Vinaire's Blog

Reference: DEATH: An Inside Story

“What you are calling as life, right now, is like soap bubbles being blown. The entire Yogic process or the entire spiritual process is to wear this bubble thin, so that one day when it bursts, there is absolutely nothing left and it moves from the bondage of existence to the freedom of non-existence, or Nirvana.” ~ Sadhguru

2.1 What Makes Us Tick

TYPES OF MEMORY
According to Sadhguru, memory is any trace of influence that is retained from the past. The eight layers of memory are as follows:

1. Elemental Memory (postulates)
2. Atomic Memory (perceptual elements)
3. Evolutionary Memory (inanimate/animate memory)
4. Genetic Memory (impression passed through genes)
5. Karmic Memory (misconceptions)
6. Unconscious Memory (facsimiles)
7. Subconscious Memory (impressions)
8. Conscious Memory (fully assimilated sensory data)

MEMORY & LIFE
Sadhguru says, “All these eight types of memory will play out in your day-to-day life according to the impressions accumulated and the situations you are faced with. Broadly speaking, these are the layers of memories that make you the life you are.” 

KARMA
Each ‘being’ comes with a certain level of energy allotted to activity at birth itself. It is divided into physical, mental, voluntary, and involuntary activities. Memory is like a software that is a combination of time, energy and information.

PRARABDHA KARMA
The information that is carried forth through many lives is referred to as karma. Part of this karma, which has some extra urgency to it (called prarabdha), gets allocated to this birth to wear off in the form of different kinds of activity.

SPIRITUAL PATH
Once you are on the spiritual path, you want to exhaust your energies allocated for physical activity very fast, so that after that the body will simply sit. The idea of being on a spiritual path is to put life on fast forward so you can discharge as much karma as possible. Spiritual discipline helps you do that.

2.2 A Bubble of Life and Death

Life and death is not a binary situation. Someday, we shall find that there is a spectrum of aliveness and everything fits somewhere on this spectrum. If we give the “memory software” a certain amount of vibrancy, it will slowly gather an intelligence of its own. It is only a web of memory that creates an illusion of ‘this person’. It converts the food into who the person is. If the memory goes away, the whole person will collapse. As the person ages he loses his intent; then, gradually, action goes first, then the conscious memory will begin withdrawing and along with that the energies will go. People who have lost their memory will have different traits but no personality. If the Conscious, Subconscious and Unconscious Memories are gone, the Genetic Memory will come into play.

What you refer to as life, right now, is like soap bubbles being blown. The air inside is the life energy. The outside boundary is the memory. With sadhana, you blow a huge bubble. A big bubble means an evolved level of activity and intent that is very obvious and cannot be ignored. Enlarging a bubble means making the wall thinner and thinner. You stretch it so much that it will burst one day. The memory stretches itself so thin, that when it is broken, it is really gone. The entire Yogic process is to wear this bubble thin so that one day when it bursts, there is absolutely nothing left. It then moves from the bondage of existence to the freedom of non-existence, or Nirvana. 

When death occurs, your physical self—an accumulation of the Genetic, Evolutionary and other Memories—is gone but the deeper layer of Karmic Memory remains intact. In that sense, this long-term memory within you, will determine the nature of your future life and experience. It is this Karmic wall of the bubble that you still need to take care of. One way to handle this is to capture a larger piece of life. Now, even if you did not do anything much about dismantling your karma, the karmic wall becomes very thin simply because the ‘life size’ became more. 

Another way is by being in the right spaces, in communion with the right kind of people and the right kind of atmosphere, but it is not about oneself. The moment it is about me, karma will grow. So the whole spiritual path in India has been designed in such a way that the karmic wall does not gather substance. At the same time, you go on enhancing the volume of life that you gather. The karmic wall becomes increasingly irrelevant and, ultimately, dissolves completely. Then we would not call it death. It is the ultimate freedom.

2.3 Understanding Life and Death

This person is a composition of five sheaths (koshas) or bodies. 

