Death is a Celebration🔗

The moment you start becoming aware, you start controlling your life and death also.

Our concern for karma is rooted in our fear of death. It is a primal fear, that of the unknown. Our actions in this life are for the most part driven by the desire to be in a better place after death or the fear not to be in a worse place after death. This fear of leaving the body and mind has existed through the ages.

There is a nice story in Mahabharata, the great Hindu epic:

There was once a king by the name of Yayati. He lived extremely well for hundred years, enjoying his kingdom and all the physical and mental comforts of life. At the end of 100 years, Yama, the lord of death, came to take him away as it was time for him to leave the earth. The king was shocked to see Yama and started crying, 'Why have you come so fast and that too suddenly without any notice? I have not lived my life fully yet. Please give me some more time to live.'

Yama replied that there is no extension possible to one's life. But Yayati pleaded with him and begged for more time. Yama finally agreed that if any one of his sons was ready to give up his life for Yayati, then the king could live for that much more time.

Yayati called one of his sons. The son agreed, 'I will give up my life, let my father live.' He gave up his life. Yama extended Yayati 's life by a hundred years.

Yayati continued to enjoy all the material comforts in the same way as before and lived another hundred years. At the end of this period Yama returned to take him. This time too Yayati was shocked to see Yama again so soon. He felt he had hardly lived his life and begged Yama saying that he was not prepared to die and wanted some more time.

Yama gave him another chance; another of Yayati's sons gave up his life for his father, and Yayati got a lease of another hundred years of life.

Yayati enjoyed another hundred years and again Yama came back to take him. Again as before, Yayati asked for more time but this time Yama refused to play the same game again.

Instead of agreeing to the king's plea, this time Yama asked Yayati compassionately, 'O king! Do you think you can put a fire out by pouring oil into it? Do you think that you can fulfill your desires by living them out more and more?' In just a few beautiful words Yama explained the whole purpose life to Yayati. Yayati finally realized the Truth, followed Yama and rested at the feet of the Divine.

You cannot feel fulfilled by offering sense pleasures to the senses. You cannot feel that you are ready for death if you never lived intensely. Trying to satisfy the senses, pouring pleasures into your senses, or living as you want does not mean living intensely. When you really live intensely, automatically you will be liberated.

Why are we afraid of Death?

We are afraid because instinctively we resist change and death is an abrupt change in life. The master Chuang Tzu says beautifully, 'Man's thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.'

We are afraid because we do not know who we are. We hold an identity of ourselves inside us, based on our family, relationships, job, wealth, social image etc. Death removes this very foundation on which our identity is built, so we feel death snatches everything that is ours.

Our understanding about death, or rather our misunderstanding about death, makes death a fearful, frightening experience. The man who resists death dies even while he lives. He dies every moment because he is tortured by the very idea of death. When I say 'death', I don't mean only physical death. Losing anything is a form of death. Losing your comfortable life is one form of death, losing your relatives is another. Please understand that loss in any form is nothing but death.

There are two issues: the incident of death that happens at the end of our lives, and psychological death. Real death happens only once, but psychological death, the fear of death, permeates our life. The idea and fear of death decides our entire life structure.

Every part of your body is connected to someone or the other. Your being is not an individual being. It is not alone, separate, as you think. We are all interlinked. That is why we undergo terrible suffering when we lose someone or something. Every missing that you experience, no matter of whom or what is what I call death. Fear of death is just the fear of continuity or discontinuity. We are afraid about the 'what next'.

Once, in the USA, a young lady asked the great Hindu monk Vivekananda, 'What is life?' Vivekananda said, 'Come with me to Bharat. I will teach you.' She asked, 'What will you teach me?'

He said, 'I will teach you how to die.'

If you know the secret of death, the quality of your life will be different. Your very understanding and attitude towards everything will change.

Death is not a mere incident at the end of your life. It is a profound knowing. If you know how to die, you know how to live. Living and leaving are two sides of the same thing. Your life will be totally different once you understand death.

