“As we have responsibilities for the living, we have responsibilities for the dead.” ~ Sadhguru
8.1 Why Are After-death Rituals Needed
Death rituals are not just to assist the dead person in his or her journey, they are also for the benefit of those who are left behind. If the person who dies leaves a lot of unsettled life around us, our lives will not be good.
Death is a process that happens over a period of time. Life exits the body in stages. We can do something for the deceased up to fourteen days after death. We want to help them in such a way that they do not hang around for too long and dissolve quickly. If there is any positive or negative energy around, adolescents are the first people to absorb it. It is like loose software hanging around and adolescent life naturally tangles with that. In Indian culture, after the body is disposed off, there are elaborate processes to clean the person too.
Today, these rituals have become even more important because almost everyone on the planet is beginning to die in unawareness, without the necessary understanding of the life mechanism within themselves. Unfortunately, these rituals also have become largely commercial, with some kind of ritualistic circus being conducted.
8.2 Runanubandha—The Web of Debt
RUNANUBANDHA With everything that our five sense organs come in touch with, in some way, knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, we establish a certain bond with it. This is not just with the people around us but also with the very land that we walk upon, the air that we breathe and just about everything that we see, hear, smell, taste and touch. This is because none of these things happen without investing a certain amount of energy in it. In traditional terms, this is called runanubandha. It is a term which refers to the body’s memory, which comprises of genetic memory and memory of intimate physical connect. It is this memory which is said to bind a parent and a child, a husband and a wife or any other intimate relationships.
BODY MEMORY Body memory is a certain kind of physical memory that you carry within you. It is different from the genetic factors that are transmitted from parent to child. You pick up body memory through physical contact. The body remembers any kind of intimacy you have with any physical substance. This is the reason why, traditionally, in India, people greet each other with folded hands because they do not want to acquire that extra memory that can create bondage and impede their Liberation process. Contact with certain types of substances also has more of an impact than others.
SEXUAL CONTACT Another way you develop runanubandha is through relationships. Even if you just as much as hold someone’s hand, you develop runanubandha. Of all the relationships, sexual relationships have maximum impact in terms of the amount of memory that they leave upon you, compared to any other kind of substance you come in touch with. This is not a question of guilt or ridding yourself of guilt. Guilt is a social phenomenon. What you feel guilty about essentially depends upon the norms of the society you live in. If you feel guilty about something in one society, you may not feel guilty about the same in another society. This is not about social conditioning—this is an existential reality.
DISSOLUTION You must break this relationship with the dead person for you to be able to live well, because the nature of life is such that at times you can become susceptible; then both the right and wrong kind of things can enter you. If this runanubandha is not properly broken it can weaken your body and your psychological structure in such a way that you will not only suffer from grief, it will also lead to certain derangement of life. This is why Indian culture evolved many methods in the rituals that were performed after death to consciously dissolve the runanubandha.
8.3 Kalabhairava Karma—An After-death Ritual at Isha
MEMORY AND SUFFERING Everything that you know as life right now is in some way an imprint of a certain memory. There is the evolutionary blueprint, or genetic memory, that produces the human form, the skin color, the shape of the nose, etc. Beyond that, each human being is different in some way because of individual Karmic Memory. These memories are present in the mind, body and the energies of a person and play out in so many ways. A human being has the most complex memory that enhances his abilities as well as his suffering. He can remember a million small things and suffer a million times over. That is torture!
IMPRINTS OF THE DEAD After a person dies, maybe they have attained mukti or they have gone somewhere else, we don’t know, but either because you were born to them or you were in touch with them in some way or the other, their memory imprints are on you. These imprints are not just in your mind but also in your body and energies as well. This will start to work within you in many unconscious ways. We don’t want to become unconscious of them; we just want to carry it a little loosely on us. So with these death rituals, we do some things to free the departed but it is also important to free the living. Some distance from memories must happen.
KALABHAIRAVA KARMA This is an after death ritual done at Sadhguru’s Yoga Center. This greatly aids and assists the journey the departed being has to make. All it requires is a photograph of the dead person and a piece of cloth used by them. It would be good if the blood relatives of this person are present while the ritual is being performed at the Yoga Center. We do not know where all the memories of the person who died are stuck. So we do whatever best we can. One simple thing to do is that you take a whiff of their memory and put it in a place which is naturally about disentanglement. So we burn the photograph and the piece of cloth, and tie the ashes in a cloth to the tamarind tree outside the Dhyanalinga entrance to take care of whatever is left. Kalabhairava Karma is not a dig-and-clean process. We just mop up the surface so that nothing holds as far as possible. For most cases, this itself is enough.
8.4 The Scope of Kalabhairava Karma
CONDITION AFTER DEATH Once you drop the physical body, you don’t have the discriminatory mind, so there is no comprehension of language. And there is no sound or silence. So there is no question of this person understanding this or that. That is for the living. With rituals, you can draw the being to something, you can direct the being in a particular direction, but you cannot talk to it.
PURPOSE OF RITUALS The best thing is to make that ‘life bubble’ thinner and leave it. It will find its own way to a better place. Rituals should only be concerned about peeling that life off attachment as much as possible. If possible, all the way, but at least as much as you can make it into a thinner bubble than what it is. What will happen, how it will be reborn is not for you to worry about.
DIAGNOSIS Now, once someone is dead, people are very interested in knowing where the departed person is—in heaven or hell or whatever. Some people claim to be able to tell you that. You can determine whether a being is comfortable or in struggle. Accordingly, you can do certain rituals for that being. This is possible, but determining geographically where it is is rubbish because there is no ‘geographical where’.
PURPOSE OF KALABHAIRAVA KARMA Basically, Kalabhairava Karma is being performed, after you are dead, to mop up bits of your life that are sticking around here and there. It is being done because you are not a yogi and you are unable to do the mopping up yourself. A yogi will withdraw to the forest and die alone somewhere in the forest because he has done everything that he needs to do for his life. No one has to do anything for him later. Everything is finished. No Kalabhairava Karma is needed. When he is gone, it is a complete evacuation of the space that he occupied.
KALABHAIRAVA KRIYA If you want to do Kalabhairava Karma for yourself when you are alive, it becomes Kalabhairava Kriya. It can be taught to people but it will need an extreme sense of discipline about who you are and how you manage your energies and system. It requires being alert to every small thing. It creates genetic distance that makes the family or the community over for them. You cannot go back to your home or village and live a social life.
SUBTLE BODY All rituals done after death are about transporting the subtle body to the right place. When the subtle body is not well defined, as in case of plants and animals, there is no need to do anything nor is there a possibility to do something.
8.5 Training People for Death Rituals
APPLICATION OF RITUALS To train people to conduct a ritual is so much easier than training people to do the same thing without a ritual. But when the general fabric of integrity has gone down in the social structure, then, all rituals will be under suspicion because there is room for misuse. Only if we generate people who are responsible enough to not do even one thing more than what is necessary, these things can be done.
WOMEN AND RITUALS Women are more vulnerable to external influences in the sense that they can pass those influences to children who have little defenses. Therefore, a woman will need to take care in doing such rituals much more than a man, especially when they are capable of bearing children. Once they are past the age of bearing children, they can perform rituals as safely as men. In fact, it is far easier to help women to organize and discipline themselves than men. Women have a natural capacity to absorb order due to the deeper sense of survival instinct that is needed to fulfill their reproductive responsibilities.
PREREQUISITES AT ISHA If you are willing to offer this service, then we can train you to do these things properly. But you should never make it your profession; it should be done only as a service. When someone has lost their body, they are completely helpless; they need help and they can be helped, but not with corrupt, contaminated hands. It needs someone who cares and someone who has the necessary sense about it.
8.6 The Death of Infants
The way life manifests in a child is different from the way life manifests in an adult, because the life in a child is still in the process of taking shape. So its death is not the same as the death of an adult.
CHOOSING PRARABDH KARMA There is an entire system of rituals during preconception, conception, birth and thereafter to ensure that this becomes a life which will take on the maximum possibility. So if life becomes stable enough and capable enough by the time it is forty-eight months, it will choose a much bigger Prarabdha Karma.
BIGGER POSSIBILITY Bigger possibility need not necessarily mean one is going to do well in the eyes of the society. In some way, it becomes a life that you cannot ignore. They are a bigger bubble that easily gets noticed.
CHILDHOOD MEMORY Generally, most people will not remember anything below four years of age because infancy is a time when life has not yet decided how it wants to shape itself. It is still exploring whether to expand or contract and what to do and how much. You must interact lovingly with the child to help it expand.
