Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth

II

WHAT IS DEATH? AND WHAT HAPPENS AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH?

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

What is still more disconcerting and nerve-racking is that there is no possibility of any previous rehearsal of the death-experience; when it comes to a particular individual it does so unexpectedly with all the horror and shock peculiar to something unknown and unexperienced before. This novel surprise imparts all the poignancy to the experience of death.

All of us know for certain that everyone of us will have to take leave of our dearly loved body, today or tomorrow, sooner or later, and that too at the end of the suffering of a chronic or acute illness, or due to a most unexpected sudden stroke of accident. But the really puzzling question is: What happens after this unavoidable death? Does anything substantial remain after that? Or, who knows, the sequel is only a sheer void, a dampening Silence through eternity!

It is, of course, true that very few men are actually occupied with these ultimate questions regarding death. Being wholly caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life and greatly enamoured of its present occupations, the common run of men does not find time to be curious about the great mystery of physical death. But apart from this fact of utter absorption, there is another factor which

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induces men to try to forget the thought of death as far as and as long as possible. This factor is the most disturbing presence, in every man's subconscient, of a disposition of fear and anxiety and unease concering the sure-to-come shattering blow of death.

But even if one seeks to keep the thought of death shrouded in a thick veil of forgetfulness, one is not allowed to do so always. Oftentimes the drum of death makes a harsh chilling sound in one's ears. The occasion may be: perhaps one loses one of his near and dear ones for ever; may be, one has to unexpectedly bid adieu to one of his beloved friends; or, it may be, one falls grievously ill oneself and lies on his sickbed, hovering between life and death. In some such cases, one is forced to contemplate the strange and weird phenomenon of death. Death appears then in all its painful reality and man starts thinking about it in a sustained manner. Many nagging questions come crowding in his mind demanding satisfactory answers; such as,

(i) Granted that the physical body will be cremated or interred and, in any case, destroyed, but what about the consciousness of the individual? Does it survive the body's death, Yes or No? (ii) If Yes, what is it or who is it that survives? (iii) Will my personality remain intact even after my body dissolves? (iv) I am now in full possession of all my memories and emotions, my sympathies and antipathies, all the elements of my psychology; will all these vanish after death or will something remain? (v) If the answer is a Yes, does it imply that I shall continue to remain almost the same familiar person I was before death in my lifetime? (vi) Even if something of my personality survives, where will it stay and function, in which location? Will there be a new body there? And what about my mind and heart? my sensations and feelings? (vii) Will there be a new course of life on the other side of death, a new series of experiences with the flow of time? (viii) Shall I continue to stay in the other world for an eternity of time? Or will there be a dissolution of that new life too after a certain interval of time? (ix) Shall I continue to remain in a particular world or move from world to world? (x) If the second alternative is true, where and when will my journey end? (xi) Shall I come back once again to this familiar earthly world which I have cherished so much and so long? (xii) If

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I come back, when do I come back, after how much time? Immediately after death or after the lapse of a long period of time? (xiii) In my next return to earth, shall I be the same old person of my previous birth, in nature and temperament, however different may be the physical body and life-circumstances? (xiv) Those amongst my near and dear ones who have already died, can they see me even now? Do they still remember me? Or, has everything become a blank to them? (xv) Can we establish any conscious contact with those who have departed? (xvi) Another puzzling question that intrigues us: It is accepted that everybody has to pass through the death of the body, be he a virtuous man or a sinner, a scholar or an ignoramus, a yogi or an ordinary mortal; but what about the situation after death? Will all have the same fate on the other side? Or different courses await different men?

Such are the insistent questions that trouble our heart and mind concerning the problem of death. But where to find the right answers? Who can give us the satisfactory replies? For it is an undeniable fact that amongst all those who have till now died, not a single one has been able to come back so far to report to us about their death-experience or about the mysteries of the other worlds to which they have travelled after their bodily death. As a result, a very big question-mark looms large before the consciousness of any one who is eager to learn the truth behind these mysteries.

What has compounded the mystery of the issue is that all those in the past, thinkers and philosophers and scientists alike, who have sought to understand the mystery of death, have widely differed among themselves as regards their ultimate findings: "nāsau munir yasya mataṁ na bhinnam", "There are no two sages whose opinions are riot different." Therefore the riddle remains intact as ever, defying all solution. In ancient India, in the age of the Upanishads, the young aspirant Nachiketa put this very question before Yama, the Lord of Death:

"This debate that there is over the man who has passed and some say 'This he is not' and some that 'he is', that, taught by thee, I would know.":

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"Yeyaṁ prete vicikitsā manuṣye,

Astītyeke nāyam astīti caike

Etad vidyām anuśiṣṭas tvayā 'haṁ "

(Katha Upanishad, I. 1.20)

Yes, the puzzled and troubled adolescent of the Upanishad wanted to know directly from the presiding deity of death the real truth about the Ultimate Journey of man, about what happens beyond the portal of the physical dissolution of the body. And in our present time the great poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, being confronted with the sad fact of repeated deaths in his family, could not but be puzzled by the inscrutable mystery and raised similar questions in a more elaborate way:

"Has he who has passed through death departed for ever or is he waiting in the wings? Has he fallen asleep or is it for him a new awakening? Has the tiredness and fever of his earthly existence left him for ever? Shall I be able to meet him again and, on his part, will he talk to me again somewhere in some unknown world, some time in the future? Who will give me the answers to these questions?" (Sanchayita, "After Death", adapted.)

The questions become still more insistent and full of interest in the case of the sadhakas of the Integral Yoga when they come to know that the Mother, the great occultist and Mahayogi of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, has clearly pronounced about what has happened to some of the sadhakas and sadhikas of the Ashram after their physical demise. To satisfy the curiosity of the readers let us cite below a few instances of this category:

(1)'A' was some sort of a dandy who cared a lot about his clothes and physical appearance during his lifetime. After he left his body, his room was cleaned and whitewashed and made ready for occupation by another Ashramite. But the Mother, through her power of occult vision, saw that the vital being of 'A' was still hovering in his deserted room and searching for his clothes.

(2)After leaving his body 'B' came to the Mother's chamber

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in his subtle body and sat there in quiet repose. But as soon as his mortal remains were placed on the pyre for the purpose of fiery cremation, his vital being shuddered and vanished.

(3)'C', a very senior Ashramite, was a perfect Karmayogi, totally dedicated to the Mother's service. One evening, while sitting in his easy chair, he suddenly passed away due to cardiac arrest. The Mother revealed to his sister, another Ashramite, that his soul had ascended to the 'solar world'.

(4)'D' and 'E' were two middle-aged sadhikas of the Ashram. They were knit together by a very close bond of friendship. When 'D' died in the Jipmer Hospital due to a perforation in her heart, 'E' broke down and complained to the Mother about her deep sorrow. But the Mother consoled her by saying: "Why are you grieving? 'D' is not dead but just departed. In fact, just now she is standing behind me and smiling at you."

(5)'F' was an advanced sadhaka - a great Yogi in his past life, according to the Mother's own evaluation. Before he passed away, he lay on his death-bed and consciously deliberately transferred to the Mother's consciousness all his mental, vital and physical powers and possibilities. This process took many hours, and only when it was completed, he breathed his last. It was on his part a marvellous sadhana through death.