Almost all the traditions have tried to conquer death, to outlive death. But one group of really intelligent, intuitive people understood after much struggle that we were approaching death in a completely wrong direction. They decided to take a 180-degree turn. They started working with death in a different way.

They used meditation as a technique to take them where others had not dared to go before. Those few intelligent ones were the rishis of the Upanishad age. The report they submitted on their research into the phenomenon of death is called the Kathopanishad.

These rishis researched deeply on death and finally came to the conclusion that death cannot be understood or overcome by resistance. By resisting death you cannot go beyond death. The only way to break free from the vicious cycle of birth and death is by becoming enlightened – entering into death, dropping the fear.

Please understand that death has power over you because of your belief, your faith in it, that's all. If you take a little time and look into your fear of death you will see that it has the power to transform your life in the most positive way. You will realize that it is not contradictory to life but complementary to life.

Death is a deep relaxation. It is the ultimate 'letting go'. It is the dropping of the old and starting with the new. When your being recognizes that it cannot achieve what it wants to through this body it decides to move on.

This 'moving on', this 'passing over' is what is called death.

When your brand new house becomes old after the passage of years, you either try to repair it or if that is too inconvenient and frustrating, you decide to sell the house and move into a new one. In the same way when you feel that you have not lived your life totally in the way you wanted to, you leave this body to take a new one. Your choice to start all over again is what is called death.

Mystery of mysteries

There is a beautiful story in the great Hindu epic, Mahabharata:

The prince Yudhishtra was asked by a yaksha (demigod), 'What is the most mysterious thing on planet earth?'

Yudhishtra replied, 'Every day so many lives are going to the abode of Yama, the lord of death, yet the people who stay here think they are going to live forever.'

We always think that it is someone else who will die, not us. Death is truly the mystery of all mysteries.

There are only two things that are certain about death. One is that we will die at some point in time. The other is that it is uncertain when or how we will die.

Everything that is born has to die. That is the nature of life.

A beautiful story from the life of Buddha:

Once a woman came with her dead son to Buddha. She was mad with grief at the death of her only son. She cried to Buddha, 'Master, please give me some medicine that will get my boy back to life.'

Buddha replied, 'Get me a handful of mustard seed.' The woman got up immediately and rushed to get a handful of mustard seed. Then Buddha added, 'The mustard seed must be from a house where no one has lost a dear one – child, husband, parent, friend.'

The woman went from house to house. Out of pity for the desperately crying woman, people gave her mustard seed from their house. But when she asked whether they had lost a dear one, they had someone or the other who had died in the house.

She went from house to house till sunset but found no house where a death had not happened. Slowly the truth started dawning on her – death is inevitable. She buried her son's body and returned to Buddha. She fell at the feet of Buddha and asked him, 'Master, please teach me the truth. What is death? What exists beyond death?'

She became Buddha's disciple and followed Buddha for the rest of her life.

There is a beautiful saying, 'Tomorrow or the next life, which comes first, we never know.'

The topic of rebirth is not popular because it cannot be proven by science. Of course, now Near Death Experience (NDE) has become a hot subject as many doctors and psychologists have recorded their experiences. There are many people who have recorded thousands of NDEs, almost all of which fall into a similar pattern. They all relive the events of their lives. Hypnotists have regressed people into their past lives. These too fall into a pattern. They are similar to what the rishis said over 5000 years ago about what happens when you die, which is recorded in the Kathopanishad.

Death in my presence – before enlightenment

This incident is from the days of my spiritual journey before enlightenment.

I was near a small village in North Bharat called Ghaziabad, a place near Varanasi, the spiritual headquarters of Hindus. Hindus traditionally visit Varanasi at least once in their lifetime. The city has a floating population.

I was there with an old monk who had been hospitalized and was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). According to the vedic tradition, young monks take care of the elderly monks and sannyasis. As a young monk staying in that village, I started taking care of the elderly monk.

