DEATH and BEYOND....

Amitabh Shukla

I have been a rather reluctant person to visit funerals and prayer meetings for the departed soul. But as I have started getting white strands in the hair and death seems more imminent than it seemed in the prime of my youth, a decade ago, I make it a point to share the sorrow of my friends whenever in town. The other day, I went to a prayer meeting and returned richer – spiritually.

A friend’s father-in-law had expired at the age of 95, after living life to the hilt and leaving behind a legacy which his children, grandchildren and relatives fondly cherished. I got an SMS about the prayer meeting being held at the Sai International Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. I reached when devotional songs were being sung by a group of three on tabla and harmonium in the huge auditorium. The underlying message in all the devotional songs was the impermanent nature of life – the futility of collecting worldly goods and riches, the need to make God your constant companion and shun abhorrent practices which take you farther from the Supreme Being.

Kabir so dhan sanchiye jo aage ko hoye, sees charaye potli le jaat na dekha koye (Collect only the wealth that you can carry forward in your next life. Have you seen any person walking to meet God with a bundle of his money and worldly goods on his head). The Bhajan singer brought this out beautifully.

Also Maya mui na mai mua mar mar gaya sareer, asha trishna na mari kah gaya das Kabeer. (Maya (hallucination and desire) and mai (igo) did not die even as the physical body is on the verge of extinction. Hope and desire for worldly goods never dies, thus said Kabeer)

The gathering of a thousand odd persons in the hall was listening with rapt attention. Though there were some people who were scanning their mobile phones for that non-existent call or SMS and still others for whom talking business in that serene moment was more important than learning a lesson in life, but largely the singers got the attention they deserved.

I closed my eyes to connect to the devotional songs. Three-four minutes later, I could see myself perched onto a tree top, then on the top of snow clad mountains, I started flying like a bird, the body seemed without any weight. I also found myself in the middle of an island, on a boat traversing the sea and also moving around in dense forests. I forgot I had a body and was wandering everywhere. There was no consciousness for a fleeting moment.

Was it a hallucination? Was it a dream? Was I sleeping? Was it the soul wandering everywhere sans the physical body? I do not know. The answers are not easy to find.

A few years ago, I had undertaken lessons in Yoga Nidra in which the instructor (a Swami) of the Bihar School of Yoga, guided me to relaxation through this ancient practice. For a few fleeting moments, I felt that I am not the body but something different. The same feeling came again after a long time when the body ceased to exist momentarily and I found what could possibly happen as and when the physical body dissolves into nature from where it sprang.

The importance of looking within was once again underlined. I remembered the wisdom of our saints that God was within every living being – you just have to discover by looking within. That is why our saints asked us to practice “maun” or silence at any convenient time of the day. At that time, the dialogue (if any) should be with the self and not the outside world.

“You have to leave this world and everything which you have appropriated or misappropriated all your life but the self (soul) would never leave you. It is this self with which you have to connect,” I remembered a Swami giving sermon on the banks of river Ganga in Rishikesh.