People ask, “What should a person do to prepare to die?” Everyone is prepared to die, and whether it happens suddenly or slowly, intuitively each individual knows exactly what he is experiencing and about to experience. Death, like birth, has been repeated so many times that it is no mystery to the soul. The only problem comes with conflicting beliefs, which produce fear and anxiety about death. This temporary ignorance soon subsides when the failing forces of the physical body reach a certain level. At this point, the superconscious intelligence, the soul itself, is there. We can compare this to restless sleep and deep sleep. ¶When one knows he is going to depart the physical body, he should first let everybody know that he knows and give relatives security by explaining to them that soon they won’t be seeing him in a physical body anymore. He should consciously go over his wealth, his properties, be the executor of his own will. From the Hindu point of view, the knowledge of one’s imminent departure begins the sannyāsa āśrama for the individual. In this āśrama, the devotee traditionally divests himself of all material belongings, effecting a conscious death before the actual death. He is the executor of his own will, taking care of everybody and not leaving these things to others to deal with after his passing. ¶After everything is settled, all personal possessions disposed of, then he begins meditation and awaits the fruitful hour, trying to exit through the highest chakra of the attainment of this life. Each chakra is a door through which we can depart. The dying should always remember that the place where one will reincarnate is the place that he is thinking about prior to death. So, choose your desires wisely. The last thoughts just before death are the most powerful thoughts in creating the next life. One must also realize that if he and others are aware that he will soon depart, others in the inner worlds also realize he will soon be making his transition and are busy making adjustments and preparations for his arrival. ¶With a sudden death—uncalled for, unbidden and unexpected—a totally different sequence of events occurs. There is no settlement of affairs, and the chaotic situation, emotional and otherwise, persists in the inner worlds and even into the next life. Property is not distributed, and nothing is settled. Negative karmas and positive karmas are all cut short. The situation can be summed up in one word, unfulfillment. Once in the inner world, the deceased feels this unfulfillment and is restless and anxious to get back. He is in a place he did not intend to be, and does not want to stay. So, in the inner world he is with a whole group of those who almost immediately reenter the flesh, for he is too agitated to stay very long on the inner planes. It’s like an emergency ward or intensive care unit. ¶Chances are, it would be difficult for such a soul to get a birth. Perhaps there would be an abortion or miscarriage a couple of times before there was a successful birth. These are the disturbed children we see, emotionally distraught, needing special care. They cry a lot. Some of the damage that occurred in the previous birth, some dramatic event experienced in the past life, perhaps the cause of death itself, may even show up in this life as a birthmark. ¶In preparation for death, one can soften the karmas of future births by making amends with others, settling scores, doing everything to tie up loose ends, seeking the forgiveness of those harmed, to get the mental-emotional matters of this life all worked out. ¶In some cases, this process may prolong life, for with the release of old tensions and conflicts there comes a new freedom which may reflect even in the health of the body. Here one’s guru and community elders would advise the appropriate course of action, discerning whether dharma will be best fulfilled by returning to worldly responsibilities or, as a mendicant, distributing all worldly possessions and leaving the community, going off to Varanasi or some other holy place and awaiting the fruitful moment. For one with no family ties, it would be creating an unnecessary karma to return, taking everything back that one gave away and then continue on as before. If people he knew visit him at this time, he should not know them. He is like a sannyāsin, free to give of his wisdom. His eyes see them; his mind does not. This traditional practice is for the attainment of moksha, or an exceptional birth of one’s own choosing as a herald of dharma. §