One day, while I was attending to him, suddenly it became obvious that the man in the bed next to his was about to die. He started struggling for life. I was able to see very clearly what was happening inside him. By that time I had had my deep spiritual experience or satori but I had not become fully enlightened; the realization of the purpose of my life had not happened. I was still seeking and my body was getting prepared for the explosion of energy that was to happen after enlightenment.

Several doctors were trying to give him critical medical care and support. The man was gasping for breath. I could see very clearly how death was happening in him. I could see very clearly how the life source was moving away from the body.

That is the strongest experience that has happened in my life outside my body. Inside my body, the strongest experience that happened was realizing the mission!

I was able to see what was happening, but I was not able to bear it. An important thing you should know is, if you see somebody in physical pain, it will affect you only about thirty to forty percent. But if you see somebody in depression and you can relate to the person and feel the depression, it will affect you more – say around sixty percent. Further, if it is emotional pain and if you are able to connect and understand the pain, it will affect you much more – about eighty percent. The more subtle the pain, the more you will be affected.

I saw not only the physical, mental or emotional pains of the dying man, but I also saw the being level pain. It was almost like I was going through the pain myself. I wanted to just run away from there but the elderly monk got afraid and just held my hand begging me to stay. I had been taking care of him for two to three months, so he had got really attached to me.

Since a young age, I have loved serving monks. I used to take food and clothes from my house and give it away to the monks! Serving monks has always been my passion. I have always felt that this whole vedic tradition is alive even today only because of such monks. They have kept this science alive.

For doing research in any science, you need great support in many areas. For example, in the West, a lot of research happens in the outer world science because there are people and organizations to support it. If it is research on medicines, a pharmaceutical company may support the research. If it is some research related to space and astronomy, the government may sponsor and support it.

In the same way, in Bharat, the whole country supports and sponsors spiritual science research. The whole country has taken up the responsibility to support an inner world scientist by providing him food, shelter and clothes so that he can continue his research in the inner world without spending time for basic outer world requirements. So I have always felt that it is my responsibility to take care of the monks and inner world scientists.

The elderly monk who I was taking care of in the ICU did not want me to leave because he was afraid seeing the man next to him dying. The man was going through such a hard time. It was like the whole six feet of his body was being torn apart! Imagine the pain if you have a small cut in your finger. Now imagine how painful it would be if the skin on your whole body is literally being peeled. It is something like a thousand scorpions stinging at the same time! I could clearly see the pain the man was going through.

On one side, the individual soul associated with all the unfulfilled emotions like desire, greed and guilt was undergoing terrible suffering. The individual soul wanted to stay in the body and fulfill these, but the body was tired and wanted to relax! It was a fight between the body and individual soul. It was as if the body wanted to leave but the individual soul was trying to hold onto it. If the right hand was gone, the soul was trying to hold onto the left. If the right leg was dead and gone, the individual soul was trying to hold onto the left leg. Whichever part of the body it could hold on to, the individual soul was trying to hold onto it.

Part by part the body was dying. I saw that with the lower body there was not much struggle. But when it came to the upper body, the whole body was vibrating and pulsating with pain.

Slowly the individual soul started moving out of the physical body. Understand, when the breathing stops, that is the moment when the individual soul actually leaves the physical body. There are seven layers or bodies in you. The body of flesh, bones and blood that you see is the physical body. The energy moving in you as prana or life energy is the pranic body. There are five kinds of prana or air movements that happen in the body: air that enters into the body, air that circulates inside the body, air that spreads all over the body as life force, air that comes out of the body, and air that cleanses. These form the second body or the pranic body.

The third body is the body where inner chatter continuously happens. Inner chatter is nothing but the continuous stream of words or thoughts that move within you.

The fourth body is made up of emotions like fear, anger and greed which spread as feelings all over the body without even words coming into play. An emotion by itself can simply shake you. This is the emotional layer.