DEATH OF A CHILD In some children, sometimes the quantity of Prarabdha Karma for this lifetime is not decided properly, so they die unexpectedly. Children of extraordinary intelligence who do things absolutely beyond people’s perception tend to die before they are six because their Prarabdha Karma was not properly fixed. The body cannot sustain it and it just collapses.
8.7 The Parent–Offspring Connection in the Afterlife
There is a certain ‘life connection’ between the children and the parents, and if you make use of it in doing rituals for parents, they can be much more effective. If the child does the right things after the death of the parent, he can even liberate the parent through this connection.
CONNECTION After four years, when the child really clicks on to the body that you provided as a parent, something clicks on within you and occupies a certain space within your own system. This is how, if we just check someone’s energy, we know whether they have had children or not. This is why, if you die, we can do something for you through your children. But the reverse is not true. You cannot use the parents to liberate their dead offspring.
8.8 The Importance of Death Anniversaries
POST-DEATH RITES The post-death rites are known as antyeshti and are to be performed by the son of the deceased. It ensures the future welfare of the dead and frees the living from the debt or obligations they owe the parent. Some of the post-death rituals extend throughout the lifetime of the descendants, though on a progressively smaller scale. These rituals are typically performed as shraadha, on each anniversary of the last deceased ancestor. The most important reason these anniversary rituals are done in India is not for remembrance but to distance yourself from the Genetic Memory of your ancestors as much as possible.
8.9 Ancestor Worship
Our debt to our ancestors is huge. So it is customary in most cultures to express one’s gratitude to the ancestors. In some cultures, this ancestor veneration takes on a different proportion and turns to worship. However, in India, we distance ourselves from our ancestors; we don’t worship them. Ancestors taking care of you is not so prevalent in India, because not every ancestor is capable of this.
8.10 Of Heaven and Hell
The large-scale marketing of heaven and hell as destinations for the afterlife was done by the religions of the world to bring control in society. The fact is you do not go anywhere. It is just that the dimensional shift has happened from being embodied to disembodied, or from physicality to a subtler physicality. It is not a geographical shift. And the most important thing is, what happens after is not based on God’s retribution. If you really make them believe everything is going to be better somewhere, you will only mess up life here.
Existentially, there is a little bit of a basis for the notions of heaven and hell. It is because your life does not end with death; it only takes on many other forms after that. It can take on pleasant forms or it can take on very unpleasant forms depending on many factors. It is these pleasant forms that we refer to as Swarga, or heaven, and the unpleasant forms as Naraka, or hell. These are not geographic locations—they are forms taken by the being after the body is dropped. If you go beyond all forms, then we say it is mukti, or Liberation. A spiritual seeker is not interested in going to heaven or hell. They want to go beyond this duality of heaven or hell.
Chapter 18: ATOMIC, NUCLEAR AND SOLID-STATE PHYSICS
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KEY WORD LIST
Atom, Bohr Atom, Energy Level Diagram, Quantized Energy Levels, Bohr’s Theory, Quantum Theory of Atom, Principal Quantum Number (n), Electron Shells, Second Quantum Number (l), Third Quantum Number (ml), Fourth Quantum Number (ms), Bohr Radius, Electron Probability Cloud, Pauli Exclusion Principle, Bremsstrahlung radiation, X-Ray Lines, Ground State, Excited State, Spontaneous Emission, Stimulated Emission, Laser, Binding Energy, Mass Defect, Maximum Binding Energy, Radioactivity, Half-Life, Dating, Conservation Laws, Natural Decay Processes, Neutrino, Positron, γ-Decay, Induced Reactions, Fission Reaction, Nuclear Energy, Chain Reaction, Cross-Section, Enrichment, Breeder Reactors, Moderator, Critical Reaction, Control Rods, Fusion Reactions, Elementary Particles, Baryons, Leptons, Anti-Particle, Photon, Virtual Photons, Electrodynamics, Muon, Strong Interaction, Weak Interaction, Tau Particle, Meson, Hadron, Quarks, Strangeness, Gluons, “Color” Charge, Chromodynamics, Standard Model, Solid-State Physics, Crystal, Energy “Band”, Energy Gap And Overlap, Energy Gap And Overlap, Conduction Band, Insulator, Semiconductor, Holes, N-Type Semiconductor, P-Type Semiconductor, Photodetectors.
(From KHTK) Atomic Structure, Electron Shells, Charge, Nuclear Shells, Fundamental Particles
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GLOSSARY
For details on the following concepts, please consult Chapter 18.
ATOM An atom is composed of a positively charged nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons and a surrounding shell of negatively charged electrons which have about 2000 times less mass than the protons and neutrons of the nuclei.
BOHR ATOM Bohr assumed that a wave drawn around the circle representing the path of the electron is an integral multiple of the wavelength. Thus, he asserted that the angular momentum is quantized in multiples of h, and that the only possible allowed orbits for the electron were ones with such an angular momentum. Niels Bohr showed that if one makes certain ad hoc assumptions about quantization, like those suggested by Planck for the black-body radiation, he could indeed explain some detailed phenomena associated with atoms containing a single electron
ENERGY LEVEL DIAGRAM We usually picture the allowed states for the atom in an energy level diagram. Here, the energy is zero if the nucleus and the electrons are not bound to each other (Ionized atom). The ground state is the lowest allowed energy (E1) bound state, and it is negative. The atom can make a transition by moving from one allowed level to another.
QUANTIZED ENERGY LEVELS The Bohr theory of the atom thus predicts the existence of quantized energy levels, each associated with a distinct label, n, which is called the quantum number of that level. In those levels the atom cannot radiate away any energy unless, after losing an amount of radiant energy, the atom finds itself in another allowed energy level. Thus, only specific frequencies of radiation (and correspondingly, only specific wavelengths) can be radiated by an atom. Some of these transitions are shown in the diagram below.
BOHR’S THEORY The Bohr theory was successful in giving a rationale for the stability of atoms, and it correctly predicted the wavelengths of radiation from single electron atoms. The theory further showed that the radiation from atoms in general was determined by differences in energy levels of the atoms. However, his theory was unable to be generalized to atoms with more than one electron and was unable to explain why the energy levels of atoms should be quantized in the first place.
QUANTUM THEORY OF ATOM In the quantum theory, the behavior of electrons is determined by the wavefunction solutions of Schrödinger’s equation, which yield the probability that a particle is at a given point in space at a given time. There are stationary solutions of this equation only for certain energies that can be found for bound states. These solutions require labels n, l, and m in three dimensions. It was experimentally determined from the details of the radiation emitted by these atoms, that a fourth label was required as well. These labels are called “quantum numbers” and the accepted notation for these quantum numbers in a one electron atom are n, 1, ml and ms. This fourth quantum number arises from a purely quantum mechanical concept, the intrinsic spin of the electron.
PRINCIPAL QUANTUM NUMBER (n) The quantum number n is called the principal quantum number. It corresponds to the energy quantum number in Bohr’s theory. This number takes on integral values beginning with 1 with no upper bound. It is associated with the distance, r, between the nucleus and the electron; but the concept of a circulating electron in an orbit as prescribed by the Bohr theory, has no validity in quantum mechanics and angular momentum cannot be given a simple visual picture as in the Bohr theory.
ELECTRON SHELLS In the case of multi electron atoms, all electrons with a common principal quantum number n are said to be in the same shell, approximating a single electron atom. All electrons with n = 1 are said to be in the K shell, and all have essentially the same energy. All electrons with the n = 2 are said to be in the L shell, with n = 3 they are in the M shell, with n = 4 in the N shell, etc
SECOND QUANTUM NUMBER (l) The quantum number l is related to one of the angular coordinates. It is called the angular momentum quantum number, since it determines the magnitude of the orbital angular momentum of the electron about the nucleus. In multi electron atoms, the energy levels of an electron are dependent somewhat on 1 as well. For a given n, the allowed values of l are restricted to integers in the range from zero to (n – 1). All electrons with the same quantum number 1 have the same angular momentum.
Any electron with 1 = 0 is called an s electron and has no angular momentum. When 1 = 1, the electron has certain angular momentum and is called a p electron. When 1 = 2, the electron has a different value of angular momentum and is called a d electron. An electron with 1 = 3 is called an f electron, with 1 = 4 is called a g electron, etc.
THIRD QUANTUM NUMBER (ml) The third quantum number ml is related to the second angular coordinate. It indicates the allowed directions for the angular momentum. This is called space quantization. For a given l the values of ml are restricted to integer values ranging from -l to +l. If 1 = 1, there are three possible values for ml: -1, 0, and + 1. This quantum number is often called the magnetic quantum number because the energy of an electron depends on ml in the presence of a magnetic field. The magnetic quantum number has only a very small effect on the energy of the quantum state, except when a magnetic field is existent. It is again important to reiterate that although angular momentum remains an important physical quantity in quantum mechanics, one cannot identify this quantity with the concept of a circulating electron! NOTE: See KHTK explanation below.