(6)'G', an old devotee, entered his son's consciousness after breathing his last, and thus reached the Mother's chamber when the young man went to her to report about his father's demise. At the sight of the Mother the vital being of the 'dead' father left the son's body, took the form of a smiling babe and ran and jumped into the welcoming arms of the Mother.

(7)'H' was an early Ashramite, a great scholar and a developed sadhaka. He was very close to Sri Aurobindo. When he passed away in 1965, different parts of his being went to different destinations: his mind went to Sri Aurobindo, the psychic being merged in the Mother, and his vital being remained behind to help his near and dear ones whom he had left at death.

(8)'I' was a very advanced sadhaka. His being was completely integrated: all the parts of his nature were consciously centred around his psychic being. When he breathed his last because of an

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attack of coronary thrombosis, his soul was not held back in its post-death journey but ascended straight to the abode of Sri Aurobindo.

(9)'J' was a young sadhaka barely twenty years old. He was involved in a road accident: his motor-cycle was hit by a fast-moving truck. He was seriously injured in his head and immediately went into coma. He lay in the hospital in an unconscious state and in that state itself his vital being went to the Mother and expressed his wish not to die so soon, for that would hamper the continuity of his spiritual sadhana. The Mother assured him that she would bring him back soon to her proximity by placing his psychic being in the growing child in the womb of his sister. After receiving this assurance, the young wounded sadhaka calmly left his body.

(10)'K' was an aged inmate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The Mother considered her almost as her friend and sister. She was a great Orientalist and a practising Buddhist sadhika at that. Being afflicted with a serious malignant cancer she was admitted to the Vellore Hospital for a surgical operation. Even before she died there, her subtle being came to the Mother and apprised her that none would ever know what happened to her after her death.

Strange! After she left her body, the Mother sought for her soul here, there, everywhere, in all the supraphysical worlds of existence but could not find it. Being a Buddhist sadhika did 'K' disappear into the Nirvana?

(11)'L' was a very old Ashramite. Because of a painful chronic illness she had to remain on bed for months together. Her longstanding suffering and confinement to sick-bed made her progressively very bitter at heart and lose all her faith in higher spiritual values. Her consciousness became very much darkened. But the surprising fact is that after death came to her at last, the luminous symbol of Sri Aurobindo descended from above, touched her forehead, protected her vital being within its safe ambience, and carried it away along a perilous passage which every departed soul has to traverse after death.

These are only eleven accounts: there are many more recounted by the Mother. These various after-death situations facing the

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departed make us extremely eager to know more about the mystery of death and about the details concerning the supraphysical worlds. But where to find the requisite answers? Who can possibly satisfy our curiosity?

Of course, we are excluding from our purview the atheists and agnostics and the materialist scientists who are dead obsessed with the current tenets and pre-suppositions of science. For they will immediately answer without the least hesitation: "Such curiosity about the supraphysical worlds or about the possible fate of the departed souls is misplaced and meaningless; for, apart from this physical world, there is no other world existing. And the destiny of the departed? Who is 'departed'? None departs, and therefore the whole question is absurd. For, man's consciousness is nothing but an epiphenomenon; it is the external manifestation of the neuro-electrical vibrations of the brain-cells; and as a result it is bound to disappear with the death of the body and its brain. What subsists after that is an eternal 'nothingness', a contentless void."

Such being the expected answers of these materialists, we do not propose to approach them for meeting our curiosity. Of course, there are many fallacies in their postulates and pre-suppositions, also in their lines of argument. These can be easily countered by intellectual counter-arguments, but that will not serve any useful purpose for us. After all, to enter into polemics is not the object of this chapter of our book: that can be conveniently postponed to a chapter of a separate book.

So, leaving out for the moment these materialist-minded thinkers, let us turn to all those who have in some way or other believed in the existence of the supraphysical worlds and in the passage of the departed souls to these worlds beyond, after the dissolution of their physical body. Ignoring all differences in the details of their findings and observations, let us mention here in brief what their fundamental conclusions are:

In the ancient Vedic literature of India there is not much discussion about life after death. The ancient Jewish literature too is almost silent in the matter. Of course, the book of Job and the Book of Maccabees of the Old Testament are exceptions to this general trend. Christian theology affirms that the soul of an individual man

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is created at the moment of conception and that one single life upon earth is granted to it. After the termination of this life the soul has to wait till the Day of final Judgment when the All-mighty All-just God will call up the individual soul and allot to it eternal heaven or eternal hell depending upon its behaviour in the single human life lived by it. The virtuous believers will go to heaven, the unbelievers will go to hell, while sinnets amongst the believers will have to undergo first the purificatory sufferings of Purgatory before they are allowed access to heaven.

The ideas of the ancient Greeks regarding the "other worlds" and their denizens were not very clear or definite. They believed that the departed souls moved in the supraphysical worlds as so many somnambulists, in half sleep and in half wakefulness; and they were very much attached to the physical pleasures and comforts of the earthly physical world.

The ancient Gauls maintained a different idea altogether. According to them, the non-material part of man has come down directly from God but it has had to pass through many different existences before it could be embodied in a human being. After traversing the stages of plant-life and animal life, it gets caught in the prison-house of a nether world called 'Anufu'. After a sustained effort extending over a long period of time it gets freed from this prison and reaches the human field of 'Abred'. After passing many lives there, it will reach a world of happiness and joy, bearing the name of 'Gwynfid'. But its journey does not end even there. Much above 'Gwynfid' lies the world of divine infinity, 'Ceugant'. Quite a complex idea indeed!

Sage Vasistha teaches in his great Vedantic treatise, Yoga-Vashishtha-Maharamayanain, that after his physical death an individual man enters into a state of temporary death-swoon ("mṛtyu-mūrchā"). After his soul eventually comes out of this swoon, it is severely judged and put in one of six categories, depending upon the relative values of the merits and demerits of its actions done during its pre-death lifetime. These categories are interestingly designted as:

(1) Ordinary sinners (sāmānya-pāpī); (2) medium sinners (madhyama-pāpī); (3) extreme sinners (sthūla-pāpī); (4) ordinarily

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virtuous people (sāmānya-dhārmika); (5) medium-level virtuous men (madhyama-dhārmika); and (6) men of high-pitched genuine virtue (uttama-dhārmika). These six categories of people will have to face different destinies in the other world after their death. Vasistha has discussed this issue in sufficient detail in his justly famous book. Those amongst our readers who would tike to know more about this question may consult the 55th sarga of the "Utpatti-Prakarana" of Vashistha's book.

The Theosophists have very complex ideas about the structure of man's consciousness and the nature of his destiny after death. According to them, every man possesses five other bodies besides his gross physical frame which can be cognised by his physical senses. These bodies form a scale of hierarchy depending upon their more or less developed states and on their constituting substances more or less subtle in nature. The Theosophists have named these bodies as: (i) etheric body; (ii) astral body; (iii) mental body; (iv) causal body; and, finally, (v) buddhistic body. This last body is not, however, equally developed in all human beings. In most men it is still in an embryonic stage; only in the case of the great yogis it has attained its full stature.