The fifth layer is the body that you experience in deep sleep. This is where all the engraved memories or engrams are stored in the seed or causal level. The engrams are not active but they are not dead either. It is like a deep coma where you are neither living what you want nor are you dead. You are just stuck in this layer.

From the causal body, the individual soul moves to the cosmic body. The sixth layer is the cosmic body where you experience bliss. This is what continuously inspires you to be a seeker. If you are a seeker, understand that this layer is strong in you. If you enrich this layer, your life will be blissful. If you have any engram remaining in this layer, you will assume another body and come back.

If you continuously enjoy pleasurable experiences, then you are said to be in heaven. If you are stuck in pain, then you are said to be in hell. Depending on how much pain you experienced in life, you will stay that long in the pain body or hell at the time of death. Depending on how much pleasure you experienced in life, you will stay that long in the cosmic body or heaven. Hell and heaven are purely psychological. This is the truth. Based on what engrams you have, you experience heaven and hell. That is why different cultures visualize heaven in their own way – because heaven is not a place, it is an experience.

The seventh layer is the nirvanic layer which corresponds to enlightenment.

At the time of death, there is a powerful fight between the owner or the individual soul and the object or the body. The object says, 'I am tired, I can't function any more.' The owner says, 'No, I want to use you.'

When the object wins, the physical body dies and the individual soul moves to the next layer, the pranic body. This is the layer you are in when you normally dream. While dreaming, your logic loses its power over you but your desires remain active. The very definition of dream is the state where logic has no power but desires and engrams remain active. Even when you are unconscious or in coma, your logic will not be active.

As long as you are in the physical body, you will have desires with the logic to analyze whether the desires are needed or not and which one of the desires should be fulfilled etc. Desires are under your control; there is a balancing mechanism. But when the desires exist without the supporting logic, the individual soul will be kicked around like a football by the desires. On one side there will be guilt and on the other side, desires that play on the individual soul.

When I saw the man dying, I could see that the individual soul was slowly moving out layer by layer. I could see the soul suffering intensely when it went through the unfulfilled desires. The soul was literally being eaten by guilt when it realized, 'I did not fulfill the purpose and mission of my life.' Understand, you will remember the purpose of your birth only during death.

When you are born, your body travels through the birth canal of the mother, and because of the intense pain that you go through, you go into coma or the deepest unconscious state, and you forget the whole purpose of taking birth. It is like this: you booked the flight ticket and sat inside the aircraft also, but during the flight you were put in coma and so when you landed, you forgot all about why you came to that particular place! Only when you leave the place and board the flight again, you suddenly remember why you had come to that place!

In the same way, when you die, you feel the strong guilt of not fulfilling the purpose of your birth or what we call the prarabdha karma.

After passing through this guilt, next, all the pain experiences of your life will come up. So at the time of death, you first pass through physical pain, then through all desires, next through all guilt, then through all emotional pain and finally through all the pleasures that you experienced in this birth.

Normally, as soon as you reach the cosmic body or the sixth layer itself, you return to assume the next body, the next birth. That is, the individual soul returns to assume the next body. Sometimes, rarely, you go beyond the sixth layer into the nirvanic body. Then you don't come back to assume another body.

When you travel through these various bodies and experience your unfulfilled desires, deep guilt and intense pain, you decide strongly, 'Let me take another body, another birth. When I do, I will not forget the purpose of my life and get caught in these illusive games. I will straightaway follow the path of Truth.' But when you actually take birth the next time, again because of the intense pain during birth, you drop into coma and forget all about your decision!

Finally, the man died. But the experience left a strong scar in me. It left a very strong impression in my mind. The fortunate thing was that the elderly monk became alright and he was discharged from the hospital. I continued my journey, and after a few months, I had my own death experience and I became enlightened, thus realizing the mission and purpose of my life. My life as a liberated being started at the age of twelve itself when I had my deep spiritual experience. But the clarity about the mission, and what was exactly going to happen through my body, dawned when I became enlightened.