FOURTH QUANTUM NUMBER (ms) We need an additional quantum number msto get agreement between the theory and experiment. This additional quantum number does not arise from the motion of an electron in three dimensions, but rather arises from the intrinsic properties of the electron itself. If one assumes that the electron has an intrinsic spin (an internal spin about its own axis) which is quantized, then the atom has additional angular momentum due to the intrinsic spin. This assumption was an ad hoc assumption until quantum mechanics was made to conform to the theory of relativity and the Schrödinger equation was replaced by the Dirac equation. The relativistic equation predicted the correct value for the electron spin. This spin angular momentum is intrinsic to the electron just as its charge and its mass are. These intrinsic values cannot be increased or decreased.
As in the case of the orbital angular momentum, the spin angular momentum is also quantized in space, with its component restricted to two possible states. We assign two possible spins of ±1/2 to quantum number ms. We now must designate each energy level by four quantum numbers, n, 1, ml and ms. Because the electron is charged, the spinning electron produces a magnetic field which in turn impacts slightly on the energy levels of the electrons. With the addition of this spin, the theory agrees with experiment to a remarkable degree.
BOHR RADIUS Bohr radius a0 = 5.29 x 10-l1 m, which is the radius of the lowest level orbit in the Bohr atom.
ELECTRON PROBABILITY CLOUD We see that the electron cannot be located at any specific position in space, but rather there is an “electron probability cloud” in which the electron is concentrated. For n = 1, the maximum probability location for the electron is r = a0, while the average position of the electron is 1.5a0. The total probability of finding the electron at any radial distance is the area under the curve between r = 0 and r = ∞, and must equal 1 since the electron is definitely somewhere in this range.
PAULI EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE This principle states that no more than one electron in an atom can have the same quantum numbers n, 1, ml and ms. We now know that this principle applies to any particle that has a spin of 1/2 (or 3/2, 5/2, etc.). In that case, only one electron can have the quantum numbers for the lowest energy level. The next electron will have to go into the next level, and subsequent electrons into ever higher levels.
BREMSSTRAHLUNG RADIATION X-rays can be produced by taking energetic electrons and letting them strike a metal plate. The energy from a decelerating electron is converted directly to a photon. This is called Bremsstrahlung or braking radiation.
X-RAY LINES X-ray lines are produced when the incident electron loses energy by a “collision” to one of the bound electrons in the material, resulting in the removal of that electron from the atom. If that removed electron is one of the inner electrons, then one of the outer electrons could transfer to this state. By dropping into the inner state, the electron loses energy, and that energy is radiated away by a photon with a wavelength corresponding to the difference in energy between the two states. These wavelengths are often in the X-ray region, especially for materials with many electrons. These characteristic wavelengths then appear in the X-ray spectrum in addition to the continuous spectrum of the Bremsstrahlung radiation.
GROUND STATE The electrons in all the atoms would tend to be found in the “ground state”, in which the electrons fill the various levels from the bottom up, and thus has the lowest overall energy.
EXCITED STATE If the electrons were somehow removed to a higher state, we say that the atom is in an “excited state,” and have a higher overall energy.
SPONTANEOUS EMISSION In spontaneous emission, an excited state electron rapidly transitions downward emitting a photon of a definite frequency f.
STIMULATED EMISSION When the atom can stay in the excited state for a relatively long time, and a photon at that definite frequency f, passes by, it can stimulate the electron to make the transition back to the ground state, by emitting a second photon at frequency f, that is in phase with the first photon. Such a process is called “stimulated emission”. The new photon also travels in the same direction as the initial photon.
LASER When there are many atoms in the excited metastable state then each of the photons can stimulate other emissions which then stimulate even more emissions causing a cascade of photons at the same frequency. This radiation would be especially intense since the radiation from all the independent atoms are in phase with each other. This is the basic concept needed for understanding the operation of the laser.
BINDING ENERGY Binding energy is the energy required to remove a nucleon from the nucleus. The energy required to separate all the nucleons from each other is the total binding energy (B.E.) of the nucleus. For a nucleus with A nucleons the average energy needed to remove one nucleon is (B.E.)/A, or the binding energy per nucleon. When one separates all the nucleons, one must supply this amount of energy per nucleon. The total binding energy, B.E., is also the amount of energy released when one forms the nucleus from individual nucleons.
MASS DEFECT The binding energy released when one forms the nucleus from individual nucleons is equivalent to the mass lost. The nucleus will have less mass than the sum of the masses of its constituents. This “lost” mass is called the “mass defect”, and must be equal to the (B.E.)/c2. If we measure the mass of the nucleus, we can calculate the mass defect by comparing this mass to the sum of the masses of its constituents. This will then give us the binding energy of the nucleus.
MAXIMUM BINDING ENERGY We note that a maximum (B.E.)/A of 8.77 MeV/nucleon occurs for Fe57. This nucleus has nucleons which are more tightly bound than in any other nucleus. If the nucleons in other nuclei would be able to rearrange themselves into Fe57, they would each release more energy until their new binding energy increases to 8.77 MeV/nucleon. This can occur if the light elements (A < 57) fuse together to form nuclei with larger A. One can also release energy by converting very heavy nuclei (such as uranium) into lighter nuclei which have a larger (B.E.)/A, thus releasing energy.
RADIOACTIVITY Many nuclei, including those occurring naturally, are unstable, and they decay to another nucleus in a characteristic manner. Radioactivity is the emission of ionizing radiation or particles caused by the spontaneous disintegration of atomic nuclei. Highly radioactive means short half-life, weakly radioactive means long half-life.
HALF-LIFE Each nuclear decay is characterized by a “half-life”, which is the average time that it takes for half of the nuclei to decay. Although one cannot predict which individual atom will have its nucleus decay at any time, only half the original nuclei remain after “half-life.”
DATING One of the applications of naturally occurring radioactivity is in dating of geological or archeological samples. If one assumes that one knows the initial composition of a material in terms of the nuclei present, then, if some of the nuclei are radioactive, we can determine the age of the sample by measuring the composition at the present time.
This technique would allow us to date organic materials on the basis of the following assumptions: (1) The ratio of C12/C14 in the atmosphere has remained essentially stable over geologic time; (2) As an organic substance grows and absorbs carbon, the ratio absorbed is the same as the ratio in the sea of air above; (3) Once the organic material (e.g. a tree) dies there is no more carbon absorbed or emitted chemically, so that the only change in composition comes from the radioactive decay of the carbon 14. We can usually compensate for uncertainties in these assumptions, and in many cases, we can check the accuracy of age determinations by using additional radioactive decays of other isotopes. This has become a standard technique, although it requires careful measurements as well as thorough analysis to be sure that it is legitimately applied in each case.
CONSERVATION LAWS From mechanics, we have the laws of conservation of energy, of linear momentum and of angular momentum. From electricity, we have the law of conservation of charge. All of these conservation laws must be satisfied in any decay that occurs in nature. In addition, we find in the naturally occurring decays that the total number of protons and neutrons (nucleons) must be the same before and after a decay.
NATURAL DECAY PROCESSES There are three naturally occurring decays, which are called α, β and γ. In α -decay the particle emitted from a larger nucleus is the nucleus of a helium atom, in β-decay the particle emitted is an electron and in γ-decay the particle emitted is a photon. A particle will decay by itself only if the decay products have less rest mass than the original particle. The excess mass of the original particle is given as kinetic energy to the decay products.
NEUTRINO Neutrino is a neutral subatomic particle with a mass close to zero and half-integral spin, rarely reacting with normal matter.
POSITRON The positron or antielectron is the particle with an electric charge of +1e, a spin of 1/2, and the same mass as an electron. It is the antiparticle of the electron. When a positron collides with an electron, annihilation occurs.
γ-DECAY Inγ-decay the effect of the emission of a y-ray is merely to carry away energy from the nucleus. We view this in the same manner as for atomic physics where a photon carries away energy as the electrons make transitions between different levels. Similarly, the nucleus has energy levels, and a photon is emitted when the nucleus makes a transition to a lower level.
INDUCED REACTIONS In addition to the naturally occurring nuclear transformations via radioactivity, it is possible to induce nuclear transformations by bombarding the nucleus with another particle or nucleus. For instance, one can strike the nucleus with a proton, or a neutron, or an α -particle, or a γ -ray, etc. The result of such a collision could be a new nucleus plus the emission of a different particle or particles. In all such collisions, called nuclear reactions, the outcomes are restricted by all the conservation laws.