According to the Theosophical doctrine, man's ethereal body too gets dissolved with the dissolution of his physical body. Then the departed soul takes its abode in the second body, the astral body. But how long will it dwell there? That depends on the Karmic factor. Anyway, man's soul passes after this into the other more developed bodies one after another.

We need not go here into the elaboration of the theological doctrine of eschatology. For, that has no relevance here. We alluded in brief to a few historical beliefs, only to bring home the point that there is wide divergence of opinion even amongst those who claim to have genuine interest in the matter and possess, at the same time, some knowledge about what happens after physical death. Does it mean that, in spite of a thousand speculations and creative imaginations, man has remained utterly ignorant about what death really is and about the after-death period? Did not the author Hereward Carrington finally conclude, even after five hundred pages of elaborate dissertation in his book significantly titled Death: Its Causes

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and Phenomena: "In spite of all his speculations, there is but one fact that man has been able to establish to his own satisfaction. He is here, but whence he came, and whither he is going, or why, are questions to which faith alone has made answer." (op. cit., p. 253) Let us listen to what the Mother once said about the same question: "...man knows nothing about death - he does not know what it is, he does not know what happens, he has built all kinds of hypotheses, but there is nothing certain." (Notes on the Way, CWM, Vol. 11, p. 61)

Yes, it has to be squarely admitted that the general run of humanity as well as the intellectual thinkers know next to nothing about death and the other worlds. But what about the Mother and Sri Aurobindo themselves? Readers will pardon us if we dare say that, through the application of the principle of "knowledge by identity", they have come to know about many of the inscrutable problems of this world of manifestation. Therefore, it is to them that we propose to turn with our insistent questions, meditate on their extensive writings and on all that they have pronounced on these and other related questions, and, thus, cull some relevant answers to the questions that trouble us; principally, what happens at the moment of death and what befalls the departed being after the dissolution of his body? For, it is not wise just to lead one's life and then lie on one's death-bed in total ignorance of these great mysteries.

Yes, what happens in the after-death period? We feel like repeating here what we mentioned a few pages earlier that once a man becomes genuinely and seriously inquisitive, there is no dearth of questions to puzzle him: to cite a few of them here:

(i)Where are our venerable seniors now, the close confidants of the Mother such as Nolini-da, Counoumaji and Dyuman-bhai?

(ii)And what about Champaklalji? - who stayed by the side of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the early twenties of the last century to 1973, but had to leave his body at a place far away from the Ashram and being surrounded by strangers?

(iii)And the universally respected Madhav Panditji who had to meet death unexpectedly in a far-off Chennai Hospital?

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(iv)And the great sadhaka Parichandji who, even when struck by a paralytic stroke, wrote with his able right hand: "The work that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have been doing in this body of mine is not yet over, and till it is over, it will continue to remain alive." The question that intrigues us is: When, after two long years, Parichandji breathed his last, what happened to him? Where did his soul go?

(v)And the strange case of our friend, Prof. Arunendu? On a particular 'Darshan Day' he reached the Mother's chamber after having climbed many steps of a staircase, bowed down before the Mother's picture in a gesture of 'Pranam' and then dropped down dead there itself. We wonder, what happened to him after his death? Where is he now?

Have all these afore-mentioned sadhakas of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram permanently disappeared in the abyss of silence, leaving no trace anywhere behind? Is death equivalent to an eternal nullity?

No, how can that be? Death is not tantamount to a cessation of life. For the Mother has let us know:

"I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing which is really death.

"There is only an appearaance, an appearance based on a limited view. But there is no radical change in the vibration of the consciousness." (CWM, Vol. 11, p. 61)

And Sri Aurobindo? Has he not taught us that death does not signify the end of the personal existence; it is no more than the taking off of one's outer garment: "... 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, p. 463)

Yes, a man is not dead, only departed. As Sri Aurobindo has so clearly stated: "...death is only a passage from one form of life to another, and none is dead but only departed." (Ibid.)

But departed where? to which worlds? Also, the question arises: "Is there only one supraphysical world or many are their numbers?

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If many, is there any qualitative and quantitative difference in them? And, are there permanent denizens dwelling there? or, perhaps, they are only stations of transition for those who have lived upon earth but now shed their bodies?

We propose now to enter into the discussion of these tricky questions, all, of course, in the light of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. For the information of our readers let us state that Sri Aurobindo has discussed these issues in great depth and detail in the chapter "The Order of the Worlds" of his philosophical magnum opus The Life Divine. Besides that, in his great epic Savitri there is a wealth of descriptions about these various worlds and their particularities, couched in magnificent spiritual poetry. In fact, the whole Book Two of this epic poem is entitled "The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds".

The very first fact we have to take note of is that the visible physical world an average man takes cognizance of through the medium of his sense-organs and by the application of his rational judgment represents only an insignificant portion of the totality of innumerable worlds that exist in the world of manifestation. The Mother has made us understand this fact with the help of an interesting analogy. Here is what she says:

"For the human consciousness as it is, there are certainly infinitely more invisible things than visible things. What you know, the things which are visible to you and which you are conscious of - it's almost like the skin of an orange compared with the orange itself - and even an orange with a very thin skin, not a thick one! And so, if you know only the skin of the orange, you know nothing about the orange." (CWM, Vol. 8, p. 87)

But the important question is: How to know that these normally invisible worlds beyond the grasp of our normal senses do really exist? The Mother answered this question in one of her Class Talks of 1954. She said in effect:

Just as a man possesses a gross physical body perceptible by his senses of touch and sight, he has many other bodies relatively subtle and these bodies too are endowed with subtle senses. If by

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an appropriate sadhana we can raise our consciousness to higher and deeper levels and make it active and functional there, if we can awaken our latent potency of knowledge vis-à-vis objects which are beyond the grasp of our gross physical senses, we can have access to these subtle worlds depending on our individual capacities and development, and establish conscious communication with them. What is more, even while still living in our gross physical body, even before we have shed it at death, we can travel at will to these subtle supraphysical planes of existence.

In ancient times yogis and rishis and mystics of many countries and belonging to different religious traditions knew much about the existence of these supraphysical worlds. They knew too that just as these worlds had regions of light and happy enjoyment, there were also fields of pain and suffering and hideous darknesses. Depending on the traditions and their specific terminology, these two classes of pleasant and unpleasant regions were variously named as 'svarga' and 'naraka', 'heaven' and 'hell', 'jannat' and 'jahannam', 'behest' and 'doze', 'paradise' and 'purgatory', etc.

By the way, these regions ('loka', 'bhuvana') exist at the same time both subjectively and objectively; subjectively, as the planes of consciousness of an individual being, and objectively as independently existing worlds of manifestation.

There is one other essential point we have to note in this connection: these supraphysical worlds are not contentless voids; they have conscious beings of their own, habitually dwelling and functioning there. Just as these worlds are made of substances different from that of our physical world, the bodies of the beings of the supraphysical worlds are constituted of substances corresponding to the worlds of their own. There are hierarchies governing these supraphysical beings, depending on their relatively higher or lower status of development. Readers interested in knowing more about these things are advised to go through the illuminating essay "Lines of the Descent of Consciousness" written by Nolini Kanta Gupta and included in his Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Two.