As the physical forces wane, whether at sudden death or a lingering death, the process is the same. All the gross and subtle energy goes into the mental and emotional astral body. In the case of a sudden death, the emotions involved are horrendous. In the case of a lingering death, the increasing mental abilities and strength of thought is equally so. As we know, intense emotion manifests intense emotion, and intense thoughts manifest intense thoughts. These intensities would not remanifest until entering a flesh body again. This is why it was previously explained that sudden death—with its intense emotion, the intellect not having been prepared for it—would produce difficulties in getting born and in the first few years of getting raised, leading to miscarriage and abortion and later child abuse. All these experiences are a continuation of the emotional upheaval that happened at the sudden departure. The emotional upheaval of the person is compounded by the emotional upheaval of the friends, family and business associates when they finally hear of the sudden departure. Similarly, when that person reincarnates, the family and friends and business associates are aware of the special needs of the child, anticipating the crying and emotional distress, which eventually subsides. ¶However, if the person was prepared for death, no matter when it might arrive, sudden or otherwise, his mental and emotional astral body would have already been well schooled in readiness. Sudden death to such a soul is a boon and a blessing. The next birth would be welcoming and easy, one wherein he would be well cared for and educated by loving parents. ¶Nevertheless, the thought force of the departing person is very strong, as his energy transmutes into the mental body. That’s why nobody wants the departing person to hate them or curse them, because the thought force is so strong. Even after he has departed, that same thought force will radiate many blessings or their opposite on the family or individuals. In the case of blessings, this is the basis of ancestor worship. Ancestors are even more immediate than the Gods, so to speak. They will help you hurt somebody, or to help somebody, depending on who they are. Ancestors are even more accessible than the Gods, because you don’t have to be religious to contact them. ¶People wonder whether death is a painful process, such as in the case of cancer victims. Cancer, which produces a lot of pain, is a process of life which results in death, but death itself is not painful. Death itself is blissful. You don’t need any counseling. You intuitively know what’s going to happen. Death is like a meditation, a samādhi. That’s why it’s called mahā (great) samādhi. A Hindu is prepared from childhood for that mahāsamādhi. Remember, pain is not part of the process of death. That is the process of life, which results in death. ¶When somebody is about to have a tremendous accident and, for example, sees his car is going to run into a truck or his plane is going to crash, he experiences no pain whatsoever, as he dies before he dies. §
People always lament when someone dies quickly, saying, “His life was cut short so suddenly.” But with such a death there is no pain, as the soul knows it’s coming. It’s really so much better than a slow, lingering death. The problem comes when doctors bring the dying back. Then a lot of pain is experienced. The doctors should let them die. ¶To make heroic medical attempts that interfere with the process of the patient’s departure is a grave responsibility, similar to not letting a traveler board a plane flight he has a reservation for, to keep him stranded in the airport with a profusion of tears and useless conversation. Prolonging the life of the individual body must be done by the individual himself. He needs no helping hands. Medical assistance, yes, is needed to cauterize wounds, give an injection of penicillin and provide the numerous helpful things that are available. But to prolong life in the debilitated physical body past the point that the natural will of the person has sustained is to incarcerate, to jail, to place that person in prison. The prison is the hospital. Prison is the sanitarium. The guards are the life-support machines and the tranquilizing drugs. Cellmates are others who have been imprisoned by well-meaning professionals who make their living from prolonging the flickering life in the physical body. The misery of the friends, relatives, business associates and the soul itself accumulates and is shared by all connected to this bitter experience to be reexperienced in another time, perhaps another lifetime, by those who have taken on the grave responsibility of delaying a person’s natural time of departure. ¶Āyurvedic medicine seeks to keep a person healthy and strong, but not to interfere with the process of death. Kandiah Chettiar, one of the foremost devotees of Satguru Yogaswami, explained to me fifty years ago that even to take the pulse of a dying person is considered a sin, inhibiting the dying process. In summary, we can see that the experience of dying and death is as natural as birth and life. There is little mystery there to be understood. ¶To perpetuate life, you perpetuate will, desire and the fruition of desire. The constant performing of this function brings the actinic energies of the soul body into physical bodies. To give up one’s own personal desires is the first desire to perpetuate. Then to help others to fulfill their highest aspirations is the next challenge. Then to seek for ultimate attainment and fulfill that lingering desire takes a tremendous will. Then to lay a foundation for the betterment of peoples everywhere, in spreading the Sanātana Dharma to those open and ready to receive it and make it available to those who are not, is the ultimate challenge. This perpetuates life within the physical body, which of itself renews itself every seven years. §