FISSION REACTION If a uranium nucleus would “fission”, i.e. break apart into two smaller nuclei, then each nucleon on average would gain binding energy and this additional binding energy would be released in the form of kinetic energy given to the fission products. To help the uranium nucleus to fission, we can send in additional energy via a photon (photofission) or a neutron. Then the nucleus has enough energy to surmount the barrier and it will immediately break apart. Often, the products of fission include, in addition to massive nuclei, other more elemental particles such as neutrons.
NUCLEAR ENERGY The energy released in a nuclear reaction is huge compared to the energy released in a chemical reaction of two atoms or two molecules, such as the explosion of TNT. In chemical reactions the energy released per molecular interaction is typically a few eV, which is 108 times smaller than the above fission reaction. This is why nuclear energy is much more potent than chemical energy.
CHAIN REACTION We must arrange to have many nuclei fission to produce a large total amount of energy. This is made possible by using the extra neutrons that are released in each fission to initiate a new fission. The process is known as a “chain reaction”. If the chain is not controlled it could produce a large, nearly instantaneous release of energy as in a bomb. If it is controlled, the energy release can be gradual, as in a reactor.
CROSS-SECTION The cross-section is the likelihood of fission occurring in a material. Only U235 (and a new nucleus, produced in reactions, plutonium, Pu239) has a sufficiently large cross-section for use in a reactor.
ENRICHMENT Natural uranium contains mainly U238 (99.3%), with only 0.7% of U235. The cross-section of U238 is too small to use as a practical material. It is very difficult to separate U235 from U238 since both isotopes have the same chemical properties and they differ only slightly in mass. When one has “enriched” the uranium so that it contains about 3% of U235, one can use this mixture as the fuel for a reactor.
BREEDER REACTORS One can build a reactor that produces more fuel (in the form of Pu239) than it consumes (in the form of U235). These reactors are called “breeder” reactors. The plutonium produced in these reactors can be chemically separated from the uranium and used as fuel for a fission reactor.
MODERATOR The fission reaction that is induced by the incoming neutron produces extra neutrons, with a large amount of kinetic energy, which we want to use to induce further fissions in a chain reaction. However, only slow neutrons are efficient in inducing fission, so we first must slow down the neutrons. This is done by a “moderator”, which is a material with which the neutrons collide, and to which they transfer their energy. Energy transfer is most efficient if an energetic object collides with another body of roughly the same mass. The closest material in mass to neutron would be hydrogen (a proton), which is plentiful in water. However, water tends to absorb the neutron and form a deuteron (1H2), which removes the neutron from play instead of slowing it down, thus inhibiting the chain reaction tremendously. Therefore, “heavy” water, already made from deuterium is a much better alternative moderator.
CRITICAL REACTION If the excess neutrons that are produced in a fission induce, on average, less than one new fission, then the reactor is “sub-critical” and will not produce a chain reaction. If more than one fission is induced, on average, then the reaction will increase rapidly in number, possibly leading to an explosion. If the average number of fissions induced by the extra neutrons is just one, the reactor is critical, and a chain reaction will be sustained.
CONTROL RODS The number of induced fissions produced is controlled using “control rods” made of material that absorbs neutrons. These are automatically adjusted to keep the energy production at the intended level. Another control mechanism that prevents a properly constructed reactor from getting out of control is the fact that as the reactor core overheats, the moderator will boil away, and this will automatically reduce the number of slow neutrons and hence the fission reaction.
FUSION REACTIONS The binding energy per nucleon of light nuclei is smaller than that of nuclei with mass numbers near 70, and fusing those light nuclei together increases the average binding energy per nucleon, thus releasing energy. This process is known as fusion, and it is the source of energy of the sun and other stars. In the sun, the process used to generate energy fuses four protons. The conservation of charge requires that electrons be emitted in this process. If one could build a controlled fusion reactor, we would be able to generate energy by combining the very abundant hydrogen and/or deuterium found in water, and create helium, a very useful, yet environmentally harmless inert gas. No radioactive byproducts would be produced.
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES These are the new sub-atomic particles that we have been considering, such as, baryons, leptons and photons.
BARYONS This is the class of particles that contain protons and neutrons.
KHTK NOTE: Baryons represent the very condensed substance in the nuclear region.
LEPTONS This is the class of particles that contain the electron, positron and neutrino.
KHTK NOTE: Leptons represent the much less condensed substance in the electronic region.
ANTI-PARTICLE Positrons were predicted by Dirac after he showed that the correct set of quantum wave equations that are consistent with relativity predicted the existence of an “antiparticle” for each particle. These antiparticles are nearly identical with their particles and have either the same or the opposite properties of their particle. Thus, a positron has the same mass as the electron, but the opposite charge. The properties of particles and antiparticles are always such that they can annihilate each other if they meet, with their entire rest masses being converted into energy (usually γ-rays), without violating any conservation law. Similarly, pairs of particle-antiparticle can be produced directly from the conversion of γ-ray energy into the pair (usually in the presence of some heavy object such as a nucleus) without violating any conservation laws. The γ-ray must, of course, have at least an energy equal to the combined rest mass energy of the created particles.
PHOTON The photon is a particle that turns out to be its own antiparticle. This means that there is no distinction between particle and antiparticle photons, since both have the same charge (zero), rest mass (zero), baryon number (zero), spin (one), etc.
VIRTUAL PHOTONS See ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERACTION. Since these photons are not free to travel away, they are called virtual photons to distinguish them from photons that carry energy through space. Thus, virtual photon can be considered the carrier of the electric and magnetic force between charged particles.
KHTK NOTE: Particles of very near consistencies maybe considered to be exchanging virtual photons because charge represents the gradient of consistency (degree of condensation) of the substance.
ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERACTIONElectromagnetic interaction is the interaction between the electrons and nucleus in an atom. These interactions can be described in terms of the “virtual” exchange of photons. By this we mean that the electromagnetic interaction between charged particles can be considered a consequence of a possible continuous creation of photons by one charge and absorption by the other charge.
ELECTRODYNAMICS The full theory of these interactions with virtual photons is called quantum electrodynamics. The idea that one type of particle is the carrier of the force between other particles can be carried over to other forces as well. The electromagnetic force allows charged particles to exist in both bound states (electrons in an atom) or free states (electrons or protons moving through space).
MUON Muons make up much of the cosmic radiation reaching the earth’s surface. A muon is an unstable subatomic particle that has spin ½, and a negative charge e, but with a mass around 200 times greater. But in other respects, it behaves essentially the same as an electron. It is sometimes called a heavy electron.
KHTK NOTE: The charge of “-1” means that the particle exists at the electron-nucleus interface. It represents the steep change in the consistency of substance.
STRONG INTERACTION Strong interaction is the force that that holds nucleons together in the nucleus. In Strong interactions the decay proceeds very fast and they require the conservation of strangeness quantum number. The strong interaction can be considered as arising from the interchange of particles, called “gluons,” among quarks.
KHTK NOTE: Strong interaction represents the gradient of consistency of substance within the nucleus.
WEAK INTERACTION Weak interaction is the interaction at short distances between subatomic particles called leptons mediated by the weak force. The weak interaction can be considered as arising from the virtual interchange of particles, called “vector bosons.” The weak interaction and the electromagnetic interaction have now been shown to be two aspects of the common “electroweak” interaction.
KHTK NOTE: Weak interaction represents the gradient of consistency of substance within the electron region.
TAU PARTICLE The tau particle is similar to the electron and muon with a rest mass of 3490 times that of electron. The muons and the tau particle are unstable, and decay to electrons of smaller rest mass.
KHTK NOTE: The electron-muon-tau represent the suddenly increasing consistency of substance at the interface between the electronic and nuclear regions.
MESON Meson is a subatomic particle which is intermediate in mass between an electron and a proton and transmits the strong interaction that binds nucleons together in the atomic nucleus. The least massive meson is a pion, which is 270 times heavier than the electron. The next massive meson is the kaon, which is 970 times heavier than the electron.
KHTK NOTE: Mesons glue together the baryons just like photons glue together the Leptons.
HADRON Hadron is a subatomic particle of a type including the baryons and mesons, which can take part in the strong interaction.
QUARKS The mesons and the baryons are viewed as composites of more fundamental particles, called quarks. We know of six different quarks, and all six have been detected indirectly by identifying the properties of mesons containing these quarks. All mesons are composed of one quark and one antiquark, and all baryons are composed of three quarks. The quarks interact by means of the strong interaction.