The names of these beings and creatures of the supraphysical worlds differ widely in different religious traditions. Some of these names are:

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deva, gana, upadeva, parsad, siddha, gandharva, vidyadhara, yaksha, raksha, daitya, asura, - all in the Indian tradition;

fresta, jin, pari, iblish, saitan, in the Islamic tradition;

and in the Christian tradition nine types of angels are grouped in three different classes; e.g., (i) seraphim, cherubim, thrones; (ii) dominions, virtues, powers; (iii) principalities, archangels, angels.

We may refer in this connection to the four 'lokapala'-s and eight 'dikpala'-s of ancient Indian tradition. But that is not all.

Apart from these principal supraphysical beings, there are numerous types of elemental beings swarming in the subtle-physical and the lower vital planes bordering the atmosphere of the earth itself. The list of their names is quite a long one: gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, undines, dryads, salamanders, brownies, elves, imps, and so many others.

The account of the supraphysical beings does not end even here. There are many more of them to speak about. For example, when men, particularly the evil-natured ones, die, their hungry and desire-driven vital beings may assume many forms and move about in the earth's atmosphere just beyond the gross physical plane, being made prisoners there because of their unsatisfied thirst. These are variously named as ghosts, ghouls, vampires, asebs, pretas, pisachas, etc. Let us listen to what the Mother has said about this point:

"... for you the air is empty, there is nothing in it - you see something blue or white, there are clouds, sunbeams, and all that is very pretty - but when you have the other sight, you see that it is filled with a multitude of small formations which are all residues of desires or of mental deformation and these swarm inside it, you see, in a mass, and this is not always very pretty. At times it is extremely ugly." (CWM, Vol. 6, p. 41)

Let us leave alone these dark beings of the other worlds. Let us revert to our earlier discussion and close the topic of whether the supraphysical worlds exist at all or not. We give below in this connection the summarised adaptation of what the Mother spoke in her evening class of July 11, 1956:

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I am asked for explanation or comments on the beings who live in the worlds invisible to ordinary physical eyes. I am even told that I speak very often of negative entities, of hostile formatons, of small beings, formed from the disintegration of human beings after their death - disintegration of the vital or mental beings on death - but that I have never or rarely spoken of the great beings, the positive entities which help the evolution.

Well, the occult world is not one single region where everything is mixed. The occult world is a gradation of regions, of more and more ethereal or subtle regions, farther and farther removed in their nature from the physical materiality we ordinarily see. And each one of these domains is a world in itself, having its forms and inhabited by beings with a density, one might say, analogous to that of the domain in which they live.

Just as in the physical world we are of the same materiality as the physical world, so in the vital world, in the mental world, in the overmind world and in the supramental world - and in many others, infinite others - there are beings which have a form whose substance is similar to the one of the world.

This means that if you are able to enter consciously into that world with the part of your being which corresponds to that domain, you can move there quite objectively, as in the material world.

And there, there are as many, and even many more things to see and observe than in our poor little material world, which belongs to only one zone of this infinite gradation. You meet all sorts of things in those domains, and you need to make a study as profound, perhaps still more profound than in the physical world, to be able to know what is happening there, to have relations with the beings who live there.

Another point: if you learn to leave the lower vital world in close proximity to the earthly physical world and make your progressive ascension, you will find that as you mount, you will encounter beings whose forms and consciousness are more and more pure and beautiful and perfect.

A third point: In these invisible worlds there are also regions which are the result of human mental formations. There are hells, there are paradises, there are purgatories. There are all sorts of things

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in accordance with the different religions and their conception -but these things have only a very relative existence and importance.

Thus there are worlds and worlds, many more than we can imagine. Human beings here are mostly convinced that the only reality is the physical reality - the reality of what one can touch, can see - and for them, all that cannot be seen, cannot be touched, cannot be felt, is after all problematical. But this is not true at all.

So it is difficult to speak of all these worlds, these innumerable worlds, in a few minutes. It is a knowledge which needs the lived experience of many years, thoroughly systematic, and which requires an inner preparation, to make it harmless. (based on the Mother's Questions and Answers 1956, pp. 217-19)

Such is the disconcerting complexity of the variegated worlds which exist beyond our well-known physical-material plane. But a question remains: Apart from the habitually dwelling denizens of these worlds, do human beings also have the ability to go to these worlds after they shed their physical bodies at death? If yes, to which of these worlds and up to what distance? And for how long do these disembodied beings stay there?

These and some other allied questions have troubled the human mind since the beginning of the recorded history of man. In our modern times these questions have acquired an added acuteness because of two factors.

The first factor may be formulated as follows: The scientific outlook with its totally materialistic basis and bias is at present almost sovereignly dominating the mind of man. According to this view, the possibility of the existence of any consciousness divorced from its material-physical vehicle is absurd, and a belief in such a possibility cannot be maintained even with the faintest shadow of rationality. So, the above-mentioned questions cannot have any basis in fact and, therefore, it is sheer waste of time and energy to make any attempt at answering them.

Such is the rational-materialistic proposition. But against this blatant assertion of the scientific mind of man, an average man's dissatisfied heart raises a voice of dissent and seeks to be somehow

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reassured that the materialistic hypothesis and its logical conclusions do not after all represent the whole truth. There must be something more there which modem science has not yet been able to grasp. Such being his innate belief, even a shred of "evidence" along this line is eagerly lapped up by the credulous heart of average man.

The second factor is more emotional and insistent. Whenever anyone in the circle of our near and dear ones falls, for whatever reason, a victim to death, and disappears from our view, apparently for all time to come, our bereaved heart refuses to accept this brute fact and likes to be assured that the dear departed whom we have physically lost is somehow maintaining his personal existence somewhere beyond the grave and that he is still bound to us with his former intimate relationship, and that, what is more, we may perhaps establish some communication with him by some non-scientific means.

In order to satisfy these two demands of the human heart, a new line of serious research has sprung up since the middle of the nineteenth century. This has been given the name of "Psychical Research"; and in its earlier phase even reputed orthodox scientists like Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr. Wallace and Dr. Crookes got associated with it, giving to this new research much credence and respectability.

Many bulky volumes embodying the findings of these "psychical" researchers have seen the light of day and reached the hands of eager people. As a result, words like "planchette" and "medium" have become quite familiar with most modem men. Of course, whether they repose any faith in their findings or not remains a separate open question. By the way, a "medium" is supposed to be an extraordinarily gifted human being who possesses the powers of clairaudience and clairvoyance and has acquired the surprising capacity of establishing a direct and conscious contact with disembodied souls, while plunged in a state of trance. It is claimed that once-living but now-dead departed beings can use these mediums as vehicles of transmission, give information through them, make requests and answer questions. Apart from these mediums, one can, it is said, use "planchettes" to establish communication

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with the disembodied souls through what is called "automatic writing".

Now the question is: How much truth is there in these claims of the "psychical" researchers? Do the "disembodied" beings really exist and come and communicate? Or, who knows, there is perhaps some as yet undiscovered natural explanation for these weird phenomena.

Much animated debate has been engaged in around these questions; many fat books have been written from both the sides, from those who believe in these things and also from those who do not believe.

The confirmed "non-believers" have taken a resolve not to repose any credence in these so-called "psychical" facts and pheomena, even if they are confronted with "direct" irrefutable proofs. For they advance the argument that, with the passage of time, surely a "natural" explanation will be forthcoming, although it is still beyond the access of the scientists of the present day.