Many have asked what is meant by leaving through a certain chakra at the point of death? Let’s take an example of a person of whom people say, “His mind is in his butt.” They mean his awareness is down at the bottom, so to speak. He is ogling pornography. He’s swearing, angry, self-indulgent all the time. That is the world he would go into if he died in this state of mind, the lower world of selfish self-gratification, where lust is not lust, but a way of life, for nothing else is happening but that—just lust, twenty-four hours a day. Or it is sometimes said, “She is such a motherly woman. She is all heart, really a sensitive lady.” That is where she would go at the moment of death—out through the throat chakra, the universal love chakra, and experience a heaven world beyond expectations, beyond descriptions of any kind. Just as a traveling businessman would go to a hotel where others have come for similar purposes, she would go to a world where everybody is a heart person. That is why you cannot spiritually unfold so much in the inner world, because everybody is the same in each stratum of consciousness. You would have to study and do disciplines to get into the next chakras, but you would never have the lower ones to contend with if you had not been in the lower ones during your physical life. ¶If somebody dies in the states of anger and fear, he goes into the lower worlds of those states of consciousness. And in that realm there would be hundreds of thousands of people in that same state of consciousness. Whatever is in the mind at that moment—a country, a family, community—will have a strong impact on where he goes in the inner world, and on the nature of future saṁskāras. The thoughts at death are the next saṁskāras of the astral body. Even if you have the thought, “When you’re dead, you’re dead,” your astral body might just float over your physical body and be “dead.” Someone would have to revive you and explain to you that you are in your astral body and are as alive as you ever were, but not physically. ¶At death, you leave through a nerve ganglia of consciousness, a chakra. Most people live in about three chakras, and they see-saw back and forth among those states of mind. Each one is a window, and at death it becomes a portal, a doorway. So, it is the state of mind at death that gets you into one loka or another within the Śivaloka, Devaloka, Pretaloka or Narakaloka. ¶The ideal is to leave through the top of the head, through the door of Brahman, to get into the Brahmaloka and not have to come back. The dying person should at the time of transition concentrate awareness at the top of his head and willfully draw up into it all the energies from the left and right legs and arms, one after another, then the energy within the entire torso, and all the energies within the spine, from the mūlādhāra chakra up into the ājñā and sahasrāra. With all the energies gathered at the top of his head, he will leave through the highest chakra he experienced this lifetime. This would put him in a great place in the inner world. ¶Maybe at age eighteen he reached the viśuddha chakra for a very short time. He will revive that experience just before death as he is going through the playback of his life, and he will go out through that chakra. But if he is thinking about lower things, he will go out through the lower chakras. If he goes out through a lower chakra, or portal, he can in the inner world eventually work his way back to the viśuddha chakra, with a lot of help from the devonic guides and their advisors, but he cannot go beyond it until he gets a new physical body. ¶The portal is where the physical eyes hook into or go into. Through that portal you go into that world. This is why a departing person, in the spirit of kaivalya, perfect detachment or aloneness, gazes at pictures of God, Gods and guru, and sings or listens to hymns sung by loved ones, so that the experience of death truly does take him to the highest plane he experienced in this birth, or even higher if he experienced a higher state in a previous birth. ¶The astral body carries the chakras. The chakras are in the astral body. The astral body lives in the physical body, and when death comes, it is going to live without the physical body. The same chakras are within it. At the moment of death, you have the opportunity to stabilize yourself in the highest chakra you have experienced in this life.§
