Escaping at the time of Death
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Jul 07, 2017
MiBeloved 5 years ago
From LinkedIn:
Good Morning Michael!
May this auspicious day of Sunday, June 3rd, Dwapara 312, finds you in great health!
Om Saha navavatu; Saha nau bhunaktu;
Saha viryam karavavahai;
Tejasvi navadhitamastu;
Ma vidvishavahai;
Om Santi; Santi; Santih
As stated yesterday, my spiritual relationship with India resembles a triangle, with vertices in Rishikesh (Krishnananda), Tiruvannamalai (Sri Ramana Maharshi), and Pondicherry (Sri Aurobindo and Mother). It becomes quaternary, and a Mandala, when it anchors in the instructions received from Swami Hariharananda in Miami, related to the following:
In कठ उपनिषद्; after much pleading to the Lord of Death, Yama, नचिकेता gets instruction. In Chapter III.16:
"There are one hundred and one arteries of the heart, one of which pierces the crown of the head. Going upward by it, a man at death attains immortality. But when his prana passes out by other arteries, going in different directions, then he is reborn in the world."
Please, kindly comment. Thanks in advance.
MiBeloved’s Remark:
First of all the translation of the instruction given to Nachiketa by the death monitor deity, Yama, in the Katha Upanishad concerns the subtle body. Therefore persons reading the translation should not think that the word heart means the physical pump device in the physical body.
These hundred and one arteries are nadis. The diagram at the link below was originally attributed to Swami Shivananda but now it has no particular credit:
http://www.kheper.net/topics/chakras/nadis.html
Yama was the first of the Vedic rishis who mastered astral projection after they came down from the celestial world and began taking material bodies. Therefore he was posted as the person to direct souls who get confused after losing a material body and finding themselves in the astral world with much uncertainty as to whether they were dead or alive.
Ordinary Hindus think that he is just primarily involved in supervising who gets punished for hostile antisocial acts and who gets rewarded for pious contributions to human society. But his real concern is to clear up the matter of what it is to be alive, which is to be aware of the astral body as contrasted to focusing on and identifying mostly with the physical form which developed on the basis of the needs of the astral body.
The nadis are a whole other study in yoga. It is a requirement for those people who are serious about becoming siddhas. The instruction of Yama as you quoted is given also in other words by Krishna to Uddhava like this:
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pārṣṇyāpăḍya gudaṁ prāṇaṁ
hṛd-uraḥ-kaṇṭha-mūrdhasu
āropya brahma-randhreṇa
brahma nītvotsṛjet tanum (10.24)
parsnyapidya = pārṣṇyā — with the heel + āpăḍya — blocking; gudam — anus; prānam — vital energy; hṛd = hṛt — heart chakra; uraḥ — chest; kaṇṭha — neck; mūrdhasu — to the head; āropya — listing; brahma-randhreṇa — by the hole at the top of the subtle head; brahma — to the spiritual existence; nătvotsṛjet = nătvā — taking + utsṛjet — should give up; tanum — the gross form.
Blocking the anus with the heel, and lifting the vital energy to the heart chakra, then through the chest, throat and head, and by taking it through the hole at the top of the head of the subtle body, one should transfer to the spiritual existence, while giving up the gross form. (Uddhava Gita Explained 10.24)
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The meaning of this is that one’s belief system, one's philosophical views, one’s concept about reality; all these are useless if one is not able to command the movement of kundalini at the time of death of the physical body.
I may have a good rap. I may think that I am God. I may profess meditation in oneness and absoluteness. But if in fact in my psyche I have no control over the movements of kundalini in the subtle body, then it is all a counterfeit and the person I am really making a fool of is me.
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In this respect there is a nice story about King Puranjana, the honored guest of Bhogavati Excitement City.
Please look at the file called King Puranjana, Life Force Description, from Srimad Bhagavatam, at this web page:
http://www.inselfyoga.com/m/files/view/Puranjana-Life-Force
The King was a nice guy and he was living in a good way but at the time of death, his soul followed his life force out of the physical body through the anus.
Really!
Is this what is going to happen in the end? People told us that this soul was God, so why is it following the life force. Or is Narada, who told the story to King Prachina-barhi, in ignorance about what this soul really is?