STRANGENESS It is hard to understand why some particles, like the kaon, should have such a long half-life. After all, the kaon participates in the strong interaction, and can decay into pions that also participate in the strong interaction. There is a similar problem with the decay of a massive baryon called the lambda-particle, which is often created together with the kaon. The solution that was conceived is that these particles (as well as some other new particles) have a new quantum number, called “strangeness”, which must be conserved in an interaction involving nuclear forces (strong interaction). Strangeness is a new property that, like electric charge, baryon number and lepton number, can be both positive and negative. Strangeness is conserved in strong interactions but not in weak interactions. Decay through weak interactions have a relatively longer half-life. Conservation of strangeness introduces a new concept insofar as it is not an absolute conservation law. It is required for the strong interaction (and the electromagnetic interaction), but not for the weak interaction.
GLUONS The particles that are being interchanged among quarks in strong interaction are called “gluons” since they are responsible for “gluing together” the quarks.
“COLOR” CHARGE Each quark has a three valued index called “color” charge. The color charge is a quantity comparable to electric charge in electrodynamics, except that there are two types of electric charges and three types of color charges.
CHROMODYNAMICS The theory of the strong interaction is called “chromodynamics” because the label “color” has been commonly used for this index. Neither quarks nor gluons have ever been seen alone. It is now believed that quarks can only exist in bound states so that one will never see a free quark. This is a consequence of the nature of the strong force provided by the gluons to the quarks.
STANDARD MODEL Much of our present understanding of elementary particles and the world built out of them is explained by a comprehensive theory called the “Standard Model”. Even so, much more needs to be understood, such as the reason the fundamental particles have the rest masses that they do, and whether all the forces of nature can be understood to be different aspects of the same interaction.
KHTK NOTE: The rest masses are a measure of the consistency (degree of condensation) of energy particles. The interactions provide the continuity of substance that is condensing.
SOLID-STATE PHYSICS Solid-state physics studies how the large-scale properties of solid materials result from their atomic-scale properties. Thus, solid-state physics forms a theoretical basis of materials science. Along with solid-state chemistry, it also has direct applications in the technology of transistors and semiconductors.
CRYSTAL The simplest case of solid is the situation when the atoms are arranged in a fixed symmetric pattern which is repeated throughout the solid. Such a system is called a crystal. The results of analyzing this special case can be generalized to more complicated cases of solids with varying degrees of disorder (amorphous solids) and even to liquids. Together all the classes of material are called “condensed matter”.
ENERGY “BAND” Two or more atoms that are far apart, have their own identical energy level structure. The electrons can be specified as being in a particular level of a particular atom. As one brings two atoms closer together, the wave functions begin to overlap, and the electron can no longer be considered as confined to only one atom. The result is that the individual levels of each of the two overlapping atoms become two closely spaced shared levels in each of which the electron is shared by the two atoms. As one adds more and more atoms, the electrons are shared by more atoms and the energy levels are best described as energy “bands.” Each band will have twice the number of electrons because of the overlapping of the two individual energy levels. Each energy level of the individual atoms become converted to a band able to accommodate two electrons per atom.
ENERGY GAP AND OVERLAP There is an “energy gap” between some of the bands (see the figure above). This gap is large between bands 1 and 2 and is small between bands 3 and 4. At the energies within these gaps, there cannot be any electrons in the solid.
If there are an even number of electrons per atom, then one expects the highest band to be filled. However, if the bands overlap, as do bands 4 and 5 in the figure above, then the highest band containing electrons may not be filled even for an even number of electrons per atom.
This basic idea permits us to understand why certain solids act as insulators, while others act as conductors, and still others act as “semiconductors”.
ENERGY GAP AND OVERLAP When one imposes a voltage between the ends of a wire, an electric field tries to accelerate the electrons in the material. The electrons that can move because of the imposed voltage are called “free” electrons.
CONDUCTION BAND The energy band in which the “free” electrons move is called the conduction band. This is the case if the highest band containing electrons is not filled. The lower bands are called valence bands.
INSULATOR If the upper valence band is filled, then there are no energy levels available for the highest energy electrons, and they will be unable to accelerate. We will then have an insulator.
SEMICONDUCTOR If one can excite electrons from this filled valence band to the empty next higher band, that band would constitute a conduction band, and these excited electrons can move in an electric field. This type of excitation can occur if the temperature is sufficiently high that the thermal energy of the electrons allows them to jump to the conduction band. Materials such as these, with small energy gaps, are called semiconductors. They can change from insulators to conductors as the temperature increases.
HOLES When an electron excites into the conduction band, we say that there is a positive “hole” created in the valence band and that the positive holes act just like positively charged particles and provide conduction in this band.
N-TYPE SEMICONDUCTOR If one inserts atoms in the base semiconductor material, which have one extra electron, then there will be one more electron per impurity atom than is needed to fill the valence band. These added electrons can partially fill the conduction band and provides conduction appropriate to negative electrons. We call this material an n-type semiconductor.
P-TYPE SEMICONDUCTOR If one inserts atoms in the base semiconductor material, which have one less electron, then there will be one state in the valence band that may be unfilled. This “hole” acts to provide conduction appropriate to a positive charge, and this material is called p-type semiconductor.
PHOTODETECTORS It is also possible to excite electrons in an insulator or semiconductor to the conduction band by absorbing a photon. The incident photon that is absorbed will make it possible for the material to conduct electricity. This process is the basis for constructing photodetectors since the absorption of a photon is signaled by a change in the conductivity of the material.
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The following definitions are from the philosophy of KHTK:
ATOMIC STRUCTURE An electron cannot be treated as a point particle. The electron has a volume, and, within that volume, the energy substance of electron has the same consistency (degree of condensation) throughout. Multiple electrons come about due to different consistencies. The consistency of the electrons decreases with increasing distance from the nucleus. Therefore, multiple electrons appear as multiple shells around the nucleus of an atom. The quantum numbers simply specify the shells, and a fine structure of sub-shells within those shells.
ELECTRON SHELLS Each energy level of the atom is associated with the consistency of electrons. The four quantum numbers seem to determine the shape of the electron shells within the atom. This shape is almost spherical close to the nucleus, but it flattens out to a disk-like shape away from the nucleus. This makes the shape of the atom look like the shape of a galaxy as it appears from its side.
CHARGE The electron charge seems to be due to the sudden change in energy consistency at the electron-nucleus interface. The “attraction” is due to the CONTINUITY of the substance. Strong attraction corresponds to high gradient of continuity. Light attraction corresponds to light gradient of continuity. The “repulsion” occurs when the gradient of this consistency does not match. The electrons inside an atom are arranged by the gradient of their consistency and so they do not repel each other. Two negatively charged surfaces repel each other because there is a complete mismatch of the gradients of energy levels between them.
NUCLEAR SHELLS Protons and neutrons are bound together in the nucleus because of the continuity of substance. They simply make different layers of the nucleus. These layers get more condensed as they get closer to the center. Protons have charge so they must form the surface of the nucleus to interface with the electrons. Neutrons fill the inside of the nucleus and are more condensed; so, they have slightly greater mass. As the nucleus grows, the number of neutrons get larger more rapidly than the number of protons because they fill the inside of the nucleus.
FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES There is a seemingly inexhaustible array of oddball particles, and the conservation laws begin to seem arbitrary and capricious. Most of these particles lie in the high gradient of consistency between the electron and proton at the electronic-nuclear interface. Such particles are unstable and decay into other particles. This indicates dynamic migration of substance across this interface.
“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
7.1 The Importance of the Last Moments of Life
DISEMBODIED STATE Right now, when you are in the body, you are like a river, going in one direction. When you become disembodied, it is like you evaporated and became like a cloud. Whichever way the wind blows, you will go that way. Leaving the body and losing the discretionary mind is like that. Once you die, you are just fluff, floating around according to your karmic tendencies.
BEING HUMAN The significance of being a human is that you have the ability to discriminate and choose the course of your life. If you don’t employ that, then you are not much of a human being.
LOSING BODY When you lose the body, your ability to discriminate is gone. All the memory and other mind-stuff are still there; only the discriminatory process is lost. The moment of death is a significant factor because whatever is the content of one’s mind at that moment— pleasantness or unpleasantness—it could multiply manifold because of the lack of discriminatory mind. Even when in the body, someone who loses their discrimination will stay depressed for long periods of time if they get into depression, while pleasant experiences will turn into addictions.
MOMENT OF DYING In Indian culture, when someone is dying, he is supposed to chant the name of God, and not cry in distress. The idea is to generate some thought to think beyond oneself. This last dimension of thought and emotion that you create becomes the major tendency in that being. You must create an appropriate atmosphere and see how he can die peacefully. This is because these tendencies will go on for lifetimes. This is a tremendous opportunity to enhance someone’s life.