The tunnel of light that is experienced by so many people at the point of death is the portal they are going through, the window, the chakra. It is a tunnel, and it has distance, because it takes time, consciousness, to go from one end to the other. Passing through the tunnel is leaving this world and going into another. You do that in meditation, too. You leave the light of the physical plane and go into the light in the inner world. Death takes place in a short period, but is a foreboding affair to those who have never meditated. But dying is not such a dramatic experience really. Every night you “die” and leave your physical body. It is very similar. Every night mystics leave their physical body, go and meet and converse with other mystics on the inner planes. That’s why they know each other when they meet on the physical plane. Samādhi, the exalted meditative state, which literally means “holding together completely,” is also a word used to describe dying. Why is that? Because deep contemplation is similar to a death experience; only the silver cord is not separated. This cord is an astral-prānic thread that connects the astral body through the navel to the physical body. It is a little like an umbilical cord. The only full separation comes when the cord is cut at mahāsamādhi, the true death of the physical body. People die all the time, but if the cord is not broken, they come back. You die all the time. The cord being broken makes for a twenty-four-hour consciousness in the inner world, as compared to a sixteen-hour consciousness in the physical world. ¶Many people wish that they were dead and give up on life, look at death as an escape rather than a fulfillment. These cumulative thoughts and desires can create the near-death experience. The welcoming devonic helpers of Lord Yama, the benevolent God of the death experience, don’t pay any attention, because they know the person is not going to die. The person thinks he is going to die, but they know he is not. He has just conjured it up. Just like a conjured illness. ¶If a person knows he is terminally ill, that knowledge is a blessing, for he can prepare. He should not hesitate to tell his relatives he is going to die, and that is a wonderful blessing for them, as they can prepare for his great departure. Now all know he has finally arrived at the end of his prārabdha karmas and is going to fly. In turn, family and friends should release him, be happy—he is going to be happy with no physical body—for they know they will be as close to him in his astral and soul body as they were in his physical body. They will visit him every night when they sleep, in the inner worlds, and learn many things from him as to how to prepare for their own great departure, be it sudden or prolonged. Don’t cry; you will make him unhappy. You should be happy for him, because he is going to be happy. It is not a sad occasion. For Hindus, death is a most exalted state, an incredible moment that you spend your whole life preparing for. Birth is the unhappy occasion. Death should be a big party. He has just gone through his day of Brahma. ¶The sadness at death comes from Western attitudes. Western thought has to be reversed. Here a child comes into birth. It is sad, because he was all right before he was born. Now his prārabdha karmas are going to start to explode. He has to deal with his past, which he did not have to deal with in the Devaloka. He has a chance to make new karmas. The time of birth is the grave time. When he dies, that means that section of the jyotisha is finished and he can go and have a great rest and be with intelligent people. It is great inside there and difficult out here. ¶When people tell me they or a loved one have cancer, AIDS or some other incurable disease, my counsel is this. Everyone dies, but it is a blessing to know when you are going to die, because then you can prepare for it, make a decision whether you are going to be reborn, do intense sādhanas, make preparations. Eastern men don’t fight terminal cancer or AIDS. They go to an astrologer or palmist, ascertain their time of death, then prepare themselves. It’s really a blessing. It’s best not to fight it or “cure it,” since you are interrupting your timing. Just let it happen. Heed the wisdom of the Vedas, “When a person comes to weakness, be it through old age or disease, he frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, a fig or a berry releases itself from its stalk.” ¶Hindus go to special sacred places to die, because that’s where holy people live, in that part of the astral plane. That place has access to other planets, or to the moon. A lot of people go to the moon when they die and live there. Jews who die go to Israel. That’s their holy land. You can get caught in the astral plane or some bardo mind-flow that would contain you for a long time, and then get a bad birth if you do not go to a special place to die. So, you want at least to die near a temple. A temple is connected to the three worlds. We brought India to the West with our temples and by encouraging more to be built. These days, Indian Hindus don’t mind dying in the West since all the temples are here. They love all the temples they have built, especially our Kadavul Temple, for it feels so sacred to them. All of the temples in the West are connected to other temples in Sri Lanka and India.§