Death in my presence – after enlightenment

After my enlightenment, I came back to South Bharat. I was in Bangalore in a devotee's house, healing people who sought me out. At that time, a devotee was admitted in the ICU and I was requested to heal him.

There again, while healing, the person in the bed next to the devotee started dying! The moment I saw that the person was about to die, the first thing I felt like doing was to move away from the suffering that was about to come! But the devotee was afraid and not ready to leave me!

Suddenly I saw that this person who was dying, was not going through any suffering like the earlier person. I was shocked, and I became very curious. Earlier, the movement of the individual soul from layer to layer was great suffering and torture for it. But this soul was moving so smoothly from layer to layer just like how a knife moves through butter, or a snowball rolls down!

In the first layer or physical body, there was a little pain. Then suddenly the pain disappeared and the individual soul moved to the pranic layer. It moved from layer to layer like a royal guest! It was so empowered, that the desires, guilt and pain were not able to attack it at all. Even in the causal layer, it did not fall asleep. It was so energetic, and it finally entered the nirvanic layer, relaxed and just disappeared!

I thought that this person must be an evolved being. I asked his relatives whether he was a spiritual person or a meditator. The family was surprised and replied that the man had never meditated or done any spiritual practice in all his life! He had lived a completely materialistic life.

I contemplated as to why the first death I had witnessed was terrible while the second one was so wonderful. What I am about to tell you now is the honest and straight truth, and I am saying it because I have the great responsibility of telling it to you. When I meditated to know the difference between the two deaths, the revelation happened: at the time of the second death I was an enlightened person. The second person had died in the presence of an enlightened being! In the case of the first death, my presence could not help, because I could not radiate the energy of enlightenment at that time. So the first person died an ordinary death, while the second person died a wonderful death in the presence of an enlightened being who had realized the Truth.

When this revelation happened, I saw a deep compassion coming out of my being. I felt that if at all I can give this as a gift to every individual, my mission will be accomplished. A peaceful death is such a powerful and wonderful gift which nobody but an enlightened being can give. I started meditating as to how I can give this gift to everyone. Obviously I can't be in the ICU of all the hospitals and wait for people to die! I contemplated on the science behind the whole thing, and understood what really happens at the time of death.

Let me explain:

As long as you hold onto your ordinary logic and remain in the physical layer, the master is just a simple faith for you. The material world appears more solid and real. But when you travel to the deeper layers, the master becomes reality while the material world becomes vague and blurred.

It is like how during your night dream, the dream world looks real and the waking world looks vague, whereas when you are awake, that is when you are with a higher consciousness, the dream world becomes imagination while the waking world becomes reality. In the dream state, the dream world that you see appears alive, like a 4D colour film! When you come out of the dream, the whole dream appears black and white.

In the same way, if you are raised to a still higher consciousness, this waking world will become dull, while things like spiritual truths and the master will become alive and real! When you disconnect from the body and rise into higher consciousness, the master and the superconscious energy will become a gross reality.

When the second death happened, the intense enlightened presence straightaway caused him to connect strongly to it.

Understand, as you sit now and here, what is stopping you from connecting with the enlightened energy of the master and merging with it? Only your own logic and reasons.

As you sit here, there are still doubts in your unconscious like, 'If I drop my possessions and surrender, the master may take it away!' The other problem is, presently, as of now all other things in this world also appear as reality, and you think the master is also real to that same depth.

You experience me as the same frequency as the rest of the material world. In the case of the second dying person, all his outer world things became inaccessible to him at the time of death. He could not sign his checkbook or drive his car! Whatever was holding him back in the material world was automatically being taken away from him. When he looked around, only I, the enlightened energy was there! He saw the strong light energy and just held on to me! The surrender automatically happened to him because I was there at that moment. Even in his case, if he had seen me while he was alive, he may have struggled to surrender and connect to me! Only when everything was taken away from him, there was nothing to hold him back from connecting to me.

