KNOW YOUR DEATH - 13

Hell. Heaven Rebirth and Moksha.

(Refer to article no 1 in this series)

Sir Charles Sherrington (Noble Prize Winner) says – Mind is energy, Birth is energy transformation. He asserts with admirable courage and explains – Mind seems to emerge from no mind (during birth of a child from a small embryo). So conversely at death, it seems to re-emerge into no-mind.

“We die only when are ready to die”. From ‘Will to Live; by Dr. Hutschnecker.

“एकोहम बहु स्याम” "I am One, let “Me” become many!" as per the advaita doctrine (Rev. Adi Shankaracharya), the birth of the Universe is by the will of Devine mind. The universe is itself the manifestation of the Divine Mind, which willed.

Suffering of the Mind after death. 

In order to understand and ascertain the status of the mind which departs from the body at the moment of death, it is important to understand the mind’s journey from birth to death and conditioning of the mind during this whole journey. Above figure gives the process of formation of the destiny from start to the end of life.

At the moment of conception the mind associates itself with the matter and new life begins. What could be the reason the mind opts to take birth? Obviously for some desire it needs to get associated with the matter. This desire is to acquire the status of being, to have an existence! Because to fulfill the desire, the bodily existence is necessary

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Two cells, one each from mother and father unite to form the conceived cell. This conceived cell has to have different mind than the parent cells as the child’s mind is entirely distinct/different from its parents. Here we may say that the existence-seeking mind (non-matter) uses the matter from parents to complete its desire.

This association of mind with the body has to be as per the desire of the mind which wants to take birth.  One may object this and say that this could be considered the desire of parents also to give birth to a child.

Yes it can be so. But for every sexual association the parents may have, there is no conception. (The detailed discussion on this subject is available in the book “SUPER PROCREATION” pages 57-63, in the topic “Conception and Mind”. This book is published by Manashakti, author is G.S.Kelkar).

The desire of seeking mere “existence” later converts in to the “desire of existence with pleasure and comfort”. We have already discussed the aspect of ‘Desire’ in details. The end-less aspirations of materialistic pleasures keep the mind surrounded all through the life till the arrival of the last moment.

The concept of total detachment (akarma), one ness with the God/Spirit, highest level of self-realization are seldom achieved. At death the mind has to leave the body with un-fulfilled desires.

What happens after death?

After death, emotions and capacity to crave or think goes with mind. But Mind does not possess body, the means for full-filling its craving.

Thus for example, man's sex urge is not gone, but means to satisfy it is absent. Condition is unimaginably worse. More so because a person can visualize his wife or other representative of a fair sex but cannot do any further. If one has won sex feeling, it is no more one's peril.

What is true to sex is true of all emotions. (Here, it may be noted that seeing is not the function of ‘eye’ but mind sees through the means of the eye.)

Take one more case of emotion say affection. Affection has 3 aspects. Man has affection on himself, he likes sweets. After death he will see sweets all over, but cannot eat.  Man loves his wife, whom he sees weeping. He too then boils within, having no communicating system to advise her. On the other hand, if he witnesses, her faithlessness, he is doubly disillusioned and tortured.

To the extent to which man wins his emotions here and now, he saves himself from future pangs. None could say he will not be troubled even if he has won 90% of sex feeling, since he will have 10% trouble left mathematically.

Indeed, our pain in extra-mundane form is inversely proportional to pleasure in this stride. No escape.

During life the man hankers after desires-pleasures running down of his pulse, heat, energy. He spends his energy and gets pleasure. If to give out the energy is pleasure, to gain energy must be pain. In practice to cash a currency note of $100 for its running down to $60 would mean pleasure and while earning rupee by rupee, or dollar by dollar will be hard efforts/displeasure.

Suffering after death (as torturous activity)

One thing to be made clear here is "hell" or  "heaven" are not the places or locations but they are the experiences or situations where mind lands.

Scientific 'hell'.