This is the position of the cynics and the non-believers. The position of the "believers" is altogether different. They are by disposition rather credulous and catch at the slightest so-claimed "evidence" in order to receive some consolation that their near and dear "departed" ones are still in existence, although in the other worlds. To give an example of this category, we may cite here the following "true" story. This pertains to the years 1964-65.

The wife of a Bengali gentleman breathed her last in 1958. Their much-loved young son Abhay was then only nine years old. Just after six years, when Abhay was fifteen years old, he too suddenly passed away, leaving his forlorn father in utter distress. The gentleman was on the verge of losing his mental balance. Finally he decided to take recourse to the planchette-techniqe to invoke the departed "souls" of Abhay and his mother. The father claimed to have brought to him his wife and son many a time and acquired through them much interesting information regarding the other worlds and their affairs. After some time the gentleman contacted a few Sannyasis of a famous Math and, with their approval, brought out a medium-sized book in Bengali and gave it the name of Mayer Dak (The Call of the Mother). For satisfying the natural curiosity

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of our readers, we quote below two or three extracts from this book which are purported to be the record of the conversation of Abhay's soul with his father:

"Question: What were you doing? Answer: I was painting pictures. Q: Don't you wish to come back here? A: No. You too will come here to our place only after a few years. Mother speaks about you and weeps. Q: Do you sleep near your mother? A: I don't feel like sleeping. Q: What do you do then? A: I do painting; meditate some times. People here dub one as off-balance if he weeps. Q: Will I be able to see you when I come over there? A: Yes, surely. I shall stay here for a long time where I am now. Q: How are you keeping, Abhay? A: Very fine. There is great joy here. I have to go away soon today, for many are waiting for me. Q: Who were you in your last birth? A: Swami Brahmananda [the first President of the Ramakrishna Mission] whom Ramakrishna used to call 'Rakhal'. Q: What is your mother doing now? A: Mother wants to go out for a walk with me; therefore, she is calling me. Bye! Papa, see you another time." Etc.

Readers can easily realise how much inconsistency is present in this sort of planchette-account. It appears as if the other world beyond death is almost like a replica of our physical world, with all its ways and settings. We may easily conclude that it is surely not the "soul" of the adolescent boy Abhay who got attracted by the planchette and spoke all these things. But the question is: Who is it then who wrote these strange words through the agency of the planchette? We shall come back to this important question at its proper time in course of this chapter. For the moment, we would like to point out this much that the saddened heart of the deeply bereaved father of Abhay surely took all these answers to have actually come from his dead son and thus derived much consolation from this sort of intimate "conversation". And because of this strong belief he wrote inter alia in the Foreword to his above-mentioned book:

"Abhay, you have revealed to me that you were Swami

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Brahmanandaji in your last incarnation upon earth. What a glorious life it was! I feel myself highly blessed and privileged that you called me your father for nine years in this life. You have consoled me with your words from the beyond: "Papa, don't weep; I'm perfectly all right here." Abhay, the most consoling piece of information you have given me is that in a few years' time from now I shall go over there and meet you and your mother again. I have been counting the days and impatiently waiting for the destined day of transition and reunion." (op. cit., p. 8. Adapted.)

Strange are the ways of the human heart in its hopes and imaginations, once it turns irrational with blind expectations! No doubt that the supraphysical worlds exist beyond our physical plane, with their own characteristic beings. This too is true that a gifted human being can travel to these worlds and effectively function there after the dissolution of his body. But this is certain that cultured men of the present times brought up with a scientific temperament will vehemently contest these statements of Abhay's father and laugh them away as mere superstitions; for they will on no account admit anything which falls even slightly outside their rigidly held ambit of the materialistic doctrine, even if they are confronted with direct evidence to the contrary. With reference to this attitude of orthodox scientists the Mother once narrated a very interesting anecdote from her own life-experience. The full account is given in pages 415-16 of her book Entretiens 1957-58. Here is an abridged version of whatever is relevant to our present discussion:

The Mother knew a man of science, a person of real ability and acute intelligence. He had studied higher Science and held an important position.

He came in contact with a "medium" who had exceptional "psychic" attainments. The scientist used to attend all her "seances" with the idea of ascertaining if there was any tangible proof for the real existence of an invisible supraphysical world. He had seen in these seances all that could be seen, under the strictest scientific control and in the most fool-proof way possible: all the checks and

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balances asked for were provided down to the least detail.

One day, when the medium had gone into "trance", a "supraphysical" being appeared there dressed in a robe which looked somewhat like our present-day nylon. It was a case of genuine "materialisation". This visionary "woman" passed in front of the scientist and he, in spite of a previous warning not to do so, tore off a piece of her robe to prove or disprove its tangibility, and kept it with him.

The medium screamed and everything immediately disappeared. But the piece of robe remained in the scientist's hand, quite a concrete thing at that, and he gave it to the Mother. That was something really concrete and materially visible and tangible. The scientist could not assert in any way that it was a case of mere hallucination. But, in spite of all this, he did not believe anything! Of course, he could not explain how all this happened and he wondered who was after all mad, he himself or the others or... Well, even all this striking demonstration had not helped his knowedge of the supraphysical reality progress even half a step forward. (Adapted from CWM, Vol. 9, pp. 367-68)

Such is the state of mind and the biased attitude of the scientifically oriented men of our times. So, we need not get unduly bothered by their blatant opinion dogmatically asserted as regards the question of whether the supraphysical reality exists or not.

Just now we spoke about a particular medium referred to by the Mother and her strange peformance. We feel like citing here two or three other instances from amongst the host of striking phenomena which have been revealed to us by the careful researches of psychical science. Readers will surely enjoy these accounts and come to appreciate the truth of the oft-quoted saying "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". There are, indeed, supraphysical worlds and supraphysical forces whose actions and influences upon our physical world are not at all ethereal and imaginary but quite concrete and verifiable. But that does not, of course, necessarily mean that a disembodied soul like that of the boy Abhay comes down from the other world and delivers messages to a living man.

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We shall discuss later on what the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have to say about the matter. But for the moment let us listen to the narration of some stories; oh no, not stories but real authentic events.

First Event. - Dr. Calderone and his friend were both of them confirmed disbelievers in the existence of other worlds beyond the body's death. They decided that if and when they would die, the first one to die - if he continued to maintain any post-mortem personal existence - would come to his friend's house and break the glass cover of his table lamp.

The contact between the two friends was somehow cut off for many months. Suddenly, one day Dr. Calderone heard some unaccountable sound on his lamp cover. This continued for a few days and then one day the cover was broken and fell down on the table below in two separate pieces. The doctor was puzzled, and he became still more puzzled when news came to him that his friend had died a few days back. (Vide B. Addy Collins, Death Is Not the End, p. 69)

Second Event. - There were two cousin sisters, Julia and Benja by name. Both of them were agnostics and did not have any perceptible belief in conscious existence after death.

