One of the greatest realization one can have is realization of yourself as spirit, as Consciousness versus a lifeless body. Some, like Robert Adams, Nisargadatta, and Ramana after a while even want to forget their corporeal cloak, and call the body illusion. But they do not say that after they are dead.
Spirit and matter are identical. No body,no Consciousness.In any even in their later days as they are dying of cancer,their bodies are of utmost concern because of pain and limitations on movement.
No matter how they talk before their final days, in their final days they have utmost concern about their bodies, and with the body's death, they are no more. That individuality is gone forever, for that individual's Consciousness died even before the body was dead.
If their is anything that "survives" death, it had to be their before life, because that which is born always dies. The "soul" if it survives, must be there even before birth.
Yet, is that our experience? Do we remember being 6 months old, ten months old, being an individual? No.
Do we even remember being a soul, a person, in deep sleep?
So really, our individual existence is a once and for all experience.
However, there is that mystical connection of Consciousness and matter, or embodied spirit that lies at the core of all of us. Life and awareness arising out of embodiment. This is where God and matter meet to create individual life forms, and it is out of this matrix were arise, and to this we return. Nisargadatta called it Parabrahman, that principle that knows both existence and non-existence.
Realizing the Manifest Self--the Life Force permeating our humanity--and the Unmanifest source from which it arises.
Robert had this story where he witnessed that an old yogi reincarnated into young boy who slipped and died next day before yogi told that it would happen and he would take that boys' body.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, maybe there is life after death of body, taking into account that life is not limited to matter alone.
Thank you Sri Edji for posting this. Excellent timing as I sent it to my friend who entered Hospice 4 weeks ago. steve
ReplyDeleteSome has objected to this post, citing Ramana's death (imagined) experience. My response:
ReplyDeleteAs long as you hold onto any viewpoint you are in a dangerous position Shawn.
I'll repeat a comment I made above. Remember, Ramana did not really die; he imagined he died. What he discovered is that the spirit, Consciousness, was not the same as the body.
Nisargadatta disagreedand said Consciousness dies with the body because it arises from it.
In my viewpoint they arise together and die together.
My comment above repeated:
I am God am immortal. I am Ed, am not immortal.
This is a truth; beware of all truths.
Actually, to be pedagogically correct, God and I are one as the Manifest Self. Shen the body dies, the Manifestation of the Lifeforce ends in me but not in others. God, thus is immortal aslong as there is life anywhere.
However, some, like Nisargadatta and Ramana posit something that exists before Consciousness. For Nisargadatta, it was the principle that experiences both knowing and not-knowing, called the Witness, or Parabrahman, and for Ramana it was Turiyatta, which was the transcendental aspect of Consciousness.