, Canto Three)
(6)
"But measureless to life its gain of joy;
All the untold Beyond is mirrored there.
A giant drop of the Bliss unknowable
Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became
A fiery ocean of felicity..."
(Book Two, Canto Nine)
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It should be noted that the sole purpose behind our quoting the above passages has been to bring home the point that the "Space" beyond death is not a forbidding blank void; it is, on the contrary, packed with worlds and worlds, each world presenting its own variegated experiences.
But all these experiences are not, of course, invariably sweet and pleasant. There are regions over there of pains and sufferings, of dangers and difficulties. These are due, in part, to the past Karma of the individual, but also due to other important factors. We shall revert to this point later on in a subsequent chapter of this book.
Eighth Factor - This is the last principal factor causative of the fear of death. This type of morbid fear manifests especially among those who are rather advanced in age and at the same time believe in the mythological-theological accounts of the after-death period of existence. They have a rooted belief in the concepts of Karma, Judgment, Purgatory and Hell. And with the advancement of age and the progressive wearing down of the physical body, the thought of impending death suddenly becomes acute in their consciousness and they awake to the fact that they have so far wasted all the golden opportunities offered to them by God during their long life-time. What is more distressing to them is the awareness that they have not only wasted their time but have committed many serious faults and errors amounting to so many theological sins and these are bound to draw upon them very painful punishment on the other side of death. This anxious thought makes them shudder and they attempt by all means to postpone the moment of "departure" so that they can avoid the day of inevitable reckoning for as long a period as possible.
But this cannot be the right solution to their problem, for it will be like an ostrich bird hiding its face in the desert sand to avoid possible risks and dangers. The real solution lies elsewhere. We are not now going to speak about that; for, two later chapters of this book will be devoted to this topic.
However, even now we can say that the best way of eliminating all fear of impending death is to use one's life well and devote all one's time and energy to the task of self-discovery and to
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consecrated service to the Divine. For, as it is well said, "death is the image of life", and if the life is righteously spent, one will not be afraid of approaching death but rather welcome it as a timely change and new opportunity for the soul's further adventure. As the Mother has so beautifully portrayed the situation:
"Those who cling on, who try by every possible means to delay the end even by a minute or two, who give you an example of frightful anguish, show that they are not conscious of their soul....
"And note, those who do not fear it, who are not anxious, who can die without any sordidness, are those.... who have the will to make the best possible use of their life, it is they who say, I shall remain here as long as it is necessary, to the last second, and I shall not lose one moment to realise my goal'; these, when the necessity comes, put up the best show. Why? - it is very simple, because they live in their ideal, the truth of their ideal; because that is the real thing for them, the very reason of their being, and in all things they can see this ideal, this reason of existence, and never do they come down into the sordidness of material life." (CWM, Vol. 4, pp. 355-56)
We have so far discussed eight principal psychological factors which create in a man's heart an undercurrent of fear and anxiety concerning the physical dissolution of their body. And we have attempted to show through elaborate analysis why these causative factors of vain apprehension have no rational basis behind them.
But the valid question remains: Will this sort of intellectual-rational understanding be able to cure a person of his possible fear of death? The answer is both a "Yes" and a "No". Yes for those who are still relatively young in age and in reasonably good health, without any immediate danger to their life. When everything is going on smoothly in their life, this sort of intellectual persuasion may perhaps help them to keep their fear at a distance, being naturally oblivious, in their active consciousness, of the fact of the inevitability of death, this death appearing to them to be something vague and indistinct belonging to the far-off future. But this mood of nonchalance cannot be sustained for long.
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When the prospect of near death looms large before one's vision, all the intellectual arguments will crumble to pieces, and rational conviction will be replaced by emotional persuasion. Then the fear of death will rise in all its fury, as in the analogy given by the saint Ramakrishna: You may teach your pet bird to chant all the holy names of the Lord and it may indeed do so with ease at normal times, but when a cat pounces upon it and tries to wring its neck, the only cry that will come out of its mouth is its natural "bird's cry" and not the names of God taught to it. So is the case of our carefully cultivated rational arguments which will totally fail to deliver the goods at the actual moment of crisis.