One day they brought a rather long piece of brick, broke it into two unequal parts, and the two sisters took one piece each and hid the pieces separately in two rather inaccessible locations. Neither Julia nor Benja knew where the other sister had hidden her own brick-piece. Also, each one left, accompanying her brick-piece, a short message enclosed in a sealed envelope. It goes without saying that neither of the two cousin sisters was at all aware of the nature and content of the message the other one arbitrarily wrote.

After a considerable lapse of time Benja died. There was nothing particularly strange or unexpected in that. But what was surprising to the utmost degree was the fact that the so-claimed "spirit" of Benja took the help of a planchette to reveal the place where she had hidden her brick-piece; she indicated too that her message was "Julia, Do right and be happy. - Benja."

On search, the brick-piece was found exactly at the spot indicated through the planchette and the message too was confirmed.

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How to explain this phenomenon? (Ibid., p. 70)

Third Event. - One disembodied "spirit" who gave her name as Patience Worth often used to possess the consciousness of the famous American medium, Mrs. Curran, when the latter used to be in trance. Patience got many interesting things written through the agency of Curran. Thus, through her "dictation" Curran wrote quite a few novels of a high literary quality, also an epic of seventy thousand words bearing the title, Telka.

The "spirit" announced that she had migrated from the British Isles to U.S.A. in the seventeenth century A.D. and was eventually killed by the Red Indians. Obviously, the seventeenth century spoken English current in U.S.A. in those far-off days was the language of communication of the "Spirit", Patience Worth, and the Epic, Telka, was dictated to the medium in this uncanny language. But Mrs. Curran, the medium, was in no way in her personal life even remotely acquainted with the seventeenth century mixed dialect of U.S.A. The strangest fact of all is that expert linguists and philologists have thoroughly analysed the style and vocabulary of Telka and found them in perfect conformity with the seventeenth century American spoken English. How was it possible?

We cannot but recall in this connection the sadhana-opuscule, Yogic Sadhan, of Sri Aurobindo. The Mahayogi has publicly stated that he himself was not the author of this precious book; rather, he received the whole thing in "automatic writing".

There is no use multiplying instances here. But this is a well-attested fact that all those who seriously deal with psychical research have often found that a plank of their doors or windows suddenly opens or closes with a bang, or their writing table starts unaccountably shaking, or, what is still more striking, an object suddenly "materialises" and falls in front of them. Have we not heard or read about the mysterious stone-throwing incident in Sri Aurobindo's house, "Guest House", in the early twenties of the last century? These bricks appeared as if from nowhere, fell down on the ground, and were collected in a heap by the inmates of the house. Sri Aurobindo himself has described this event of "materialisation" in course of his long interview with Dilip Kumar Roy; the Mother too has narrated this particular event in one of her Class

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Talks to the Ashramites assembled in the "Playground"; and Nolini Kanta Gupta has written about it in great detail in one of the chapters of his Reminiscences.

Apart from this well-documented incident of brick-throwing in the "Guest House", behind which was the malevolent attitude and action of a local occultist, Sri Aurobindo has referred to another incident of this sort of "apport" ("sudden appearance of a material object in the visible world as if from nowhere"). This is till now known only to a handful of persons, for its description is still confined to the Diary pages of his manuscript, Record of Yoga. When the book sees the light of day in the near future, readers can read it there and be sure of its authenticity. The incident was somewhat like this:

One day Sri Aurobindo was standing on the long verandah of his house, of the same house which we have referred to above as the "Guest House". All of a sudden he saw a red-coloured Palash flower appearing in the air a few yards away from where he was standing, then slowly moving along a horizontal trajectory - and not parabolically as it normally should be according to the laws of Dynamics - and finally dropping down on the ground near his feet. There was no Palash tree near by nor was there visible any bird which might have possibly carried it in its beak. Then? What could be the explanation of this strange phenomenon?

The only purpose behind all this elaboration is to carry this message to our non-biased readers that there are indeed more things in the universe than are acknowledged to be possible by the materialistic scientists. Readers will not do anything abnormal and irrational if they accept that there are other worlds and other functioning forces than those that conventional orthodox science deals with. These various worlds and forces are, of course, beyond the cognisability of the normal undeveloped consciousness of man. Also, readers need not nurture any doubt even about the existence of many types of supraphysical beings in the world. And this too is true that a man, after his physical death, does not vanish into nothingness but can quite normally move in these supraphysical planes of existence.

But one critical question still remains to be answered: Who

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moves or what moves in the supraphysical worlds? And where does he go? And what is the final term of his supraphysical journey? These and some other related questions are very very relevant and we proceed to discuss them now.

Let us begin our discussion from the very start; that is to say, from what happens at the moment of death. Does the departing being's consciousness remain active and functional even at that critical moment of transition? How does the being depart from the physical body and what happens immediately after that? After we have adequately settled the answers to these questions, it will be the proper time to discuss the supraphysical itinerary and the final destiny of the departed soul.

First Question

Does the dying man remain conscious at the moment of

transition from the body?

Be it clearly noted that in our present discussion we are not observing the situation from outside; we are trying to see from within. But what does this queer statement mean? It means that it is quite possible that the attending physicians, after careful clinical investigation, may rightly declare that the patient has passed into coma or that he has already died. We are not contesting their observations and conclusions. But what we are now seeking to know is whether the dying person retains some sort of subjective consciousness even when there is no trace of its objective manifestation outside and the patient has totally lost all control over his limbs and organs and their physiological functionings. Has not the Mother spoken about the "body-spirit" which can continue to remain in the body for many hours even after the patient has been declared "clinically dead"? She says that a person cannot be rightly declared "dead" till definite signs of decomposition have appeared in the physical body.

Whatever that may be, we are going to recount here a very interesting true story which will indirectly prove that some sort of

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residual consciousness may remain in the "dead" body of someone who has lost all control over his physical frame and all its functionings. A very strange situation indeed, - totally unbelievable at first sight. Yet, Dr. Carrington, the author of Death: Its Causes and Phenomena, saw himself with his own eyes a case like this and has recounted it in this way:

A lady known to me was lying on her death-bed. She realized that her death was imminent. Hence, she was articulating her last wishes in a very faint voice to her relatives who were sitting close by. But she became progressively so weak that no audible voice could be heard coming from her mouth. But all that she wanted to communicate was not yet over. Therefore, through some barely perceptible gesture she made it known to her relatives that they should insert a pencil in between her fingers and a pad of paper just underneath. This instruction was duly carried out. But what next followed was beyond all expectation. The fingers of the dying lady went on writing on the paper meaningful sentences quite rational and consistent. Very soon all the orthodox signs of an impending death appeared. The rattling sound was there in the lady's throat; her hands and legs and other limbs went on losing their warmth and became more and more cold; the lips lost their sheen and became bluish-white; the pulse-beats became fainter and fainter and then stopped altogether. This was followed by the cessation of breathing.

Any one looking at the lady at that time from outside would have surely declared that the just-dead body of the lady was lying limp and still on her bed; but with one sole exception. And what an extraordinary exception it was! The fingers of the "dead" lady were still in movement, wrote for a few seconds more on the stretched paper underneath, even tried to make some necessary corrections, and then became motionless for ever. (op. cit., p. 308. Adapted with abridgment.)

Dr. Carrington concluded his narration with some pertinent questions like this; Was consciousness still active in the lady's body which was apparently dying or even already dead? If yes, where was it residing? In the brain of the lady? But her cerebral

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cells were then, to all intents and purposes, quite dead and nonfunctional. Then?