A lot of people who are about to die do not believe in life after death, so they remain hovering over their physical body when it is lifeless. Astral-plane helpers have to come and “wake them up” and tell them that their physical body is dead and explain that they are all right and are alive in their astral body. It is often not an easy process getting them readjusted. ¶Is there really a Lord Yama, a Lord of Death, devotees often wonder? The answer is yes, not only He, but there are a lot of Lord Yamas, a wide group of well-trained helpers. These tireless inner-plane attendants work, as part of the Yama group, with the doctors and nurses who are involved with terminal cases, those who assist in the transition process, those who take care of disposing of bodies. These are the Yama helpers in the physical world. Executioners, murderers and terrorists are a less noble part of the Yama group. Anyone, other than family and close friends and religious helpers, who is involved in the transitional process two weeks before and after death is part of the Yama group, including ambulance drivers, hospice staff, nurses, morticians, medics, autopsy staff, insurance agents, grave diggers, wood cutters who prepare fuel for funeral pyres, body baggers and coffin makers. Medical doctors and nurses who secretly err in their practice, after dying, join Lord Yama’s recruits in the inner world as prāyaschitta to mitigate the karma they created. ¶I am speaking especially about modern doctors who operate too freely, even when sometimes it may not be necessary. It is not uncommon that the patient dies on the operating table due to a known mistake on the surgeon’s part. Yet, somehow or other, physicians are regarded by the public as monarchs, Gods, above the law. But the karma relating to manslaughter nevertheless is constant and unfailingly takes effect in this life or another. A common civilian, or the same doctor, running down a pedestrian would naturally be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, fined and maybe jailed. But the secret manslaughters are never admitted, never accounted for; no one is held accountable—except that the unrelenting law of karma reigns as supreme judge and jury. ¶There is an entire industry that lives on the fact of death. If a doctor says, “Two weeks to live,” then the inner-plane Yamas are alerted and step in. Lord Yama is Lord Restraint, restraining life and getting it started again on the other side. Then the Yama workers, who are like nurses, say, “You are Catholic; you go to Rome. You are Jewish; you go to Jerusalem. You are Muslim; you go to Mecca. You are Hindu; you go to Varanasi,” and so forth. In the lower astral it’s all segregated. In the higher worlds it is all oneness. ¶In preparing the body for cremation, embalming should not be done. It is painful to the astral body to have the physical body cut or disturbed seriously within seventy-two hours after death. The soul can see and feel this, and it detains him from going on. As soon as you tamper with his physical body, he gets attached, becomes aware that he has two bodies, and this becomes a problem. Ideally, when you die, your physical body goes up in flames, and immediately you know it’s gone. You now know that the astral body is your body, and you can effortlessly release the physical body. But if you keep the old body around, then you keep the person around, and he is aware that he has two bodies. He becomes earthbound, tied into the Pretaloka, and confused. ¶Embalming preserves the physical vehicle. For a jīvanmukta, he might want to leave, but some people might want to keep him around for a while for their own benefit. The best way for him is to go off into the hills, to die in the forests where no one knows and none of these questions arise. More than many great sādhus have done this and do this to this day. For my satguru, Siva Yogaswami, they did the right thing by cremating him; they released him and did not try to tie him to the Earth. To come and go from the Śivaloka to the Pretaloka is his choice and his alone. To me, embalming or entombing is a divisive way to hold on to the holy man, and I feel it will draw him back into birth. True, in our scriptures it is recommended that the body of a perfectly liberated saint not be cremated but interred instead in a salt-filled crypt. This may be done so that devotees can continue to be served, but in our lineage it is not the way. In our tradition, the body of the departed is cremated within twenty-four hours. This purifies the physical elements and releases the deceased to the inner worlds. In contrast, the Egyptians wanted their Pharaoh to be born again as a king. They didn’t want a young soul to be their king. So all their preparations helped him to be born into the royal family. The Hawaiians did the same thing, royalty perpetuating royalty. §