1. Annamaya Kosha (the food body)
2. Manomaya Kosha (the mental body)
3. Pranamaya Kosha (the energy body)
4. Vignanamaya Kosha (the etheric body)
5. Anandamaya Kosha (the bliss body)

The outermost sheath of a human being is the Annamaya Kosha, or the physical body. It is just an accumulated heap of food. The second layer is the Manomaya Kosha or the mental body. It comprises your thoughts, emotions and all the mental processes, both conscious and unconscious. There is memory and intelligence in every cell in the body. The mind and body influence each other. The mind and body cannot do anything unless you plug into quality power. So there is a third layer of the self, called the Pranamaya Kosha or life energy. All these three—the physical body, the mental body and the energy body—are physical in nature. All these three physical dimensions of life carry the imprints of karma, or Karmic Memory. Karma is imprinted on the body, the mind and on the energy. It is this karmic structure that holds the being together.

The fourth layer of the self is called the Vignanamaya Kosha, or the knowledge body. It is beyond the sense perceptions. It links the physical to the non-physical. If you learn to find conscious access to this dimension, there will be a quantum leap in your ability to know the cosmic phenomenon. The fifth sheath is known as the Anandamaya Kosha, or the bliss body. It has nothing to do with the physical realms of life. It has no form of its own. Yoga talks about it only in terms of experience. When you access this indefinable dimension, it produces an overwhelming experience of bliss. 

When someone drops dead, only their outermost sheaths—the Annamaya Kosha and the conscious parts of the Manomaya Kosha—are lost. The rest of the structure is still intact; it will seek another womb and manifest itself once again in the physical plane. This is why death is not dissolution. But if the energy body, the mental body and the physical body are taken away, the bliss body will become a part of the Cosmos. Now, they are completely no more. This is the whole story of life, death and dissolution

2.4 Pancha Pranas: The Five Vital Energies

PRANMAYA KOSHA (Prana)
Pranmaya Kosha are the vital energies that govern life.

PANCHA VAYUS (Pancha Pranas)
Pancha Vayus are the five basic dimensions of Prana. At the moment of death, each of these pranas recedes differently and affects the dead differently.

SAMANA VAYU (Samat Prana)
Samana Vayu is in charge of maintaining the temperature of your body. By activating it, you can activate your energies in such a way that you become less and less vulnerable to the external elements in Nature. It is also very healing in nature. Samana Vayu is also in charge of your digestive process. It helps you burn up the food as quickly as possible.

PRANA VAYU
Prana Vayu is in charge of your respiratory and thought process. For every kind of thought that you get, your breath changes in a subtle way.

UDANA VAYU
Udana Vayu creates buoyancy and makes you less available to gravity. On the weighing scale, you are still the same, but in your experience, you will feel as if the body has become so light that it is like floating around. Udana Vayu is also in charge of your ability to communicate.

APANA VAYU
Apana Vayu is in charge of your excretory system and the sensory function. Only when the excretory system is efficient at the cellular level will you have the necessary sensitivity for sensory perception. When there is food in the stomach and digestion is in progress, the excretory system slows down.

VYANA VAYU
Vyana Vayu is that which knits all these billions of cells into one organism. It preserves the body for a long time. If one has mastery over one’s vyana, one can leave one’s body at will. Vyana Vayu is also in charge of your ability to move. It is a very important aspect of spiritual growth. It also enhances your intuitive nature.

2.5 The Sequence of Death

MOMENT OF DEATH
Your breath stopping, heart stopping or your brain going flat on the monitors is not death. Only when the Pancha Pranas exit the physical body completely it is death. The withdrawal of the pranas happens over a period of time. All the pranas do not exit the body at the same time. There is a definite pattern in which they exit.

PATTERN OF DEATH

1. The first thing that happens after death is that the body starts cooling down. Within twenty-one to twenty-four minutes from the breath stopping, Samana Vayu exits the body completely.
2. Prana Vayu exits the body completely within forty-eight to ninety minutes after the breath stops, depending upon the nature of death. The respiratory action and thought process begins to recede along with the withdrawal of Prana Vayu.
3. Udana Vayu exits between six and twelve hours after the breath stops. Once Udana Vayu goes away, then the buoyancy in the body is also gone.
4. Apana Vayu exits the body somewhere between eight to eighteen hours after the breath has stopped. A dead body retains sensations until the Apana Vayu has totally left. 
5. Vyana Vayu, which is the preservative nature of prana, is the slowest to exit. It will continue to do so for up to eleven to fourteen days if the death is because of old age and life became feeble.