During life man uses umbrella or a cap as protection from rain and sun. After death, mind - the entity smaller than even light quanta is open to high and low temperature change. No protection. It will feel it as just a 'hell'. But a poor (not possessing a cap/umbrella) who is accustomed to rain, sun and hard environments has no such additional torture.

The craving rich does not perceive this. Umbrella, car, fan are not sufficient for him. He is getting himself air-conditioned. Still worse tomorrow. Thus the mind of a person accustomed to comforts is likely to feel more pain in the stage after death.

Dis-association with body does not mean non-existence

Mind-energy i.e. "capacity to beat less than 60 per minute" takes with it its personal (un-fulfilled) desires. And so far they are not disassociated, it is no use saying that the mind will continue to be happy in the hither-to-disliked surrounding. It is as wise as an argument as by a man that he is safe, when he has entered in a tiger's cage to save himself from the freed tiger. No doubt, the man locked in cannot be touched by the tiger, but it is absurd to imagine that the man will ever feel the surrounding safe.

Like or dislike was not the consideration of the body, but of mind. If mind during life i.e. "capacity to beat 72 per minute" has no courage to face its dislike, from where would the courage appear when "capacity" is reduced?

Our analysis of mental agonies is true in any case. There is no use rejecting the "painful agonies" after death only because none can concretely 'show' a living man his condition in non-living state. And here too dreadful dreams serve as enough red signal, if one wants to take hint. When I see my hand cut by sword in dream, the pain that I experience is true at that hour. Boast of its falsity is a whitewash after the so-called awakening. If logic is not one's true teacher why should 'New Way' deny one to learn from your own experience? 

During life, pulse rate was reduced from 150 to 60. It was our pleasure. After death, the span in which 60 steps up again to 150, the period cannot be but of pain as a reverse process.

To the extent of the gravity of pain suffered by the departed mind, the Hell can be graded in 7 levels in ascending order. The pain level would be the lowest at grade 1. While it would be highest at the level 7. Similarly the Heaven being the stage of relative comfort, the grades would be in the reverse order as against the grades of hell. This means grade 1 hell is the 7^th grade heaven and grade 7 hell would be the grade 1 heaven, (illustrated in the figure).

 Remedy reaction:

'New Way' (Manashakti Ashram) suggests that since man cannot give up all his ideas of selfish pleasures, all of a sudden, let him begin earnestly. Instead of acting for 'ease' which results in 'disease' let man learn to react on own self. Spend 6.25% money time, energy in spread of new knowledge to experience a miracle. ('Enjoy' 6.25% bitter.).

Potentiality of rebirth phenomenon cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, it is not a must. If there is not left any alluring appetancy (intense desire, appetite, natural tendency) and avidity (greediness, eagerness, etc.), the mechanism of reincarnation loses its applicability as well as significance. The left over intensive desires and greedy tendencies (of the mind) may be fulfilled in the eventuality of next birth. Repetition of birth perhaps affords opportunity to learn the ultimate truth in instalment. The ultimate truth which says that vain (excessive egoistic) human deep desires (yearnings) can never be fulfilled.

 

For the one, who realizes the truth in a single span (life) the rebirth becomes redundant. From the series of articles under this title, it can be summarized that “Birth, Death and Life after death - All are based on the desire of Mind”. To make the death moment peaceful mind has to be trained throughout life.




Vijay R. Joshi,

Birth, Death and Life after death (KNOW YOUR DEATH - 1)

Birth, Death and Life after death - All at the desire of Mind.

                                                                                                              

What is life? When does it start? When does it end? What happens after it ends? What is the process of rebirth, Moksha or Maha-Nirvana ?

Some of these questions often arise in our mind. Swami Vijnananand has rationally answered these questions in his book “Know your Death”. Also there is a seminar available at Manashakti main center Lonavala (India) where these concepts are lucidly explained.

Mind (or spirit) is an energy which provides ability of doing activities / motion to the body. As long as the mind is associated with the body the condition of “life” exists.

Birth would be the moment of this association and death the moment of dissociation. How do we ascertain these moments with certainty? What must be happening at these vitally important moments of our life?