In the later stages of evolution, physical life can be so joyous that one might ask, “Why wish for liberation?” But not wanting to be reborn is not the goal. Obtaining the stability of mind and spirit so that you can function even on the physical plane better, without the necessity of having to do so, is a better goal. After mukti, liberation, one still has responsibilities to complete certain karmic patterns. Even the sapta ṛishis, seven sages, have their offices to perform in guiding the Sanātana Dharma, though they do not have to be reborn in a physical body to do their job. Mukti does not call an end to intelligence, does not call an end to duty. Mukti calls an end to the necessity for a physical birth. It’s like death—you don’t want to die, but you do anyway. When on the inner plane, you don’t want to be reborn, but you are anyway. You have to do these things. The ideal is to live out one’s Earthly life to its full extent, not to shorten it in any way, for during the elderly years, after ninety and the twenty or thirty years thereafter, the sañchita karmas in the great vault which are waiting to come up in another life begin to unfold to be lived through and resolved in this one. By no means should suicide ever be considered, for it cuts short all karmic developments of the current life and may require additional births to work through the lowest possible experiences still held in the great sañchita vault. Many incarnations may elapse after an untimely self-inflicted death before the soul returns back to the same evolutionary point at which the suicide was committed. Suicide is no escape. It only prolongs the journey. ¶The goal is realization of Paraśiva as the ultimate personal attainment. This is nirvikalpa samādhi. Savikalpa is the by-product of this. Even having had this experience, if the sādhana and tapas and discipline are not maintained, mukti, liberation, will not be the product of effort. The knowledge of Paraśiva, in its total impact, must impact every area of mind, every nook and cranny of the mind. Therefore, the goal is realization; and liberation from rebirth is the by-product of that essential goal. If a soul becomes realized but still has the desire to come back to finish something, he will come back partially enlightened. Hinduism will be an open book to him, and he will understand all of the basic truths and be able to explain it all naturally. He will find his enlightenment later in life and go on, having experienced what he had to. ¶There is a choice one makes upon becoming illumined and understanding the whole process—whether to be a bodhisattva or an arahat, an upadeśī or a nirvāṇī. This is based on a belief and an attitude in the heart and soul. A nirvāṇī says, “I’ll move on and wait for everyone to catch up with me.” An upadeśī says, “I’ll help everyone on the path.” Occasionally an upadeśī has tasks to fulfill, but they are self-assigned, for this is a personal choice. Likewise, a nirvāṇī will work and make a great attainment. Then he will spin out his own karmas and make his transition. The upadeśī will make his attainment and then work with his own karmas slowly while helping others along the path. Who is to say which is the best choice? It’s a totally individual matter. I personally am an upadeśī. No detail is too small for me to handle. A nirvāṇī would not take that attitude. ¶In the inner worlds, one who has transcended the need for a physical birth is there like he is here. He has a twenty-four-hour consciousness. He does not have to eat unless he wants to, and he doesn’t have to sleep, so he has a total continuity of consciousness. He has Paraśiva at will and is all-pervasive all of the time. He does have duties. He does relate to brother souls in the same stratum, and he does evolve, continuing in evolution from chakra to chakra to chakra, for there are chakras, or nāḍīs, above the sahasrāra for which he does not need a physical body. This, again, is for the upadeśī. The nirvāṇī would not turn back, but proceed onward. The first realization of Paraśiva, the impact of the aftermath, allows you the decision to choose between the dispassion of the nirvāṇī and the compassion of the upadeśī. ¶The Śaiva Siddhānta perspective is that Śiva’s wonderful universe of form is perfect at every point of time, complete and totally just, and every soul, in all stages of evolution, is an intrinsic part of it, even Śiva Himself. The true mukti of everyone and of the universe itself would be at mahāpralaya; but meanwhile, mukti is defined in our vocabulary as freedom from rebirth in a physical body. But many other bodies drop off, too. There are more intelligences to come into, great creations of form. Upon death, even a Self-Realized soul does not necessarily “disappear” into nothingness or Allness. The absolute goal, Paraśiva—timeless, formless and causeless—is a release, but not an end. There is, of course, an end, which we call viśvagrāsa. This is total merger, a union with That from which the soul never returns—jīva became Śiva. So, whatever inner body the jīvanmukta is functioning in, in the thereafter, he has no need for Self Realization, the seal has already been broken and never mends. So, claiming “I am That, I am”—That being the Absolute, Paraśiva—is the total stabilizing one-ment of all the māyās of creation, preservation and destruction of the individual mind, as well as the mind of reality it goes through.§