REBIRTH A bodiless being is a completely defenseless life. When someone gives this little being a little bit of help at this last moment, it will go a long way. When you help a person die well, all his struggles are washed off, just like that. You can make them earn what they did not earn all their life. All this can be accomplished if you can create the right situation for them and help them to die well. This is a huge contribution to that being’s life. He is born with the right quality. This is the simplest way to ensure a being is reborn pleasant.
7.2 Helping Suffering People Die
PROLONGED SUFFERING We are seeing more and more people surviving as vegetables here for a long time. This prolonged suffering would not be there if you did not unnecessarily interfere with the process of life and go on medically pushing death. Without this, no one will stay beyond their natural time. If there is a 100 per cent medical prognosis that there is no way to recover, they can withdraw the medication.
MERCY KILLING If you are afraid of old age and suffering, start doing some sadhana now to prepare yourself so that you can leave when you want to. You do not want to wait for that moment and ask to be given poison. You live as long as it is effective and you leave gracefully when you have to leave, not through mercy killing. If you are really progressive, you should advocate empowering individuals with the power to shed their body at will through sadhana.
PROJECTION OF LIFE Inward projection of life energies gives you organic unity and stability of life. Outward projection gives you a strong presence and expression of life. This see-saw is naturally happening with all life, including human beings. It is always life which makes the decision to stay because the body is still hospitable. It is best to let life take its course, rather than allow people to issue a death certificate for the living.
PALLIATIVE CARE There is need to go through pain if there is no medical need to suffer it. But if the painkillers are overly sedative and you are not even barely conscious, then it is not the best way to leave.
7.3 About Dying at Home
There is much care and effort to inform people about choking while eating; but there is nothing done on how to handle death. People think by not talking about it, by not preparing for it, it is not going to happen.
It is time we prepared ourselves to do at least a few things to ensure that this person who is dying does not have to go through unnecessary suffering. Death happens slowly; so there are certain preparations that can be made to reduce the choppiness of the moment and assist the withdrawal of life during that time.
If you are dying at home, it is best you withdraw into a clean, white room with mild-blue light. No photographs, nothing. If there is a tinge of blue around you, this will help you to die well. Another simple thing you can do to help is to have a lamp burning twenty-four hours of the day, next to that person. A ghee lamp is preferable, but you can also use butter. This creates a certain aura so that the choppy nature of withdrawal can be regulated to some extent.
Next, you can have a chant or something with the right kind of sounds going on. These should be the kind of sounds that will touch the fundamentals of who you are. It would be even better if they are consecrated sounds or chants or mantras. And better still if you have internalized it beforehand. Internalizing a chant can be a very powerful tool in life and in death.
NOTE: This section must be read in full because there is lot of practical information here.
7.4 Rituals from Death to the Disposal of the Body
Declaring Dead You do not diagnose someone as dead, you declare that they are dead. When you declare them dead, it is only for you that they are dead. As far as that person is concerned, in a way, all that has happened is that he or she is disembodied—they have lost their body.
The Laying Out of the Body Even after death has happened, it is good to place the body in a north–south alignment, with the head to the north. Once you do this, certain changes happen more quickly in the physiology of the body that has been discarded. The being realizes that it is futile to hang around that particular body because it cannot access it any more. A certain distance arises between the being and the body, which is very conducive for what has to happen next for the being.
Tying the Big Toes Together The next thing to do after death is to tie the big toes together. This will tightly close the anal outlet and Muladhara Chakra. Once this happens the being cannot get in and repossession of the body cannot happen. This will also protect the body from being used by people who are into occult practices.
Washing and Clothing the Body The next thing to do is wash the body with water. The idea is not to just clean the body, but to facilitate the complete withdrawal of life from the body as running water has the ability to clear many aspects off the body. Now, once again, you lay the body in north–south alignment in an open space. The body is kept naked, with just a white cloth covering it.
Things Not to Do around a Dead Body One thing is that you should not sleep near a dead body. Another thing is that one should not cook or eat near a dead body. One should also avoid unnecessary touching of the dead body. One more thing is that you do not leave the dead body alone. In India, if someone close to you dies, you are supposed to keep a ghee, butter or sesame-oil lamp burning near the body. People are supposed to sit and watch—no one leaves a dead body alone.
Paying Respects to the Dead In almost all parts of the world, if someone is dead, people who knew the person come and pay their respects for who he or she was. But in India, a dead person is generally treated as a Divine being and one bows down to them. This is life. This is the basis of life, and with that you don’t argue. You don’t question its wisdom. You just bow down because it is way beyond you.
The Belongings of the Dead Person When a person is dead, the articles of clothing that have been intimately in touch with their body, such as the underclothes, must be burned immediately. Other clothes, jewellery and other articles are distributed not just to one person but among many people within three days.
To Burn or Bury If someone exits their body consciously, or even if not consciously, they at least left gently or seeped out of the system, then you can bury them. But if they were jolted out of the system, you must burn the body. If someone dies when they are still young and vibrantly alive, it is better to cremate them. Only if someone dies of old age, you can bury them. You will see if someone very dear to you is dead and their body is there, you will keep on hallucinating, ‘Maybe they are just sleeping, maybe they will sit up, maybe some miracle will happen. Maybe something else will happen.’ You know, this will go on unnecessarily. You will see people crying and a big emotional drama happening. But the moment the body is cremated, you will see everyone becomes silent. Always.
Bringing Home the Body People have this strong sentiment that wherever the person died, his or her body should be brought home for burial or cremation. Today, we eat things which come from around the world or at least around the country and, moreover, we are loitering all over the planet. So where you are buried does not matter so much any more. It is more an emotional thing.
Cleansing the House Whenever a death occurs in a place or a dwelling, generally, there are some cleansing processes that are to be done. This is not just for some hygiene reasons; you want to wipe off that energy completely from that place. You can do Pooja, or you can also cleanse the energy by taking a vibrant fire, like a camphor fire, all over the house. Doing some chants in that space also could be very beneficial.
Tonsuring the Head after Cremation A common after-death Hindu ritual is tonsuring of the head of the male relatives of the deceased. This shaving of the head came into practice when people generally kept a lot of hair on their head. Long hair used to gather an aura of death. It is not necessary today for people whose hair are short.
Spreading the Ashes After the death has happened, it can take up to forty days for the being to completely leave the body. Even if you have burned the physical body, they will look for certain elements of the body like the ash or maybe their used clothes or something that belonged to them. It could be the sweat or smell of the body because, still the realization has not come that it is over. This is not desirable, so we want to eliminate it. One of the things that is done for this is to scatter the ashes as widely as possible. The effort is to do everything possible to make the being understand that it is over. This is also for the living to understand that it is all over.
7.5 Is It All Right to Donate Organs
Even if you have not lived your life in a useful manner, in death at least you could be useful! So if someone can use the dead body, it is fine. If one has died in a certain way, by consciously exiting the body, then it is not good to dismember one’s body. But if people have died in normal ways, it is all right to do it. It has nothing to do with spirituality. It is only an emotional problem. If something is useful for someone, if they can see or live making use of it, it is okay. Moreover, for a person to die with the intention—‘Let my body be useful to ten people’—is a good thing.
7.6 Dematerializing the Body
All the after-death rituals are mainly for the right disposal of the physical body and for assisting the being in its future journey. However, there are people who help themselves and do not require any assistance from anybody for this. These are highly accomplished yogis—they not only leave their body at will, they also dematerialize it. Essentially, this body is a play of five elements: 72 per cent of it is water, 12 per cent is earth, 6 per cent is air, 4 per cent is fire and the rest is aakash. With aakash, you don’t have to do anything. If you know how to dematerialize these other things, especially the earth, you will evaporate right here.
Chapter 17: PARTICLES OF LIGHT AND WAVES OF MATTER
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KEY WORD LIST
Localization, Interference, Energy Flow, Quantization, Light, Black Body Radiation, Photo-Electric Effect, Production of X-rays, Compton Scattering, Matter Waves, Probability Distribution, Maxwell’s Wave Equation, Schrödinger’s Equation, Dirac’s Equation, Wave Function, Wave Packet, Uncertainty Principle, Zero Point Energy, Tunnelling.
(From KHTK) Particle, Quantum, Motion.
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GLOSSARY
For details on the following concepts, please consult Chapter 17.
LOCALIZATION A particle is defined as a “point”. The properties of velocity and acceleration are attributed to the whole particle. There is certainly no possibility of considering any one particle as being simultaneously at many different positions in space. A wave is defined as a disturbance that is spread over a fairly sizable area. A pure sinusoidal wave is spread out from plus to minus infinity. A pulse wave has a definite extent in space at any instance. One generally thinks of a wave as being a disturbance located simultaneously at many points of space. Therefore, the particle and wave picture differ on the question of localization.