There is a beautiful story in the Bhagavatam which is a beautiful account of the enlightened master Krishna's life:

There was once a rich devotee. He asked Krishna, 'I want more wealth and possessions.' Krishna granted him his wish. There was also a poor lady, who had a cow and a small house. Krishna once visited her house, ate the food she served, blessed her and left. That very same day, her cow died.

Somebody asked Krishna about the strange happening of how a rich person got more wealth while the poor lady was deprived of her only source of income!

Krishna beautifully explains, 'The king was already in heavy illusion of the material world. So I gave him what he wanted so that he will ultimately get tired of material things and turn towards enlightenment. In the case of the poor lady, there was only one thing that she really wanted, and that was to connect to Me. And the only thing that was stopping her from that was the cow. I took away the cow so that she could completely merge into Me!'

In the same way, in the case of the second death, the 'cow' was taken away. In the physical layer, the man was not able to connect. But in the prāṇic layer, the consciousness entered a different space, and the man was able to clearly see me there. The master's presence is such an intense light. It is much stronger and of a higher frequency than this world, just like how this world is of a higher frequency than your dream world.

The man realized that there is something of a higher frequency and he completely surrendered to it. When he surrendered, all his other engraved memories lost their power over him. The individual consciousness became empowered. Desires, guilt, pain, pleasure, everything bowed down. Straightaway, the individual soul's frequency increased.

Understand, when the seer is strong, the seen has no power over you. This is the science of death.

In the case of the first death, the seen was stronger than the seer. In the second death, the seer was stronger than the seen.

I intensely meditated how to transmit this science to people. Suddenly, a revelation happened to me.

Understand, energy is not constrained by space and time. It is just like the satellite waves that are present in space. If you have a set-top box converter, you can see the channel that you tune into. An enlightened master's energy pervades the whole cosmos. I just need to place the set-top box in people. It is like a pacemaker, just that this is a peacemaker! Once it is placed, the person can connect to it while leaving the body.

A master is a person who creates formula to reproduce his inner world spiritual experiences in the inner world of others. Such a formula is the Life Bliss Program Level 2 also called the Nithyananda Spurana Program. It is a program that inserts the peacemaker in individuals.

Along with placing the peacemaker it is my promise that, wherever you may be, in whatever situation you may be at the time of death, I will be there and see that you beautifully relax into the nirvāṇic body. Please understand, I am responsible for what I am talking here right now. Even if I leave the body, I am responsible, because it is a promise; it is my commitment to whoever hears these words directly from me.

When I started sharing this technology, I realized that the people I shared it with, not only experienced peace at the end of their lifetime, but their life itself became intense, joyful and ecstatic once I shared it with them.

Understand, both life and death become blissful when deeply engraved memories are removed from your being. Your health becomes better, you start attracting wealth and better relationships because the frequency of being itself is different.

You will be relaxed in the nirvāṇic body when this peacemaker is placed inside you. You then have the freedom: to take one more birth as a conscious being or get enlightened and never again assume a body.

There is a beautiful story in the Upaniṣads, the sacred Vedic texts:

A ṛṣi called Jadabharatha somehow became attached to a deer he had rescued. He was living the life of a renunciate but he got attached to this deer.

From morning till night, he used to spend his time taking care of that deer. When he was dying, he was not able to forget the animal. He started worrying about the deer, 'Oh! Who will take care of the deer? What will happen to it after my death?'

When he died, in the next birth, he was born as a deer.

Beautifully the verse in the Upanishad says that whatever you think in your last moment – you become that!

Some people think very cleverly, 'Let me live my whole life the way I want to live. In the last few moments, I will remember god and chant His name and enter heaven somehow.' Please be very clear, only that which you thought of in your whole life, will come up when you leave the body. Don't think that at that last moment you can play the game! No!