2.6 Chakras: The Gateways of Exit

CHAKRA
Chakras are points of intersection of various energy channels of the pranic system in the body. There are a total of 114 such chakras, 112 of them in the body and two outside the body. The levels of activation of these chakras greatly determine the quality of life led by the person. See Kundalini and the Chakras. Correspondingly, how energy moves through these chakras in death determines the quality of the death too.

LEAVING THE BODY
Each death is characterized not just by how the pranas have exited the body but also through which chakra or chakras they exited. Ideally, one should leave the body consciously.

(1) Muladhara Chakra: A very gross person, or a person in fear, end up leaving through the Muladhara Chakra, located at the perineum. Such a person will pass urine and feces with a certain force at the time of death. He is resisting death and struggling with fear. This is not a good way to die.

(2) Swadhishthana Chakra: One who exits through the Swadhishthana Chakra, located in and above the genital organ, can be reborn with extraordinary creative prowess.

(3) Manipura Chakra: One who exits through the Manipura Chakra, located just below the navel, can be capable of a very organized sense of action. One may become a genius of organization in his or her next life.

(4) Anahata Chakra: One who exits through the Anahata Chakra, where the ribcage meets, can become a prodigy in music or the arts who can inspire many. One could be a potential polymath.

(5) Vishuddhi Chakra: For someone to exit through the Vishuddhi Chakra, situated at the pit of the throat, is very rare. But if that happens, one will possess an incredible perception of this world and the beyond. Such a person will also exist in an absolute sense of dispassion and fearless involvement in all aspects of life. A phenomenal sense of clarity will be predominant in them.

(6) Agna Chakra: The Agna Chakra, located between the eyebrows, is of a higher order, it is more common for people to exit through the Agna Chakra than the Vishuddhi Chakra.

(7) Sahasrara Chakra: A person who is fully conscious will leave through their Sahasrara Chakra, from the top of their head. It may actually leave a physical hole there. That is the best way to leave. If you want that moment of death to happen in full awareness, you have to live a life of awareness.

BRAHMARANDHRA
Brahmarandhra is the bit of the skull at the top of the head that is not yet formed in infants for quite some time. 

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This is synopsis of Sadhguru’s book Death An Inside Story  with Subject Clearing.

Death Blow: An Introduction

Today, death is looked as more as a medical condition than as a natural phenomenon. The success of medical science has only breathed a fresh lease of life to the historic quest for immortality. 

In spiritual terms, even that which probably did not happen in life could happen in death. The highest form of death is the dissolution of the Self. One of the objectives is to help one achieve a ‘good’ death.

The most significant aspect of the book, however, is how the tools offered by Sadhguru and his presence in our midst can help us make our own death more graceful and spiritually significant.

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PART I: Life and Death in One Breath

Death
Life and death live in me at once
Never held one above the other
When one stands far, life I offer
In closeness, only death I deal
In death of the limited
Will the deathless be
How to tell the fools
Of my taintless evil

CHAPTER 1: What Is Death

“Death is the most fundamental question. Yet, people can ignore it, avoid it and just live on in their ignorance simply because all kinds of idiotic stories have been spread in the world in the name of religion.” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 2: The Process of Death

“What you are calling as life, right now, is like soap bubbles being blown. The entire Yogic process or the entire spiritual process is to wear this bubble thin, so that one day when it bursts, there is absolutely nothing left and it moves from the bondage of existence to the freedom of non-existence, or Nirvana.” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 3: The Quality of Death

“No two people in the world live their lives the same way. Similarly, no two people die the same way. People may die in the same situation, of the same cause, but still they don’t die the same way.” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 4: Can Death Be Hacked

“When the body is still strong, what is meant to be can always be transcended.”  – Sadhguru

CHAPTER 5: Mahasamadhi

“Mahasamadhi is the end of the game. The cycle is over. There is no question of rebirth; it is complete dissolution. You can say this person is truly no more.” ~ Sadhguru

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PART II The Gracefulness of Death

Become Me
I was borne in my Mother’s womb
but she did not create me
I eat the salt of this Earth
but I do not belong to her
It is through this body that I walk
but I am not it
It is my mind through which I work
but it could not contain me
In the limitations of time and space I live
but it has not denied me unboundedness
I was born like you, I eat like you,
sleep like you and I will die like you
but the limited has not limited me
Life’s bondages have not bound me
As the dance of life progresses
this space, this unboundedness has become
unbearably sweet
Become love and reach out
Become me