Relatively it is easier to decide the moment of death. What happens at the time of death? How do we describe the death of a person?  We say:

He departed from his body.

His spirit left.

He breathed his last.

The flame of life extinguished. Etc. etc.

In short death is separation of body from the mind-energy. Logically then, birth would be the moment of this association. This takes place at the moment of conception, the point from which the life energy gets associated with the conceived cell. This cell then starts collecting new cells and form a body to take birth later at the appropriate time.

Mind Energy (Mind Power)

Mind is an energy in the form of non-matter which “Swami Vijnananand” defines as 'transcending the velocity of light, the highest limiting speed of any matter'.

Do we have some idea about the magnitude of the Mind Power or the energy available in a life? We shall try to find this in terms of life and the energy associated with the life. Life begins at the moment of conception where the matter first time gets associated with the mind energy. Then the journey of life begins.

Life is the journey of motion.

Though generally it is believed that life begins at birth, it actually begins at conception, where it is set in motion. The motion continues till a person breathes last, when the motion in the body stops. In short, life is a journey of motion.

Lot of energy is required and released to perform various physical and mental activities from first to the last breath. Everybody, though varying, has given quantum of energy available for use in the life. Studying human energy management in detail, Swami Vijnananand has given some rational measurement for the life energy in his pioneering research on the human life. We will take a brief look at the measure of the magnitude of energy associated with the life which is Mind Power. But before that we should see the enormous un-measurable potential of the mind-energy.

Child Birth, a super-material effect:

If each intricate cell of an infant is to be fashioned by a skilled worker and if s/he would require a minute to create one cell. This means it will take five hundred thousand years to complete the task. Suppose even every person had to contribute a cell to make an infant, entire world population cannot even complete a tiny foot. However, every mother accomplishes this within her womb in 265 days.  How this is done? Science has only begun to perceive the complexity of the miracle. This is the miracle created by the energy associated with life.

(Ref. ‘Mind Power’, Manashakti publication)

Touch of life creates transformation in matter:   

A touch of life creates wonderful transformation in a tiny piece of matter.

Catalase is an enzyme in living protoplasm which accelerates the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water. The reaction can be accelerated by inorganic iron too. But the action of iron is very weak. However, by uniting an iron with special organic substance “pyrrole”, we can make that reaction thousands times more effective. Catalase, a natural enzyme, also contains iron with pyrrole, but its action is about ten millions times stronger because it contains additionally a specific protein.

This specific (protein) difference makes a miracle. Catalyst power of one milligram of iron, contained in the catalase complex (of life full protoplasm), is equal to that of ten tones of inorganic iron. That is the miracle of a touch of life-energy to a matter.

(Ref. ‘Mind Power’, Manashakti publication)

Transcending mind power:

For all our advanced techniques, we have not yet approached the level of rationalism possessed by living nature. Touch of Life gives ten million times more strength to a tiny piece. This is a phenomenon which science has not been able to explain so far. This transcendental power is called mind.

Each mind is unique, so are different its desires, strength and potential, also energy associated with it. Though external energy at physical level could be common to an extent for most human beings, total energy certainly varies from person to person considering the individual mind power.

Example - A billionaire and a middle class person travelling pay the same fare for a plane journey (visible paying capacity for that instance may be the same) while their spare wealth quantum differs, as they deserve.

While absolute total life energy cannot be accurately measured, there are some rational measures for external one. We will take a look at Swamiji’s estimation of external energy.

Life Energy: external measure

We have seen that human body is constantly in motion from birth to death. Thus the motion can be considered as the basis for measure of the life energy. There are a number of motions associated with various body systems. The easiest measurable body motion is pulse rate / heart rate which varies from age to age.

         

Medical text books provide us with the measure of motion, attributable to a living person during the span of life. The medical books say, that three months prior to birth, average normal pulse rate (pulse beats) is at 150 per minutes. At birth, it is 120 and nearing the age of death (advanced old age), it is gradually reduced to 60 per minute, on an average.