Actually, when you leave the body your whole system will be in such agony, because 80 or 90 years of your life will be run through in a fast-forward mode. All that will be seen are the scenes being fast-forwarded. Whatever experience you had intensely, only that will come up before you. Your spiritual experiences will come up in multicolor.

Please understand that 'thoughtless awareness' is the strongest experience you can have in your life. Even for a single moment, if you had that experience, it is enough. Naturally, when you leave the body that will come up. That will act as a light and you will be able to move into the Consciousness.

My own death experience

Let me narrate to you my own conscious death experience in Varanasi.

I always used to think that I should have an experience of death, that I should face death directly. But somehow, that thought never became a priority. For any experience to happen, the related thought has to become the topmost priority. It should not just be in one corner of your mind.

Usually on our 'to do' lists, we have washing, cleaning, paying the rent and phone bill, and finally if time permits, enlightenment also! No! Enlightenment will not happen if it is this way. Only when it becomes a top priority, only when the urge becomes urgent, everything around you will start aligning itself for the experience to happen in you. This is the case not just with enlightenment. With anything, it is true.

Understand, if at all you are complaining that what you wish to happen is not happening, it is because it has not become the topmost on your priority list, nothing else. Nothing else and no one else should be blamed for it. You will see that the moment it becomes the topmost priority, there will be an energy play that comes into being and it will simply happen. Until then, it will wait for you, that's all. The death experience was not my top priority and so somehow, it was getting postponed.

In my wandering days, I had been to Varanasi, the holy city for Hindus, which has an estimated 300,000 daily floating population. Further, every day around 100 dead bodies are estimated to be burnt in a place called Manikarnika Ghat on the banks of the sacred river Ganga. It is traditionally believed that if somebody dies or somebody's body is burnt in that area, they will be liberated. They will have direct enlightenment.

It is not just a traditional belief. The enlightened master Ramakrishna Paramahamsa confirms it with his own experience. He says, 'I saw very clearly Shiva himself going near every burning body, taking the soul, unclutching it from the body-mind and liberating it!' So, you can't say that it is a mythological belief. It is a solid experience of an enlightened master.

I had the fortune of going to Manikarnika Ghat. Traditionally, it is not only believed, but it is true that for the last 2000 years, the fire that is used to light the pyres has never been put off.

Whether it rains or shines or floods, people never bring fire when they come with the dead body to Manikarnika Ghat. The fire will already be burning there and they will just take it to light the dead body, that's all. The fire just continuously burns the bodies as they arrive. Sometimes I would see that two to three bodies are burnt at the same time, so many bodies keep coming!

Especially in the evenings, the bodies will be more in number. From the place where the person dies they will walk carrying the dead body, chanting mantras such as, 'Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai' (Lord Rama's name is the ultimate and eternal truth). By evening they will reach Manikarnika Ghat.

The scene there, the very experience of just being there, I cannot describe to you verbally. You have to be there to experience it!

To tell you honestly, by just being there, the fear of death just disappeared from my system. You see so many bodies continuously being burned every day. You feel, 'I am also going to go like this one day … all right', that's all! You feel there are so many people giving you company! It is like one more trip that you make, that's all. You don't feel lonely about death at all.

In your life, you may see one or two bodies being burnt, so you still have the fear of death. But at Manikarnika Ghat, there will be no ritual done. They will bring the body and straightaway dip it in the river Ganga three times while chanting, 'Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai'. By this time, the fire will be ready, and the wood will be arranged. They will bring the body straight from the water and burn it, that's all!

One strange thing that you see there is that none of the relatives will stay there and do any further rituals. The moment they dip the body in the Ganga and place the body for burning, they will go away, that's all! The people who maintain the ghat will take care of the rest. You will not know how long it will take for the body that you brought to be burnt completely. There will be a queue and bodies will be burning continuously.