CHAPTER 6: Preparing for a Good Death

“Most people in the world believe that if they die in their sleep, it is wonderful. What a horrible way to go!” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 7: Assistance for the Dying

“A bodiless being is a completely defenseless life. That is why that aspect of life must be conducted with utmost responsibility. When someone gives this being a little bit of help at the last moment, it will go a long way. Most of their sadhana for the next time will be taken care of at that moment itself.” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 8: Assistance for the Disembodied

“As we have responsibilities for the living, we have responsibilities for the dead. ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 9: Of Grief and Mourning

“I want you to understand that your grief is not because someone has died. One life going away does not mean anything to you. Thousands of people in the world die in a day. But it does not leave a vacuum in you. You are still partying. The problem is, this particular life going away leaves a hole in your life.” ~ Sadhguru

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PART III: Life after Death

The Dark One
When I first heard the sounds of
Darkness and silence meeting within me
The little mind argues for light
The virtue, the power, the beauty
Light a brief happening could hold me not
All encompassing darkness drew me in
Darkness the infinite eternity
Dwarfs the happened, the happening and yet to happen
Choosing the eternal
Darkness I became
The dark one that I am
The Divine and the devil are but a small part
The divine I dispense with ease
If you meet the devil you better cease

CHAPTER 10: The Life of a Ghost

“In a way, everyone is a ghost. Whether you are a ghost with the body or without a body is the only question.” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 11: The Riddle of Reincarnation

“Right now, most people are not even able to handle what is happening in this life, so why do they want to dig into their previous lives? They don’t know how to handle the thoughts, emotions and relationships of this life. How will they handle the thoughts, emotions and relationships of many lives?” ~ Sadhguru

CHAPTER 12: Final Round

“We can make this life the last one for you but we cannot make this the most wonderful one. That only you have to do. For that, you must do sadhana. You must promise me that.” ~ Sadhguru

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This is a wonderful discussion on the intersection of science and mysticism. It is little over an hour long. The following are some brief notes from this talk.

We know the world only the way it’s projected in the firmament of our minds. In yoga there are 16 dimensions of mind that are combined into 4 sections. 

(1) Buddhi (Intellect)… logical realm of what is happening in our minds… explores by dissection… but you never grasp the intrinsic nature of life by dissection… 

(2) Ahankara (Identity)… Your intellect is always a slave of your identity… nationality can be an identity… Your intellect is always protecting this identity and working around this identity… if intellect is the knife then identity is the hand that hoilds that knife…

(3) Manas… an entire body… a huge silo of memory… every cell in the body carries enormous memory to a point of origin of life on this planet and beyond… intellect runs on this memory… memory flows through the identity…

(4) Chitta (pure intelligence, unsullied by memory)… if you look at everything without any preconceived notions you’ll realize the source of creation… Yoga says, “If you touch this dimension of inteligence, the Divine becomes your slave.” If you touch this intelligence everything that you wish to know is yours…

These aspects of the mind are not entirely located in the head, it is right across the system.

Science has done incredible things… there is no question about that… But at the same time, the limitation of science is–we are trying to touch a dimension which is beyond physical nature, with a physical stick…

In the yogic way of seeing things, we just see life as a dance of time and energy… When somebody passes away, we simply say, “His time is over.”… The art of putting this time and energy together so that both of them dance together well, is a successful life… Time is not a factor by itself, time is a consequence of cyclical movements in the physical reality… physicality is essentially cyclical… The moment you are identified with physical nature, time is a big factor… Once you distance yourself from your physiological process, time is not a factor.

David Eagleman: What is the ‘you’ that can be separated from the physical?

Either your body and mind, you can conduct it consciously or it has become compulsive. That’s all that is happening. Whether you call it physical ailment or mental ailment, all that’s happened is…  your fundamental faculties of existence on this planet is your body and your mind… you have simply lost charge of them… If your body and your brain took instructions from you would you create depression, would you create illness?… you would create the highest level of pleasantness for you, isn’t it?… (NOTE: ‘I’ or ‘you’ seems to be the harmonizing factor that establishes proper order)…

The ‘I’ could be identifying with a part of the body, such as the brain, or with the whole body. The ‘I’ could be identifying with a part of the mind, such as, memory or a certain personality, or with the functions of the mind… Everybody is a piece of life… the kind of personality, ideas, likes and dislike that we have acquired is the result of a social process that has happened to us… the fundamental principle is whatever you have gathered may be yours but it is not you…