Now, our question is: Is this an exceptional case or a general one with universal application? In other words, does the consciousness in every dying man's case remain active although withdrawn, may be for a short while, even when the entire physical body is dead?

Leaving our readers to speculate on these tricky questions, let us pass on to the consideration of our second query.

Second Question

What is the process of the exit of the being from the dying

body?

We are quite aware of the fact that the orthodox physicians will laugh out at such a question and retort quite bluntly: "Only someone with an ill-balanced mind can ask such an absurd and meaningless question. For, exit of what? Nothing at all exits. The only reality is that all the organic functionings of the body come to a dead stop at death. This is all that one needs to know. Death does not admit of any further question concerning the 'Beyond'."

We know that most scientific-minded people of our day will answer in the same vein and try to taunt our query into silence. But in spite of that we shall still be insistent on raising our questions and seek for a satisfactory answer. For, our present chapter is not meant for the cynics and the disbelievers; it addresses itself to those spiritual seekers who are honestly eager to know more about the process of death and what follows thereafter in the occult world. And it is for them that we are recording here two narrations which are, at the same time, amusing, interesting, and instructive. The first account is based on the personal experience of a clairvoyant sadhaka of our own times, Andrew Jackson Davis by name. The second account derives from what is written in the pages of ancient spiritual literature of India.

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Andrew Jackson's Account

"I was sitting very close to the body of the dying man. Very soon, all the signs of an imminent death appeared, including what are commonly called the agonies of death. But to my clairvoyant vision these agonies bore an altogether different meaning.

"I 'saw' that the soul, for whatever reason, was trying to disrupt the close relationship it had built up with the body for so many years, and was seeking to become free from the physical vesture. But the organs and limbs of the body were resisting this disruption. And this violent resistance was being translated as physical 'agonies'.

"Suddenly did I see that the head of the dying man was covered over with a soft golden light and the interior of his brain got filled up with vital energy. In fact, I could observe that the cerebral cortex of the dying man was gradually drawing all the 'vital breath' from different limbs of the body and concentrating it in itself. I could see too that in the measure that the other parts of the body were becoming limp and cold, the brain itself was becoming brighter and brighter.

"I saw then to my utter surprise that a new and different resplendent head was slowly emerging out of the sphere of golden light that had covered the dying man's head. It was then followed by the emergence of other limbs like the shoulders, the hands, the legs, etc. Finally, there appeared before my eyes another full-fledged human body which resembled the dying man's body in many ways but was free from many of its defects and imperfections. This was, in fact, the 'subtle body' of the exiting soul. I saw this body tied to the physical body with a silvery thread. This subtle body was as if floating in the air just above the head of the dying man who was all the time lying on his sick bed. Next, I saw a strong current of bright electricity flowing in between the head of the dying man and the legs of the floating subtle body which was upright in position by now.

"After some time the binding thread was snapped, the electric current stopped, and the subtle body got freed from the prison of the physical body, and sped away." A very uncanny account, indeed!

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Scriptural Account

Let us now give in brief the scriptural account of the way in which the soul of a dying man leaves the physical body and makes its journey elsewhere. Many accounts have been detailed in books such as (i) Yoga-Vasistha Maharamayana, (ii) Garuda and Brahmavaivarta Puranas, (iii) Kausitaki Brahmana, (iv) Chhandogya Upanishad, (v) Aranyaka Shruti.

One Janaki Mukhopadhyaya wrote a book titled Mṛtyu-path or The Way of Death in the early part of the twentieth Century. He discussed in that book most lucidly and with great competence the scriptural speculations and conclusions, as prevalent in ancient India, concerning the process of dying and the post-mortem itinerary of the soul. If the readers can manage to procure a copy of the now defunct edition of this book, they are advised to go carefully through this book by Mr. Mukhopadhyaya. In that way they will come to know many unknown facts and the doors of many mysteries will be opened to them. The very titles of some of the chapters of the book make it clear how many recondite subjects the author has dealt with and all strictly based on scriptural quotations. Some of the representative titles of the chapters are:

(1) "The chamber in which a man dies"; (2) "The Way the subtle body is formed"; (3) "The process of exit of the subtle body"; (4) "The Ways along which the soul travels"; (5) "The Way of the Fathers" and "The Way of the gods"; (6) "The role of the nāḍis in determining the post-mortem course of the departing spirit"; (7) "The subtle body and the causal body"; (8) "The pañca-kośas or the Five Envelopes of the being"; (9) "Variations in the process of death"; (10) "Karma and its consequences"; (11) "The Way of judgment"; (12) "Different heavens and hells"; (13) "Value of funeral rites"; etc.

We refrain deliberately from discussing all these topics here; for, that will needlessly extend the scope and length of the chapter. The only point of importance we keep a note of here is that much of the nature of the path the departed spirit travels after death and its final destination, depends on the thoughts, imaginations and the state of consciousness of the dying man. For, this final

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attitude at the critical moment of transition lights up a subtle nāḍī in the body and the departing spirit receives a guiding clue from this light as regards the gateway through which to pass out of the body and the way to follow thereafter, and the destination of its journey. This will shape also the nature and quality of the experiences, positive or negative, pleasant or unpleasant, the disembodied being has to undergo in the supraphysical worlds after death.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother also have referred many a time and on many different occasions to the capital importance of the psychological attitude of a dying man at the moment of his critical transition. For example, here is an adapted citation from the Mother:

What happens after death depends absolutely on the condition in which one dies and on his last wish, also on the resolution of his psychic being. (Entretiens 1955, p. 98)

Here is a second extract from the Mother's writings:

"The most important thing in this case is the last state of consciousness in which one was while both were joined together, when the vital being and the body were still united. So the last state of consciousness, one may say the last desire or the last hope or the last aspiration, has a colossal importance for the first impact the being has with the invisible world." (CWM, Vol. 6, p. 449)

But it goes without saying that much previous preparation is needed on the part of the patient if he would like to be able to maintain the right attitude at the time of passing. A simple mechanically formulated thought or wish occupying the surface zone of consciousness of the dying man will not deliver the goods. What is needed is that a persistent sadhana beforehand over a long period of time should have pushed the aspiration depthward to come into contact with the psychic part of the being. As Sri Aurobindo has pointed out:

"The dying wish of the man is only something on the surface - it may be determined by the psychic and so help to shape the future but it does not determine the psychic's choice. That is something behind the veil. It is not outer consciousness's action that

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determines the inner process, but the other way round," (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., pp. 443-44)

There is something interesting associated with the last action and decision of the psychic part of a dying man. First we give a traditional account, to be followed by a quotation from Sri Aurobindo detailing his own experience.

It is written in the afore-mentioned book, The Way of Death, by Janaki Mukhopadhyaya that on some rare occasions a part of the decision of the psychic being as regards the pathway the departed jīvātmā will follow after exiting from the physical body, floats up in the consciousness of the dying man around the time of his death, and the person on his death-bed starts ruminating on this. This is what the author actually writes:

"A man may have done so many deeds in course of his long or short lifetime. He may have been especially interested in some of these activities. When the agonies of death rack the dying man with unbearable pains, he clean forgets all his past actions excepting those few which might have engaged his attention and interest with particular intensity. These particular past actions gain at the moment of passing an unusual luminosity and get reflected in the dying man's consciousness. It is through their influence and direction that the departing spirit finds its proper way of egress, and the supraphysical path to follow in the other world; it finally goes to its resting place according to its saṁskāras and conditionings shaped in the lifetime before death." (Translated.)