I thought to myself, 'Let me try to sit here and see what goes on. 'I sat at the Ghat. In just an hour's time, I felt that death is no more a strange incident which happens once in a while only for some relative or friend. I was sitting there watching bodies arriving one after another. It was like any other queue, that's all. Different sizes, genders, ages, and communities of people arrived to be consumed by the same burning flame.

When you continuously see dead bodies being burnt you actually lose respect for death! As of now, you have too much of respect, too many ideas about death. That is the problem. Death is actually nothing but this. The breath that goes inside the body doesn't come out, that's all. Nothing much can be done about it. Neither can you rewind it nor fast-forward it.

As I was watching this scene continuously, initially the little fear that I had about death also disappeared and slowly it actually became interesting to watch. I went near the people who maintain the fire and started helping them. As I was helping them, I was thinking to myself, 'After all, one day this body of mine is also going to become like this dead body that is burning now.'

When you remember that death is going to happen to you, the respect that you carry for your ego will come down. Because, whenever you think that something should not leave you, it is just the ego, nothing else. When you know for sure that everything is going to leave you, then the respect for the ego just drops drastically. The respect I had for my ego just dropped from me.

Then I decided, 'After all I am going to die. Either I should have a conscious death experience now itself and live the rest of my life without the death-fear, or really die, that's all.' I decided that I have to see death happening to me one way or the other.

There was a small Shiva temple around the corner and a small tower above the temple. I went and sat in that tower so that nobody would disturb me. I sat in that tower and from there I started seeing the dead bodies being burnt.

I still remember the strong click, the deep understanding and instant realization that triggered the whole experience that was to follow.

An elderly lady's body was being burnt. She had a big belly. Her clothes were being consumed by the fire and then the fat that was in the belly started melting and flowing. Sorry for describing this so vividly but I have to do it to explain the strong experience! I could see clearly that because of the fat flowing, the fire was burning with even more intensity. That gave a very strong click to me and I said, 'God! Yes, the very same thing is going to happen to this body also!'

That click opened up a deep fear of death inside me. The fear spread all over the body. But I faced the fear consciously. I could see very clearly the fear spreading all over the body, and when the fear hit my awareness, that became the experience of death. I went through a conscious experience of my own death and came out of it.

Understand, whenever your fear is suppressed, it stays inside you. Whenever the fear comes out and you are not consciously facing it, it becomes a fear stroke, and shakes your whole nervous system and breaks it down. When the fear is faced consciously, it becomes the death experience, that's all!

I was able to see very clearly the fear that arose. When I faced it consciously with awareness, it became my death experience. The body was dead. It was not moving.

For two and a half days I had no food, no water, no thought, no question, no doubt. The body alone was there. Only after the experience had passed, I realized that I had been like that for two and a half days! I could see with closed eyes that the body was dead and there was no movement. Suddenly, after two and a half days, the click happened again, 'God! The body is dead but I still exist! I am there!' That clarity, when it clicked, became such an intense ecstasy in me! The fear of death had left me once and for all.

I was in such deep ecstasy, such joy, and such bliss! I slowly opened my eyes and I was able to move the body. The first thing I felt was such a surge of ecstasy and gratitude. I went down to the Ganga, sprinkled a little Ganga water on myself, took the Ganga water in the kamandalu, took a little ash from the fire, and went straight to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. I went up to the Shiva linga, offered the ash I had brought and did the puja (worship) with such inexpressible gratitude. I saw that Vishwanath was simply alive there!

Understand, because I died Vishwanath became alive! Until the day before that, because I was still alive, Vishwanath was always an ordinary stone. I used to feel that to touch this stone, thousands of people are coming everyday from so far away … what foolishness! I always felt that the Vishwanath deity was an ordinary stone. I felt that way because I was still alive. When I died, I saw clearly, He became alive!

Only one can be alive, either Him or you. When you see the Truth, He will become alive. You will not be alive anymore as you now think. The fear of death left me once and for all. I can say that this is one of the very strong experiences that transformed me to search for the ultimate experience of enlightenment.