INTERFERENCE The interference or diffraction phenomenon is observed with waves but not with particles.
ENERGY FLOW Both waves and particles carry energy and momentum. But there is a big difference in the mechanism of that energy flow. A wave carries this energy in a continuous fashion without discontinuous jumps in energy flow, even if the energy is greatly decreased. However, in case of particles, the energy comes in discontinuous pulses, with each pulse bringing a discrete amount of energy. The flow of energy is not uniform or continuous. This difference leads to the idea of quantization.
QUANTIZATION In case of light, a continuously flowing wave seems to transport quantized units of energy.
LIGHT Although the experiments on interference show that light behaves as a wave, the photo-electric effect provides the most convincing evidence that light must be considered to consist of particles. This apparent anomaly between wave and particle nature is resolved in the definitions from KHTK provided below.
BLACK BODY RADIATION This radiation is emitted over a continuous spectrum of frequencies. It increases rapidly at lower frequencies reaching a maximum and then starts to decline. Maxwell equations explain the distribution only at lower frequencies when it is increasing rapidly. They are unable to explain the rest of the distribution. But the whole distribution can be explained when energy is seen to be radiating in quanta that are proportional to frequency.
PHOTO-ELECTRIC EFFECT In the photo-electric effect, a beam of light is shone on a metal, with the result that electrons are emitted from the metal. However, the maximum kinetic energy of the electrons emitted is found to depend on the frequency of the incident light and not on its intensity. This means that light energy has to be absorbed in quanta in the interaction that frees the electrons.
PRODUCTION OF X-RAYS X-rays can be produced by taking energetic electrons and letting them strike a metal plate. When these electrons stop in the metal, they emit electromagnetic radiation over a large range of wavelengths. The surprising experimental fact is that there is a minimum wavelength that can be emitted for each V (energy of the electrons). This minimum wavelength varies inversely with V but is not affected by the electron current density. These results cannot be explained by a wave theory of light.
COMPTON SCATTERING The X-ray beam, after it is scattered by electrons, suffers a definite reduction in frequency. Compton showed that energy of the photon, as given by its frequency, is reduced by the same amount that the kinetic energy of the recoil electron is increased. Thus, the photon is a momentum carrying corpuscle that can transfer its momentum in a given direction to the atom. The Compton effect also implies that the electron must be treated as a wave and not as a particle.
MATTER WAVES To conform with the case of electromagnetic waves, De Broglie hypothesized that the frequency and wavelength for electrons should be determined by the same basic relations used for photons. If De Broglie’s hypothesis is true, then the electrons represented by these waves should exhibit interference and diffraction appropriate to the wavelengths associated with the electron. When experiments were performed using crystals as diffraction gratings, this diffraction was indeed seen. Similar predictions for the wavelengths of more massive particles, such as protons and neutrons, have also been experimentally verified. Thus, at small scales, there is dualism in nature between waves and particles. The velocity of the particles is equal to the group velocity of its associated wave. Planck showed that energy is connected to frequency, E = hf. De Broglie then showed that momentum is connected to wavelength, p = h/λ. This is a fundamental relation of the Quantum Theory.
PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION The interference of waves in the double slit experiment creates a distribution of the intensity of light. Quantum mechanics interprets this as a probability distribution of “point” particles called photons. This concept, that the only thing that we can predict is the probability of a photon’s location, is a basic concept of quantum mechanics.
MAXWELL’S WAVE EQUATION Thus in the case of a photon, Maxwell’s wave equation gives the probability amplitude for finding a photon. This equation has to be solved to predict the behavior of the photon.
SCHRÖDINGER’S EQUATION This is a similar equation that provides the probability amplitude for finding a non-relativistic electron.
DIRAC’S EQUATION This equation provides the probability amplitude for finding a relativistic electron.
WAVE FUNCTION The central idea is that there is some wave equation which has to be solved to predict the behavior of a particle. When this equation is solved for a particular case, the resulting wave (called a wave function) gives an amplitude which, when squared, is proportional to the probability distribution of the particles.
WAVE PACKET Pulses of waves can be obtained by superposing a large number of regular traveling waves of different wavelengths. Such a pulse is called a “wave packet.” Such a packet traveling through space indeed resembles a localized particle.
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE The uncertainty principle states that if one wants to describe a particle (at a given time) as being localized in a region ∆x (i.e. have a spatial uncertainty ∆x), then that particle must have an uncertainty in its x direction momentum, ∆p, which is at least as large as h/∆x. Similarly, if one wants the x direction momentum to be known to within ∆p, then there must be an uncertainty in the position of the particle which is at least as large as ∆x = h/∆p. Of course, if p is uncertain, so is v and the kinetic energy.
ZERO POINT ENERGY This means that particles of matter, even if the temperature is at absolute zero where there is no thermal energy, must still have an average kinetic energy related to this range of momenta. This kinetic energy at a temperature of absolute zero, is called the “zero-point energy”, and there is no way to avoid having this minimum amount of energy.
TUNNELLING Energy uncertainty of a particle allows it to surmount the barrier from the inside to the outside of the well for the short time needed to travel and escape from the well. This process is called tunneling, since the particle appears to have dug a hole through the wall of the well and emerged on the outside. This process actually occurs in the radioactive decay of nuclei.
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The following definitions are from the philosophy of KHTK:
PARTICLE A particle is not a “point,” but it has a volume that is filled with substance. The substance within a particle has uniform consistency throughout. The more condensed is the substance, the smaller is the size of the particle. This predicts the relative sizes of a proton and an electron in a hydrogen atom. The size of the electron is equivalent to the size of the hydrogen atom. On the other hand, the size of the proton is roughly 2000 times smaller because its substance is that much condensed. This provides a proper visualization of the hydrogen atom, where an extremely small proton exists at the center of the only electron there is. A very condensed particle, like proton, may appear to be spherical in shape; but as the consistency of substance decreases, as in the electron, the particle is likely to expand in size and flatten into the shape of a disk.
QUANTUM This quantum is the amount of energy involved in the process of radiating and getting absorbed. It does not necessarily mean that this energy exists in space in a pulse form. In space it may simply appear as a certain consistency (a degree of condensation) of energy.
MOTION When the difference in condensations is very large, the condensed substance may appear as a particle next to the uncondensed substance. But if the difference in condensation is comparable, the two substances may appear as waves when set next to each other. Therefore, ‘wave’ and ‘particle’ is a matter of looking at substance at different scale of condensation. If you greatly magnify a particle, you may see waves inside it as a disturbance. The wave inside a particle may have a ‘motion’ commensurate with the condensation of its substance. This may appear to give the particle its relative speed compared to another particle.
We find that a slight change in the condensation of substance creates a huge change in the relative speed of its particle. This may be the leverage that thought has over physical movement. All animation in the body is most likely produced by infinitesimal shifts in condensations of substance. This principle may also underlie in controlling the speed and direction of the UFOs. The change in condensation must apply equally to the occupants of the UFO for intense accelerations not to be felt by them.
“Most people in the world believe that if they die in their sleep, it is wonderful. What a horrible way to go!” ~ Sadhguru
6.1 Does Death Need Preparation
Death is moving from the physical to the non-physical. It is the greatest moment in your life. So it is very important that you make it happen most gracefully and wonderfully.
OPPORTUNITY If you want to make use of the opportunity that death presents, you cannot approach it with fear. This is not something that you can handle all of a sudden at that moment. So it is important that on many levels we prepare for death beforehand. If you can manage this last conscious moment of your life gracefully, you will at least go through the disembodied phase well. You will not make it hellish.
SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE From a spiritual perspective, what did not perhaps happen in life can be accomplished at the moment of death, if it is handled sensibly. This is because it is very easy to untie the knots of everything that you have accumulated at that final moment. But if you are unprepared or become fearful of it or are ignorant of the ways of life, you will create resistance towards it and miss that possibility completely.
REQUIREMENTS You must be able to sit quietly and die. People on the spiritual path often choose the time, date and place of their death. They have created the necessary awareness within themselves so that, when the time comes, they can bundle the life energies and leave the body consciously without damaging it, just like taking off their clothes. They know where they are connected to the physical body, so they can disentangle themselves whenever the moment is right for them.
THE PROCESS Death is never sudden. Life dribbles out, over some time. Once your senses are disconnected, you have no experience of the world or the body, but the experience of presence is still there. One can die peacefully even when the body is violently broken up in a car crash. Or one can die a violent death in bed surrounded by family having become terrified in that moment. The violence of the death is not determined by what happened to the body; it depends on what happened within that person.