Thus, after birth, individual existence can be mathematically defined as capacity to beat the pulse at 120 per minute and proceed to the end when it is reached; reduced to 60 per minute. Thus right from the birth to old age there is reduction in the life energy. The process of aging begins from the first day.

An anticlimax of the pulse rising at a very old age does occur. Yet the same stems from reasons other than usual. Here, it might have occurred but for hardening of arteries or for the phenomenon of lamina shrinking. (Shrinking of cavity from where the blood flows). Other reasons that may account in this out-of-turn rise in pulse may be the loss of control on some organ or the other.

For special reasons pulse is recorded to be far below normal. Napoleon's pulse was said to be somewhere near 40. But the average as given above stands right for our basis.

At death, it is the mind that leaves body.

It is a planned retreat. It is our experience and it can be easily imagined, that the mind leaves body not because it is tired of the worldly desires to be enjoyed through body but because, the mind finds body damaged and so an inconvenient tool to enjoy. (Shall we add the death time declarations?)

In any case, leaving this argument to the exhaustive discussion in New Way Series, at the moment of death, the continuance of the capacity **3153600000 pulse-beats survives without any doubt. (This applies to normal death, the considerations for deaths due to accidents, suicide or voluntary departure by a Yogi from life by ‘Samadhi’ needs separate discussion, which can be provided separately).

We may just mention here that the state of the mind as it departs the body is vitally important to decide the future course of action.

**On an average the pulse-rate is 150/min (say 2.5 A), at prenatal stage, 120/min (2A) at birth, 70 to 80/min. at grown up age and 60/ min (A) at the old age (before death). In short, body motion decreases with increasing age and it is lowest just before death, although not zero.

Let’s consider (assume) average life of 60 years and 100/min. as an average pulse rate for the life span. 

**Based on this, the total energy can be calculated as follows.

 (100* x 60 minutes)       (24 hours)                 (365 days)                       (60* years)

----------------------      X      -----------        X    ----------------       X      --------------

         6,000                       144,000                525, 60 000                           315, 36,000

(* assumption, may vary from person to person).

As estimated above, the total typical average pulse energy during the life of 60 years is about 3.15 billion beats. Before the death moment there is a capacity to beat the pulse at 60/minute.

We have already suggested that these figures are hypothetical and arbitrary. These arithmetical values may better be taken algebraically. Nevertheless, the principle stands vindicated. If we designate algebraically value A to the surviving soul after death (A = 60 beats / min.), i.e. capacity 3153600000 pulse beats, '2A' will be value at birth with capacity 6307200000 pulse beats and '2.5A' (i.e. 7884000000 pulse beats three months prior to birth). Please note that the mind leaves the body at death when it has the capacity A.

Does the mind survive after death? Is it re-born?

The answer to the first part of the question is categorical ‘Yes’. As we have initially defined, Death is dissociation of body and mind. Body (matter) remains as corpse while the mind energy (non-matter) gets released. Now, the question is what happens to the left over capacity A or from where this 2.5 'A' comes from?

By first law of Thermodynamics nothing can come out of nothing. Therefore, the figure 150 (or algebraically figure 2.5 'A') must sometime be 149, 148, 147 and in far end sometime it must be 60 where we again meet the value 'A'.

In each individual case the values of A, 2A, and 2.5A may differ but the principle may stand vindicated.  After death the Mind has following options to choose. (Please see the figure above)

1.      To give up available energy A and go to zero. This is the concept of Maha-Nirvana.

2.      To earn additional energy from A to 2.5 A, and then opt for rebirth.

3.      To not to opt for birth and go on earning additional energy -endlessly up to infinity. This is the stage of Moksha.

As we say “Zero tends to infinity”, both the stages of Maha-Nirvana and Moksha are similar where the mind has given up the right of existence and merged itself in universal cosmic energy.

We have rationally examined the concepts of Birth, Life, Death, Rebirth, Maha-Nirvana, and Moksha. 

What must be the plight of the Mind after death before it chooses its options? We shall see this in the articles to follow.

Vijay R. Joshi.