No, the really effective procedure we have to adopt is to leave the field of dry mental-rational arguments behind and enter instead into the domain of concrete spiritual experience which will render the clear distinction between the soul and the physical body self-evident. Only so can we defy the phenomenon of physical death and meet it with a calm smile of equanimity.
And it is because of this obvious truth that Sri Aurobindo, after having intellectually explained to one of his bereaved disciples all about the mystery of death, concluded in this doubtful note:
"That is all I can say, but I don't know that it will be of much help to her as these things are helpful usually only when one enters into the consciousness in which they become not mere ideas but realities. Then one grieves no longer because one has entered into the Truth and the Truth brings calm and peace." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., pp. 461-62)
Let us refer in this connection to the beautiful way the Mother once brought out the essential difference between a mere intellectual presentation and a genuine spiritual experience:
"As for me, I consider this the best remedy. The other is an intellectual, common-sense, rational remedy.... The other is like the prisoner finding good reasons for accepting his prison. This one is like a man for whom there's no longer any prison." (CWM, Vol. 5, p. 317)
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That the fear and grief concerning physical death gets completely removed when one attains genuine self-knowledge through the practice of spiritual sadhana, tarati śokam ātmavit (Chhandogya Upanishad, VII. 1.3), is due to the concrete fact that one no longer feels his physical body to be his true "I". One realises beyond any doubt that the jīvātmā or the Self is sempiternal, without any beginning or end, while the physical body is nothing more than a detachable robe, or a rejectable instrument that one holds in one's hand as long as one likes and drops it at will at any moment of one's choice. Why should then one be disconcerted in any way by the prospect of the loss of the body?
What is more, there can possibly be a far greater experience with respect to the physical body, which Sri Aurobindo has described in the following words:
"We may even come to feel that the body is in a certain sense non-existent except as a sort of partial expression of our vital force and of our mentality." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 330)
The Mother once spoke eloquently, in one of her Class Talks (October 14,1953), of how the conscious realisation of one's soul or psychic being becomes the most effective means of curing oneself of all fear of death. She said in effect:
The physical body is not the real "I". One has to try to find in oneself one's psychic being. And when one has found one's psychic being, immediately one has the sense of immortality. And one knows that what goes out or what comes in is just a matter of convenience. The psychic being has taken this body because it needed to use it for its work, but when the time comes to leave the body because it is no longer of any use, for some reason or other, one leaves the body without the least fear or regret. And the Mother concluded:
"The moment you are in contact with your psychic being, you have the feeling of... having always been, and being always, eternally. And then what comes and goes - these are life's accidents, they have no importance. Yes, this is the best remedy." (CWM, Vol. 5, p. 317)
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For scoring victory over the fear of death, the Mother has referred to another method, obviously very difficult and full of regers and risks, which pertains to the domain of occult science. In essece, this procedure consists in disconnecting the consciousness from its vehicle, the physical body, taking it out, leaving the body in a cataleptic state, and then entering the body again deliberately with full consciousness. Readers curious to know more about this occult procedure may consult pages 52 to 54 of the Mother's Questions and Answers 1954.
Such then are the common psychological factors prompting the arousal of the fear of death, and the probable methods that one can adopt to combat it.
For, it is wise and reasonable to admit that till now the final destiny of all bodies without a single exception has been their dissolution sooner or later, and this destiny is bound to confront the physical frame of man for many many years to come.
So it is good to know from the point of view of Sadhana what right attitude the sadhakas of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga should adopt concerning the body's death, and that will bring our first chapter to a relevant conclusion. The Mother advises:
"One must never wish for death.
One must never will to die.
One must never be afraid to die.
And in all circumstances one must will to exceed oneself."
(CWM, Vol. 4, p. 356)
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