Human intellect and human intelligence has broken out of a certain bond, which was there for every other creature, that they could function like an automated machine through certain instinctual process. What has happened with a human being with the process of evolution is that he has broken out of that instinctual process and there is an intelligence that has to function consciously. But functioning consciously means that every moment of life is an exploration… There is possibility of exploring dimensions, which are not yet within you. So if this has to happen, the most important thing is to be able to sit here not identified with anything… Just to be the way creation intended you to be… simply to be able to view your life just as a piece of life. If one does this, then you will see perception will explode in ways that they have not imagined possible…

Identity is required for survival process, to manage day-to-day situations, but it is not an exploratory process, because the intention of science is to know. Technology is a fallout. Unfortunately, in this world, nobody would fund science if it did not spin technology, because human intelligence wants to know. It need not be useful… 

The basis of science and mysticism is to continuously sustain that sense of wanting to know… Science is trying to achieve everything through physical means… But physical is like the peel of the fruit, the peel is useful only as a protective layer to the fruit… so the body is very important… Tomorrow morning when that something inside is gone, nobody is interested in this body anymore… the peel is meaningless without the fruit… Science has produced comfort and convenience, but will it lead to well-being? It seems we’re in much more comfort but we are not in much more joyful states within ourselves… 

The complexity of what is happening is beyond the physical mechanics… the physical brain is the most fantastic gadget on the planet… but there is an intelligence within us, which can create a brain… Everything that you call as physical creation has substance of some kind (earth)… and all of it is in movement (air)… all of it subscribes to some temperature (fire)… and in everything there is cohesiveness (water)… and all of it is held together by something like aether (akash). If you have grasp of these five things then everything becomes accessible.

The most fundamental aspect of yoga is the cleansing of the elements so that you can feel them separately in your own system… if you take charge of these elements then you take charge of life… every subatomic particle is in communication with rest of the cosmos… you just have to become alive or receptive to it… the life making design is the same in an amoeba or in you… 

Science has moved from an explorative process to an exploitive process—how to use an atom, bacteria, elephant, whale, even a human being. This is where it is going… you may get to know how to use everything but still life will not get any better.

When you speak any language it must make logical sense. Logic is the product of our intellect. Without it we cannot speak. We cannot talk about what is beyond logic. There is subjective reality and there is objective reality. Subjective reality is not just thoughts and emotions. These five senses are tuned for our survival. If survival is what we are seeking, sense organs are fine. But once you are looking at life as an exploration, and you want to know life, five senses are no good. They are not sufficient faculties to know. 

But knowing everything by intellect, we will know surface of everything but never the real source of everything. The only doorway to our experience is this human mechanism. You don’t know the world any other way. You only know the way its is happening within you. By interfering with a physical process, the whole perception could change. The world has not changed but perception has changed. That dimension of life is only useful for survival. It doesn’t matter how well you survive, still it is not good enough. Survival is not going to fulfill a human being because that’s not the direction in which life wants to go. There is another aspect to the human being besides these five senses. Everything concerned with our survival is in-built. This is millions of years of memory. Anything beyond survival, if we have to have in our lives, a certain striving is needed. Striving for inward perception is something, unfortunately, that’s been banished in modern societies because we are on a thrill of technology. As technology becomes better and better, human beings will become more and more frustrated. It will only entertain us intellectually big time but that is limited. Technology is simply an enhancement of what we can do. We have not created one machine or gadget to do something that we ourselves cannot do in a rudimentary way. You are only enhancing your five senses.

All the rabbis, sages, imams etc. of all different traditions have one thing in common—they all believe something that they don’t know. The main reason why every human being is not a natural seeker is they have not realized the immensity of “I do not know.” Only then knowing becomes a possibility and a reality. Everything that you do not know, if you just believe, you’ve destroyed the possibility of knowing altogether. But belief is something that builds confidence into a human being, but confidence without clarity is very disastrous.

Essentially, believing something means you are not sincere enough to admit that you do not know. We all have to come to this much—“What I know I know, what I do not know, I do not know.” This is a fantastic way to be. An “I do not know” person cannot fight with anybody, that’s the biggest thing.

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