DEATH

Death visited me early in my life and frequently thereafter. My father died of a sudden heart attack at age 38, when I was 14. It stunned and broke me.

Afterwards all the rest of my family died in one way or another: brother; aunts; uncles; grandmother and grandfather; and many friends. Only my mother has survived and will have her hundredth birthday next October.

All major religions are creations to explain, and in some way, transcend death and end the fear of death, even Advaita.

For Christians and Muslims, there is heaven and hell. For Hindus and Buddhists there is rebirth, heavens and hells, and Nirvana. All are but Eastern and MidEastern folklore to conquer fears of death.

For Advaita there is the Absolute, and the Witness, Turiyatitta, of Ramana, Nisargadatta, and Robert.

Maharaj speaks of the knower beyond the known, observer of consciousness, and through consciousness, the manifest universe. This Absolute is not an object, for one is the Absolute as subject at all times, and you can only know of the Absolute as an object that is not an object, because it is the subjective knower of objects. You can only be the Absolute by ending all identifications with your human form, and thus from an emptiness perspective, perceive the fullness of the universe.

For Ramana, this Absolute witness perspective is part of Consciousness itself, not apart as for Nisargadatta.

In any event, for Robert, Ramana, and Nisargadatta, death of the body means death of the individual. The human personality, the person, is gone and dead forever, and if there is rebirth, which most Advaitins deny, it is not the individual that has a new birth, whether Ed Muzika, Robert Adams, or Nisargadatta, but another life-form altogether, unconnected with the newly deceased, but just a new leaf on the tree of life. The "leaf" is not "immortal," the "tree" is.

So, the freedom of the Advaitin is to escape from your humanity and attachments now. Detach from your human desires, identities, and attachments, not through somehow ending them but cutting them by renunciation and efforts, but by going inwards into the depths of your own beingness and finding your joy and peace there rather than in the world.

By being away from all worldly attachments and identifications, one becomes the Absolute, just witnessing the processes of the world.

But there is so much danger in this approach of denying the what-is of our human nature at the moment, our lusts, fears, loves, energies, and life, that we might lose grounding in our humanity too soon, cutting it off, leaving one’s desires denied, buried, and thus pent up in unconsciousness, leaving us with in barren emptiness, nothingness, with no life or energy.

This is why I urge people to find the I Am sensation first. Abide there and let it grown into its energetic expression through your humanity, and therein, inside of you, finding the divine. Do this first; otherwise you may miss the supreme joy of unity with God, and then begin the process further of personal dissolution after you have experienced the total joy of brotherhood with the life-force within you: your joining as an individual soul with God.