Death is one of the greatest mysteries
of life. While there are a very large number of works which have
been written through the years on what happens after life, the mystery
still remains and makes most persons apprehensive. We therefore
receive a large number of questions related to this topic as it
is something to which we all seek an answer.
Our question this month is:
"What happens after Death?"
To answer this question we give below
two letters of Sri Aurobindo and excerpts from a talk of the Mother
on Death.
"The soul takes birth each time,
and each time a mind, life and body are formed out of the materials
of universal nature according to the soul's past evolution and
its need for the future.
When the body is dissolved, the vital
goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after
a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the
mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into
the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close.
This is the general course for ordinarily
developed human beings. There are variations according to the
nature of the individual and his development. For example, if
the mental is strongly developed, then the mental being can remain;
so also can the vital, provided they are organised by and centred
around the true psychic being; they share the immortality of the
psychic.
The soul gathers the essential elements
of its experiences in life and makes that its basis of growth
in the evolution; when it returns to birth it takes up with its
mental, vital, physical sheaths so much of its Karma as is useful
to it in the new life for further experience.
It is really for the vital part of
the being that Sradh and rites are done - to help the being to
get rid of the vital vibrations which still attach it to the earth
or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest
in the psychic peace."
*
"There is after death a period
in which one passes through the vital world and lives there for
a time. It is only the first part of this transit that can be
dangerous or painful; in the rest one works out, under certain
surroundings, the remnant of the vital desires and instincts which
one had in the body. As soon as one is tired of these and able
to go beyond, the vital sheath is dropped and the soul after a
time needed to get rid of some mental survivals passes into a
state of rest in the psychic world and remains there till the
next life on earth."
Sri Aurobindo
The Phenomenon of Death
And here is a talk of the Mother to
the children explaining to them in a simple manner the phenomenon
of Death.
"One is not built up of a single
piece. We have within us many states of being and each state of
being has its own life. All this is put together in one single
body, so long as you have a body, and acts through that single
body; so that gives you the feeling that it is one single person,
a single being. But there are many beings and particularly there
are concentrations on different levels: just as you have a physical
being, you have a vital being, you have a mental being, you have
a psychic being, you have many others and all possible intermediaries.
But it is a little complicated, you might not understand. Suppose
you were living a life of desire, passion and impulse: you live
with your vital being dominant in you; but if you live with spiritual
effort, with great good will, the desire to do things well and
an unselfishness, a will for progress, you live with the psychic
being dominant in you. Then, when you are about to leave your
body, all these beings start to disperse. Only if you are a very
advanced yogi and have been able to unify your being around the
divine centre, do these beings remain bound together. If you have
not known how to unify yourself, then at the time of death all
that is dispersed: each one returns to its domain. For example,
with regard to the vital being, all your different desires will
be separated and each one run towards its own realisation, quite
independently, for the physical being will no longer be there
to hold them together. But if you have united your consciousness
with the psychic consciousness, when you die you remain conscious
of your psychic being and the psychic being returns to the psychic
world which is a world of bliss and delight and peace and tranquillity
and of a growing knowledge. So, if you like to call that a paradise,
it is all right; because in fact, to the extent to which you are
identified with your psychic being, you remain conscious of it,
you are one with it, and it is immortal and goes to its immortal
domain to enjoy a perfectly happy life or rest. If you like to
call that paradise, call it paradise. If you are good, if you
have become conscious of your psychic and live in it, well, when
your body dies, you will go with your psychic being to take rest
in the psychic world, in a blissful state.
But if you have lived in your vital
with all its impulses, each impulse will try to realise itself
here and there... For example, a miser who is concentrated upon
his money, when he dies, the part of the vital that was interested
in his money will be stuck there and will continue to watch over
the money so that nobody may take it. People do not see him, but
he is there all the same, and is very unhappy if something happens
to his precious money. I knew quite well a lady who had a good
amount of money and children; she had five children who were all
prodigals each one more than the other. The same amount of care
she had taken in amassing the money, they seemed to take in squandering
it; they spent it at random. So when the poor old lady dies, she
came to see me and told me: "Ah, now they are going to squander
my money!" And she was extremely unhappy. I consoled her
a little, but I had a good deal of difficulty in persuading her
not to keep watching over her money so that it might not be wasted.
Now, if you live exclusively in your
physical consciousness (it is difficult, for you have, after all,
thoughts and feelings, but if you live exclusively in your physical),
when the physical being disappears, you disappear at the same
time, it is finished... There is a spirit of the form: your form
has a spirit which persists for seven days after your death. The
doctors have declared that you are dead, but the spirit of your
form lives, and not only does it live but it is conscious in most
of the cases. But that lasts for seven or eight days and afterwards
it is dissolved. I am not speaking of yogis; I am speaking of
ordinary people. Yogis have no laws, it is quite different; for
them the world is different. I am speaking to you of ordinary
men living an ordinary life; for these it is like that."
So the conclusion is that if you
want to preserve your consciousness, it would be better to centralise
it on a part of your being that is immortal; otherwise it will
vanish like a flame in the air.
The Mother