Well, all this relates to the outer cosciousness of the dying man. But what happens to his inner consciousness behind the veil when he is departing? Sri Aurobindo writes:

"Sometimes, however, there are signs or fragments of the inner action that come up on the surface, e.g. some people have a vision or remembrance of the circumstances of their past in a panoramic flash at the time of death, that is the psychic's review of the life before departing." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 444)

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It has been, we hope, made clear by now that the final act of departure from the body should not be treated as a light affair; it should be taken with all the seriousness it deserves. For, much of the future course of the departing being and its post-mortem destination depends upon the state of consciousness of the man lying on his death-bed. To turn the physical death into a "glorious experience", as the Mother would say, to make it really auspicious and fruitful, from the point of view of the progress of the soul, a great preliminary preparation is necessary. It is not enough that the friends and relatives of the person in question make adequate arrangements for the proper nursing and medical treatment of the patient; we should never forget that the consciousness of the dying person who may be very dear to us, does not end with the dissolution of his physical body. It becomes, thus, necessary to attend to the inner preparation of the consciousness of the patient even before he actually dies, if we would like that his post-mortem journey in the other worlds becomes smooth and beneficial to his soul.

Now, this pre-death preparation has to come from two sides; from the side of the patient himself and from the side of his attending relatives who may be near him.

The patient, if he is conscious at all, should try to withdraw his mind and heart from all earthly desires and attachments and fix his consciousness solely upon his future spiritual progress and all that is eternal and infinite.

The friends and relatives should, on their side, try to create an atmosphere of quiet sanctity and peace around the dying patient; they should seek to raise the latter's consciousness to a higher level and help him fix it there.

In olden times, there was effective arrangement for this pre-death preparation. A medieval Christian religious writer, Laurent Scupoli by name, wrote an entire book with this laudable purpose in view. The significant French title of the book was: Méthode pour assister les malades et les aider à bien mourir. - "Method for attending sick men and helping them to die well."

In Tibet there was prevalent a very good custom not very long ago. The occultly trained Lamas used to sit near a dying person

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and recite in a cadenced voice the mantric verses from a religious text called "Bardo Thodal". Through their grave and meaningful sonorous recital the Lamas used to fix the dying man's consciousness on to a relatively higher level, far removed from the occupations and preoccupations of the fast-vanishing physical life of the person. They used to narrate within the hearing distance of the dying man the descriptions of the different supraphysical worlds and tell him where he would be on each successive day of the first week after death and all that he would see and experience there, also what he was expected to do there for his other-worldly welfare.

When we leave aside those olden days and their wise traditional practices and come down to our present times and consider the situation prevailing around a dying patient, we cannot but be aggrieved and dumbfounded at the colossal amount of ignorance and foolishness manifested by modem men who are obsessed with the materialistic-scientific world-view that dominates their mind and heart.

What a sordid and forlorn setting in which a man of sufficient means dies nowadays! To lie on the sick-bed of a Government Hospital or of a private Nursing Home; being encumbered with a battery of medical tubes and gadgets; and far away from the anxiously sought-after faces of one's relatives: Is that the ideal situation to breathe one's last?

And a thousand shames on his near and dear ones! They meet the expenses of a proper medical treatment, pay off the fees due to the attending physicians, and, at times, engage paid nurses to cater to the needs of the grievously sick man. And they think that they have done all that was expected of them. For, what other responsibility could they possibly have! What a foolish idea. Let us listen to what the Mother has to say in this connection:

"...the most important thing in this case is the last state of consciousness [of the dying man].... And here the responsibility of the people around the dying man is much greater than they think. If they can help him to enter his highest consciousness, they will do him the greatest service they can. But usually what they do is to cling to him as much as they can, and to pull him towards them

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with a fierce selfishness; the result, you see, is that instead of being able to withdraw in a slightly higher consciousness which will protect him in his exit, he is gripped by material things and it is a terrible inner battle to free himself from both his body and his attachments." (CWM, Vol. 6, pp. 449-50)

Let us now examine more closely in our next chapter where the disembodied being finds himself just after he has left his physical body. In other words, what is the first step in his beyond-death journey? It is obvious that what will be said here in answer to this question is entirely based upon the published writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

But before we pass on to the actual consideration of this important theme, we feel like uttering a note of caution to our sympathetic readers and a word of humble request to those others who are by disposition agnostics, atheists and hypercritical. First to the second category of readers:

From now on, in course of our entire present book, we shall be forced to refer more and more to the supraphysical other worlds and their modalities and functions. We know very well that you do not believe in these things. For your basic position is as follows:

The belief in the existence of other worlds and in the possibility of communication between their powers and beings and the human race is an age-long superstition. All so-called evidence or intimations of its truth are fundamentally false and undeserving of inquiry because incompatible with the axiomatic truth that only Matter and the material world and its experiences are real; all other experience purporting to be real must be either a hallucination or an imposture or a subjective result of superstitious credulity and imagination or else, if a fact, then explicable by a physical cause; no evidence could be accepted of such a fact unless it is objective and physical in its character; even if the fact be very apparently supraphysical, it cannot be accepted as such unless it is totally unexplainable by any other imaginable hypothesis or conceivable conjecture. (Vide Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pp. 771-72)

Such being your confirmed position, we do not expect you to accept a priori any of the statements or conclusions of this book as true. But yet we invite you to go carefully through the pages of

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this book. You will surely find much of interest here, if not a "truth" of your supposition.

Now to the first category of readers who are rather believers and spiritually oriented. We tell them:

Well, it may be that you are at times confronted, nay overwhelmed, with critical observations as those which have been stated above in the preceding paragraphs. You may then become confused and be almost on the point of losing your faith in the supraphysical. But remember at those critical moments of doubt and misgivings that all the postulates, presuppositions and arguments of the materialistic thinkers are not foolproof but fallacious at their bottom and therefore lacking in convincing truth. Space and time do not permit us to pinpoint these fallacies here. But know for certain that "all our spiritual and psychic experience bears affirmative witness, brings us always a constant and, in its main principles, an invariable evidence of the existence of higher worlds, freer planes of existence." (The Life Divine, p. 787)

"...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 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." (Ibid., p. 775)

So, readers, you need not feel embarrassed, because of your conviction, before the sneering look of the orthodox materialist scientists. You may rather boldly declare with Sri Aurobindo:

"Not having bound ourselves down, like so much of modern thought, to the dogma that only physical experience or experience based upon the physical sense is true, the analysis of physical experience by the reason alone verifiable, and all else only result of physical experience and physical existence and anything beyond this an error, self-delusion and hallucination, we are free to accept this evidence and to admit the reality of these [supraphysical] planes." (The Life Divine, pp. 787-88)

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After these separate messages to the two classes of our readers, we may now conveniently pass on to the consideration of this tricky question: "Where does the Jiva go after death?"

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