27  Existence and Death TC  "27  Existence and Death" \l 1

To live is to be awakened. To live is to be alive to all the forces of nature around us in alertness. Deep alertness is that vast awareness where the entire universe is comprehended.

When a spark flies out from the fire, the spark thinks, “Oh, look at this long existence of mine!” But in a flicker of an eyelid he turns to ashes and falls back into the fire.

Blake said, “Experience eternity in an hour,” but he was slightly mistaken. Experience eternity in a moment, here and now! This is the experience and the goal of life that human beings have to strive for, and eventually every one must reach there.

Something cannot come from nothing. There is not a single ounce of energy that can be added to this universe or taken away from it. It is eternally there—that is the meaning of existence.

Everything from the grossest to the subtlest has to emanate a force, like fire emanating heat or a flower emanating fragrance. All these emanations put together form the emanation of the universal mind. All minds are interconnected.

Even in a stone there is life; it is not dead. There is no death. Everything is vibrating with life.

Until you know what life is you are dead.

If you become familiar, through your spiritual and meditational practices, with the subtler layers of the mind, then when you pass over you will be familiar with those regions because you will have experienced them here and now in the physical. When you pass over you will say, “Did I really pass over?—it is all so familiar,” and that takes the sting, which is called pain, out of death.

At death the physical body is discarded, but the mental or subtle body carries on, empowered or given energy by the spiritual body. After leaving the physical body, what we have left is the combination of the subtle (mental) body and the spiritual body. Here on earth we function in three aspects—mind, body and spirit. On the other plane, we function with two aspects, mind and spirit, minus the body.

To refine itself, the mental body has to go through a process. In this school of life, we go through a process towards greater refinement. In the same way, the mental body too, in that dimension goes through a process of refinement.

The process of refinement in that state is not evolutionary. It functions on a horizontal plane, not a vertical plane. There, the main function of the subtle body is to evaluate what it has done while having a physical body. It evaluates, assesses, and prepares itself to be reborn again on this earth or another planet, so that it can find greater refinement until that mental body becomes transparently clear.

When the spiritual Self, the true identity of man and his true eternity, can shine in its fullest glory, then the glass (the mental body) will also become unnecessary. The glass too will melt away in that beautiful divine light that is radiated in all its purity.

When you leave this body and your whole life flashes in front of you, then your journey begins. That is great fun! It is lovely. In the subtle state the mental body, being closer to the spiritual body, experiences greater joy because it is closer to the real all-pervading Self. So death is something never to be feared.

After death and after having a glimpse of the life one has lived, one begins evaluating. The evaluation will always be one hundred percent accurate, because one is so close to the spiritual Self. The job of the subtle body is to rid itself of all its dirt. Therefore the purpose of evaluation is to find how to clean off this dirt, asking, “Which is the best possible way to do it? Which is the best possible planet to go to for the particular lesson that I have to learn? Should I come back to this planet or go to another? What sort of form should I take? Which vehicles would be the best and most compatible to take birth through?” All these evaluations are made by you. There is no Father sitting upon a high chair with half a dozen clerks and books.

In the subtle state of death, you remain static. You function within yourself and within evaluation, but there is no evolution or progression. For any entity to progress he needs all three aspects of himself: physical, mental and spiritual. That is why our bodies are necessary. That is why theology can say, “Your body is the temple of God.”

When one leaves this body, the mind or mental body becomes at one wit the universal mind, and yet retains its individuality. It becomes so pleasurable. The mental body becomes so at one with the universal mind, that it experiences joy, and you feel that there is nothing else on the other side but you. Being attuned to the universal mind, you have a panoramic view of all that there is; so it is nice to die!

In that state (between lives) you also experience the fruit of an action. You experience the totality of a particular pattern created by a certain set of your actions. Now the human mind is nothing but pattern, upon pattern, upon pattern. Living this life and having gained many experiences, one could complete many cycles in different patterns. When a certain pattern (which of course had its impetus in so many lives before) has been experienced fully in this life, you can, in the subtle state, experience the result of the totality of the various ingredients that went into this pattern. And when you experience that, the pattern is completed.

So a person dies: what happens to him? He sheds his physical body. The human system has three parts: the physical, the subtle (which is the mental) body, and the spiritual body, which empowers it all. When this body is cast off like an old garment, the subtle body carries on.

The subtle body is the repository of all the experiences you have gained until the moment of parting. Until the moment of shedding this body, the subtle body has gained and retained within itself all the experiences, not only of this lifetime, but of all the lives that a person might have lived since the primal atom. So the subtle body goes on, carries forth, with these experiences. These experiences remaining in impression form are called samskaras.

The things I teach are not only useful for this life, but will help you when you die, because the experiences that you can have after death can be conditioned now. Heaven and hell can be created in another realm according to your conception and ideas. Keep on believing that you are going to burn in the fires of hell and you are going to burn. Keep on believing that it is going to be joyful on the other side, and the very mental conditioning that you are undergoing will make it joyful.