So Alfredo you are planning to take deity Yama’s advice to direct kundalini through the crown chakras in a centralized way. Share with us exactly how you are going to do that, because you know, many of us plan on being one with God and being the paramatma and all that.
So why are you doing that crazy kundalini stuff when you can just meditate and become what you really are which is God?
Alfredo 5 years ago
MiBeloved’s Query:
[So Alfredo you are planning to take deity Yama’s advice to direct kundalini through the crown chakras in a centralized way. Share with us exactly how you are going to do that, because you know, many of us plan on being one with God and being the paramatma and all that.]
Alfredo's Reply:
By Brahma Abhyasa as directed by Swami Krishnananda, and in accordance with Panchadasi VII-106, as follows: “The practice of meditation on Brahman, the wise cognizer, means reflection on It, talking about It, mutually producing logical arguments about It – thus to be fully occupied with It alone.”
I hope this is not taken lightly, for this practice is as difficult as anything Hatha, Kundalini, or Tantra Yogas offer. Krishnananda's instruction stated that this practice, when properly done, attains Prana Nirodha, and since Yama's instruction as quoted above are in this realm precisely, a Brahma Abhyasi, could (depending in the depth of the practice), exit Prana through crown chakra at the time of death. Not only that, as Krishnanandaji said, he can become a Siddha. Since also Swamiji wrote what I believe is the greatest commentary of the Katha Upanishad: http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/katha_0.html, I take his instructions as his word.
But for this to occur, a strong element of Bhakti is needed and the heart has to be fired up with mumukshutva.
MiBeloved 5 years ago
I have a feeling that your argument about bhakti will fall apart but my mind is open if your evidence proves to be true in the life of a sadhaka.
In the explanation to Uddhava, Krishna explained that bhakti had to be intense and he indicated specifically that it should be so intense that the devotee would take any instructions given to him. This would include the instruction to take up the practice of yoga.
Uddhava is an example of a devotee who was into bhakti 100% but we see that he had to allow it to work its way into his life when at the end, Krishna told him to do the yoga austerities.
If however you are suggesting that bhakti means just bhakti and everything will be complimentary to it by the grace of guru or deity, then I am open to it, provided ample proofs are given or someone’s life is shown to be the evidence of it.
Bhakti cannot be a bargaining chip in the hands of the devotee (bhakta) where the devotee uses it to state that he or she will do nothing else but that. Bhakti should be something in the hands of the devotee that he or she offers in return for instructions from the guru or deity, even instructions which the devotee is unwilling to follow just as Uddhava presented argument after argument for it in the discourse with Krishna, and still in the end had to come to terms with the stipulations which Krishna gave him which were not bhakti but which were supported by Uddhava’s intense bhakti for Krishna.
The Acharya, Krishnananda statement about prana nirodhah through brahma abhyasa is similar to the idea that Ashvattama created a nuclear bomb just by doing achmana and saying mantra. Should we think this was a myth and that it cannot be done.
Of course not. It is not a myth. Even today we hear that the Americans are killing their Muslim extremist enemies by sitting in a room in the United States and sending a drone which is controlled by electronic mantras. So if the Americans can do it, why should we hold censure on the Mahabharata and lock it up in a library as myth. Yes it is possible.
But, and this is a big but, a very big one indeed, you have to first develop the technology, the psychic technology in this case, where your brahma abhyasa, mystic practice of moving subtle and gross reality, is actually operating the system of prana which is normally controlled by kundalini.
So if you can show a person who achieved this mystic technology, then sure I will buy into the idea that somebody in 2012 is doing this.
I studied brahma abhyasa under Swami Nityananda and wrote down much of his instructions about it in the Brahma Yoga Bhagavad Gita. To tell you the truth, it is mostly myth for modern people as far as I can see and for myself, I am still in the kindergarten stages of it.
One person who tried to read that book put it down and said to me that none of it was comprehensible. I smiled at the man because I know exactly what he is talking about.
If you can get your hands on Brahman, then sure just by knowledge you can do it. That is certain.
What hands that would be? Hey!
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Alfredo,
Welcome to meditationtime!
Thanks for providing that important link with free access to Swami Krishnananda's Katha Upanishad.
Every serious yogi should go through that text and get the essence of it.
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Questions welcomed.
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Share your experiences as you take your spiritual path!
Another angle, another perspective?
All the Better!
