GOING BEYOND SAMSKARAS - ENGRAVED MEMORIES
Another important question arises here. 'Forget about dying… what about living?' Please be aware that as of now all the seven layers are not so clear as you think they are. It is like seven coats that you are having. If you are wearing the seven coats properly, you can remove them whenever you wish to and hang them on the wall. But as of now, you are not wearing these seven coats properly. The first coat button is locked with the seventh coat. The third coat button is locked with the first coat. The second coat button is locked with the fourth coat and so on! You see, if you can remove a coat whenever you want, it can be called a coat. If you can't remove it, then it is not a coat; it is a bondage.
If you have had a single conscious experience you will not be continuously tortured, pulled and pushed by your samskaras or engraved memories. If you look back at your whole life you will be able to understand what I am saying. If you look back at your whole life with a little intelligence, you will be able to understand that you never really lived. Only your engrams (engraved memories) lived through you. For example, suppose you have created a samskara that in the morning, at 7 o'clock, you need to drink coffee. At exactly 7 o'clock, you don't have to even see the watch, from inside you the alarm will sound, 'Coffee!'
Like this, you have many samskaras. For example, every morning at nine o'clock your mind will automatically start worrying about your office. In the evening at five o'clock you will start worrying about your house. In the night at eight o'clock you will start worrying about your kid's education. If this becomes a routine, even on Sunday, you will start worrying about your office at nine o'clock. Even if you don't have to go to office, you will start worrying about it. Suddenly, you will remind yourself, 'No, no. Today is Sunday so don't bother about it. We don't have to go to office.' Even then, you will continue to have that same low mood during that time. Even your worry, your mind, is nothing but recorded samskaras.
Never think you are really living. Your samskaras are living through you, that's all. These samskaras are recorded in all the seven layers. Only when you cleanse your samskaras, your mental habits, do you really begin to live.
When you can't sit with yourself, you miss a major dimension of your life. When I say, you can't sit with yourself, I mean when you can't sit enjoying your own reality, your own Self. And why can't you enjoy your own Self? It is because your samskaras are enjoying you. Your samskaras are living through you. You are not living. That is the reason why you can't sit with yourself. You are driven to continuously do something.
During these few days, all we are going to do is only one thing - work intensely and cleanse the samskaras and have the 'conscious experience' - at least one glimpse of 'thoughtless awareness'. Just one glimpse of thoughtless awareness is enough. I request all of you to please put your complete effort into this. Remember that as of now, whatever you think of as 4D, your precious life, will lose its value at the time of death. Internalise this truth completely. Your whole being, the very root, will be shaken the moment you move from the physical layer at the time of death. It is almost like you are building your own resort there, in the inner world.
The way in which you enjoy your whole life will decide how your last moment will be.
One more important thing, please understand. This might be shocking to you, but it is the truth. Only after seeing the first death was I able to realize this statement: even your paapa (sin) or punya (merit) doesn't come with you or count for anything, at the time of your death. Please understand: even your sin or merit doesn't come with you. Don't think that your sin or merit comes with you. Don't think that if you do some charity here, if you give some money to some temple here and get a receipt, you will be given a VIP pass there! No! There is no exchange offer between this world and the other world.
Then, the next question comes – 'If that is true then can I commit any sin?' Understand this truth: if somebody commits 100 murders, the attitude of committing murder goes with him upon his death. The exact number of murders does not go with him. The attitude goes with him. And one more thing: never think that because you commit sins you will therefore go to hell. You commit sins because you are in hell! A person who is happy will never be violent. If you are happy, will you torture others? If you are happy, will you be violent? When you are established in goodness, even if your staff or employee makes a mistake, what you will say? 'Alright, leave it!' So understand this important point: hell is not where you will go to. It is where you are. If you understand this, you will take back your question about committing sins!
In the same way, never think that you will do good things and therefore reach heaven. You do good things because you are in heaven. The mental setup that you have when doing an activity is what makes up your experience of hell or heaven. While doing something wrong, whatever mental set up you have that created your attitude and choice, that suffering itself is the only hell. While doing a noble thing, whatever mental setup you have that initiated such an action, that setup and feeling is heaven. So don't think your sins or merits come with you. Only one thing comes with you – the conscious experience that you had in your lifetime.
All of humanity can be categorized into just two categories: people who have had the conscious experience when they were living and people who have not had the conscious experience, that's all! All other concepts of hell and heaven are just beautiful stories. Please be very clear – there is no hell or heaven as you understand it to be. If at all you can carry something with you, there is only one thing that you can carry and that is this conscious experience. Either you can become enlightened, or you can come down for another birth according to your choice.
