By: Anup Taneja on Speakiing Tree 5-Mar-2014
At the time of death a whole storehouse of impressions and desires is churned out and the most cherished and deep-rooted desire comes to the mind’s surface. This cherished desire occupies the dying man’s mind for immediate gratification. If the desire is not gratified, his mind gets permeated with it and it is said to be reborn and seeks gratification in the next birth. The desire will manifest prominently in his next birth. The last thought thus determines the nature or character of the body to be attained next. The Gita says, “Whatever thoughts predominate at the time of death as a result of the way you have lived your life, those thoughts determine your after-death state....”..
According to Paramhansa Yogananda, it would be futile to depend
upon death to liberate you from your imperfections. You are exactly the same
after death as you were before. Nothing in fact changes; you only discard your
body. If you were a trickster or liar before death, you don’t become a saint
merely by dying. Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be
hereafter. And when you reincarnate, you will carry the same traits with you.
To bring about a change in your character, huge effort is required.
The question that arises is: What type of effort
should one make to ensure that
thoughts of the Divineoccupy our mind in our last moments so that we are able to
depart peacefully from the world?
To begin with, Yogananda suggests that the
seeker should adopt an attitude of dispassion by
constantlyremaining aware of the transitory nature of life and the fact that the
great sleep of death can take him away any moment from the world. Then,
through regular meditation, the seeker should endeavour to rise above the
delusion of body-consciousness in order that he is prepared mentally to depart
from this world with an
unruffled mind.
In meditation the seeker does consciously what he
does unconsciously every night in deep sleep. Every night you lose
awareness of your physical existence and the world, with its concomitant pains
and tribulations, as these get obliterated from the screen of your
consciousness. This points to the fact that you are not a mere body of
flesh and bones. And what is unconsciously experienced in the state
of deep sleep, can also be experienced consciously in mediation by reconnecting
our identity with our true Self, the inner
Witness that both sustains and transcends the three lower
states of consciousness.
The more you meditate, the more you will realise
that there is something divine behind the kingdom ofordinary consciousness where supreme peace and happiness reign. By the practice of ever deeper meditation, the seeker can gain
access to the supra-causal state of consciousness where he loses his separate
entity and his ego gets dissolved in Pure Consciousness.
Paramhansa Yogananda calls this state as ‘dying to
the world without dying’-- a state where no duality of consciousness is
experienced and all painful experiences of life and death give way to the
bliss of eternal consciousness. A conspicuous feature of this state is that
even while performing his worldly activities, the seeker continues to remain
established in the super-conscious state of inner realisation.
Yogananda would say: “Never go to
bed without making the effort to meditate.
What of it if you lose a little sleep? But it would be worthwhile if you can
reach the deathless state before the Grim Reaper catches you”.