LAST MOMENTS You die peacefully when you are aware of your last moments and you are not just reacting. If you have lived a life of awareness, then it is very much possible that even at the last moment you remain aware. If this has to come, you have to build a life of awareness. Only then you can be aware in your death.
6.2 Sleep, Ojas and Death
Sadhguru says, “Fundamentally, the dynamism of the physical has to touch the inertia of the non-physical. This is the Shiva–Shakti principle. Shiva is inertia, Shakti is dynamism.” I think that choice of words here is very confusing. I like the following description.
SHIVA-SHAKTI PRINCIPLE Shiva is the stable data, the fundamental postulate. Shakti describes the reasoning, the myriads of considerations, which can now come about because of that postulate. The whole theory of relativity depends on the postulate of a universal constant ‘c’ that is associated with the speed of light. The fundamental principle underlying any duality is that of a dimension extending to infinity in either direction. All dualities represent the two ends of a dimension. Here SHIVA is the fundamental principle of the dimension. SHAKTI is like all the dualities which can now be manifested based on the principle of dimension.
OJAS According to Sadhguru: Ojas is “A non-physical force generated by spiritual practices.” This is based on the Shiva-Shakti principle, where spiritual practices are becoming aware of the stable data of all nature. Ojas then follows. Ojas is a Sanskrit term that can be translated as “vigor” or “essence of vitality.” In a nutshell, ojas is the vital energy that rules our immunity, strength, and happiness—three things we want to have in abundance. The more you are aware of deeper stable data, the more ojas is generated automatically. Ojas is a function of deep awareness.
SLEEP & DEATH Sleep and death are similar in the sense that a person is transitioning from an active, wakeful state (Shakti) to a completely different state in which one is deeply engrossed (Shiva). Here you need to become aware of the state of being deeply engrossed. You can get an idea of that from deep contemplation, or meditation.
MOMENT OF DEATH The state of mind at the moment of death determines what you will be engrossed in from then on. That state would not change until any rebirth.
6.3 Why Do People Fear Death
The fear of death is simply because we are not in touch with reality. Our identification with this body has become so strong because we have not explored other dimensions. Therefore, body has become a big issue. But if you had known something in your life that is more than the body, then shedding the body will not be a big deal for you.
6.4 How to Deal with the Fear of Death
CAUSE OF INSECURITY Death is the universe recycling itself. During this process you have an opportunity to transcend this whole cycle. You identify yourself as a body, and only because of that, there is all this insecurity.
CONFRONTING FEAR If you truly experienced yourself beyond the limitations of the physical and the mental, there would be no fear. That is why you must do sadhana. Confronting your fear of death can bring tremendous clarity and transformation in your life.
CONTROLLING IMAGINATION There are two significant faculties that human beings have—a vivid sense of memory and a vivid sense of imagination. Fear means your imagination is out of control. So it is a question of taking your faculties into your control rather than fighting fear.
TAKING CHARGE OF PHYSIOLOGY What is needed is taking charge of your physiological and psychological process, paying attention to the process of how we generate thoughts, how we generate emotions, how we conduct our body and how we manage our chemistry.
REMINDING YOURSELF One thing you can do is remind yourself about death—your death. Every day, just spend five minutes reminding yourself that you are mortal and today you may die. Just remind yourself this much and this will take away your fear of death.
EXPERIENCE THE NON-DUAL In experiencing the non-dual, the duality of life and death will become one. It is the illusion of duality and the attachment to one of them that makes death a fearful expectation—of being wrenched away from that which you know.
6.5 How to Live One’s Old Age
When you are approaching death, it is an opportunity, because when energies have become feeble and they are progressing towards dropping the body, it is much easier to become aware of the nature of your existence. You can see the distinction between what is you and what is your body with greater clarity. When the time comes, the best place to die is always under the open sky, not the hospital.
6.6 The Wisdom of Vanaprastha Ashrama
In ancient India, when couples took up Vanaprastha Ashrama, they often withdrew together and lived a very simple ‘back-to-basics’ kind of life, until their death. This was to ensure that they died well or had a good death.
Essentially, the idea of Vanaprastha Ashrama was to withdraw from a place that has four walls. Even if you don’t understand this, your body will understand this very clearly when you sleep outdoors as to how vulnerable it is. Vanaprastha Ashrama meant being in communion with the vana, or forest. The fundamental idea is that after living in a home all your life, now, as the end nears, you move closer to Nature and be aware of this vulnerability. Vanaprastha Ashrama brings a deep sense of mortality home to this body. Once this body is completely conscious it is mortal, it will arrange itself properly.
It is not good for people to die at home in the midst of their family and relatives. It is better not to remain connected to the same reality you are now departing from. if you die among the family, you will die with a huge sense of attachment, which is not good for what happens after. It is best to withdraw into a protected outdoor space, such as, an ashram.
Vanaprastha Ashrama is not about going to die; it is to live your life with a certain kind of awareness and preparation, so that death can happen in the best possible manner. This is not an invitation to death but a profound acceptance of the human condition.
6.7 The Practice of Sallekhana
SALLEKHANA Sallekhana is a supplementary vow to the ethical code of conduct of Jainism. It is the religious practice of voluntarily fasting to death by gradually reducing the intake of food and liquids. It is viewed in Jainism as the thinning of human passions and the body, and another means of destroying rebirth-influencing karma by withdrawing all physical and mental activities. It is not considered a suicide by Jain scholars because it is not an act of passion, nor does it employ poisons or weapons.After the sallekhana vow, the ritual preparation and practice can extend into years.
BHOGI A bhogi is one who is lost in material or sensual pleasure
ROGI A rogi is one whose life is contained by the disease he is suffering from. NOTE: This makes bhogi a mental rogi.
YOGI A yogi is someone who has achieved union or harmony with the Existence.
HEALTHCARE INTERVENTION Today, a large number of people are choosing to die as rogis. There is a whole industry that has come up for this—maybe they feel that they have to support it. Currently, in the US, a disproportionately large number of healthcare interventions are being done in the last thirty days of human life. Why do you need so much intervention at that stage? This effort is not for well-being, as this results mostly in torturing people to the extreme, knowing fully well that they anyway have to die soon.
WALKING OUT OF LIFE Sallekhana is about being so aware that you know when life has completed its cycle and you walk out of it. This is about developing sufficient awareness to separate yourself from the physicality that you have gathered. In that level of awareness, one can leave. If you do not attain such a level of awareness, then the least you should do is make the last moment very graceful, pleasant, joyful and blissful for yourself. This can be done if you manage certain things beforehand. If none of this is possible, then at least one can take the decision not to choose excessive medical intervention. This will be good for you, and good for the planet.
6.8 The Significance of Dying in Kashi
KASHI No other city in the world is as deeply associated with death as Kashi is. It is also one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world. There is evidence of it being at least 12,000 years old. But surely it is much older than that. Not only was Kashi continuously inhabited for thousands of years, it was also the most powerful spiritual magnet that drew people from far and wide. It would not be an overstatement to say that it would have been impossible to find someone in the subcontinent who did not want to go to Kashi for whatever reason.
KALA Kala means both time and space.
KALABHAIRAVA Kalabhairava means the dark one, one who represents limitless time and space.
YATANA Ultimate suffering
YATANA SHARIRA Once a person loses their physical body, Kalabhairava gives them a yatana sharira, a special subtle energy body, for them to work out their karma. They say the suffering in this yatana sharira is forty-two times more intense than normal suffering. Because it is so intense, it is over almost instantaneously.
BHAIRAVI YATNA It is something that can happen to you beyond the body, but Kalabhairava will make it happen to you here. So at the moment of death, your many, many lifetimes play out in a few moments with great intensity. Whatever pleasures, sufferings and pains that need to happen to you—spread over many lifetimes—will now happen to you in a microsecond.
FAST FORWARD Essentially, spirituality means putting your life on fast forward. You may suffer much more because everything happens at a fast pace. What you would have stretched for ten years happens, let us say, in one month. So the intensity of the suffering that you go through is extremely acute. There may be moments of ecstasy and joy, but there is so much suffering also happening rapidly within you.
CONSECRATED SPACE A consecrated space means just this—it is concentrated life. By saying the suffering is forty-two times more intense means that life there is forty-two times more intense than the way you know it. So that means you burn fuel forty-two times faster. That means everything is faster. After some time, once you get used to it, there is no more yatana, it just burns. You are at a higher rev. That is the purpose of every consecrated space. This whole longing to die in Kashi is to empty out your karma bucket entirely at least towards the end of your life and not make Kashi another item on your bucket list. Emptying one’s karma leads to all experiences happening at a tremendous pace.