Please be clear, there are many people who are thinking, 'If I give this much money to that particular temple, that powerful deity will be standing there at the gates of heaven to take care of me.' Or, 'If I give this property to this church, God will be waiting with a special pass into heaven to let me in. Nothing like that will happen! People generally think, 'If I give this much of money to Venkateshwara Swamy, He will send a special flight from Vaikunta (His abode) for me.' No! This will never happen.
There is a beautiful story in the Upanishad, about a rishi by name Jadabharatha. One rishi called Jadabharatha somehow became attached to a 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 that animal, 'Oh! Who will take care of the animal? What will happen to it after my death?' He started worrying about all these things, because he was so attached to that deer. When he died, in the next birth, he was born as a deer. Beautifully the verse says that whatever you think in the antima kaala - 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 chant Hare-Rama, Hare-Krishna or Govinda-Shiva and enter heaven somehow.' Or you may think, 'I don't have interest in spiritual things. I'll deal with it on my death bed.' It is not so. Only that which you thought of in your whole life, only that will come up when you leave the body. Don't think that at that 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 run through in a fast-forward mode. All that will be seen are the scenes being fast-forwarded. Whatever experience you had intensely, or whatever you enjoyed intensely, only that will come up in multicolour. All the other things will run past in black and white.
If you have lived throughout your life only eating, then naturally, only that will come up in those last moments. When it comes up, what will you decide? 'After all, I am going to only eat in my next birth, so let me take birth as a pig!' You will think, 'Why take birth as a human body?' Suppose that you spent your whole life sleeping, you will decide, 'Why unnecessarily choose a human body and go to office? Let me take birth as a buffalo!'
I am not joking! It is only based on the way in which you enjoy your whole life that you decide in the last moment about your next birth. In the last moment, the whole thing will come up in fast-forward mode. What you enjoyed deeply, what was an intense experience in your life will appear like a pop-up; that will come up and appear in multicolour. All the other things will be in black and white as the background. If you had a single conscious experience, a single instance of thoughtless awareness in your life, naturally when you leave your body only that will come up in multicolour because that is the strongest experience anybody can have.
Please understand that 'thoughtless awareness' is the strongest experience you can have in your life. All the other three states are only shallow. Even for a single moment, if you had that experience, that is enough. Naturally, when you leave the body that will come up. That will come up and you will simply move into the light. That will act as a light and you will be able to move into the consciousness.
One more thing is important to understand about the time of death. If you had met with an accident and died prematurely or committed suicide, if you did not have the conscious experience before your death you have to wait for the remaining years you might have lived before you can enter a new birth. For example, when you took this body, if you decided to live in this body for 90 years and then committed suicide at age 60, then for the next 30 years, you have to struggle, waiting for the next body. If it is a natural death, then there is no problem. Of course, disease is a natural death. But death due to murder or suicide will have to wait with a lot of suffering to get into the next body.
Never contemplate suicide. Why do we normally contemplate suicide? Because we think of this life as torture, as suffering. But if you commit suicide, only then you will understand that what you are going to go through will be a much worse torture. Never ever contemplate suicide.
If I have to describe the torture in a way, it will be like this: you will have sweets in front of you, but you will not have a tongue to taste or hand to take it and put it into your mouth. How much of suffering it will be! In the same way, the whole world will be in front of you, but you will not have the body to enjoy it when you float around waiting for your next body after having committed suicide. That is why I say never contemplate suicide.
A recent research report says that if a mother dies at a very young age, the child is prone to paralysis attacks. If the mother dies at a very young age, the child is prone to paralysis because that part of the energy given by the mother is not nourished by her presence, by her nearness. That is why in our ancient system until the age of 14, children were always kept in the nearness of their parents. They were allowed to sleep in their laps.
Till the age of 14, you should hug your children. Put them to sleep in your lap. Keep them always around you. Never put them in a boarding school. If you put your kids in a residential school before the age of 14, you need to get ready to go to old age home in your old age! They will put you in an old age home when it comes to that. If you put them in boarding school before the age of 14, they will put you in old age home later, that's all. There is no other way, because by putting them in boarding school, you would not have built a relationship with them. They will put you in the old age home at the time you need nearness. So please give them your nearness.
Within three kshana of death a person takes another body. It happens within three kshana. Kshana does not mean one 'second' of time. In vedic mathematics or vedic time calculations, the gap between one thought and the next thought for that particular person is one kshana. Kshana is determined by the individual and their thought flow. It is subjective to the person and not an objective calculation of time as we would think of one second on a clock.
If you lived a peaceful life, your kshana can be even two months. If you have lived a restless life, your kshana will be one microsecond. If you have lived a restless life hurrying and worrying, your kshana might even be one microsecond. If you have lived a peaceful life, a relaxed and especially conscious life, if your life was with a conscious experience, your kshana could be even three to four months. It can be extended to even one year.