Three weeks ago, I had the fortune of listening to Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s (fondly known as Swamiji) life encournter which gave me an instant initiation into the truth of graceful exit during death. I want to share this beautiful story with the world because it has such a deep significance in our lives – the only life insurance we can build for ourselves. I was able to have the same entanglement when Swamiji narrated this incident.
Read the narration with awareness.
“One evening I heard the news that Swami Vairakyananda – Ramakrishna’s dharma pathni, aridhangini, Sharada Devi’s disciple that he was in hospital really ill and need to be attended. So I ran to the hospital and I had the opportunity of serving him, the best punya (merit) is serving the elderly sadhu (monk) especially when they are sick. By the time I went and started attending to him he was not able to go to restroom. He used to have everything in the bed itself and he developed little bed sore and I used to attend to that. The best thing I enjoyed in my life is taking care of elderly Sadhus. I will always be there when there is elderly sadhus who are not well, who need to be attended.
I was attending to him, I had the fortune of attending to him few days continuously. He was so happy with the way I took care of him. I can see clearly his internal organs were failing, but the beam and joy on his face, even at that time he would not lie down flat. He would say “Hey! Only bogies (people who enjoy sense pleasures) lie down flat, never yogis! His internal organs were failing, he might be alive maximum for next 24 or 48 hours. He asked me to make him sit, he would and stretch his legs. The moment he closed his eyes, that smile and the joy on his face, the way he radiated, I could touch and feel God in the air he was breathing, in the space he was radiating! So I was serving him, taking care of him, I cleaned up all the pus on his back due to bed sore.
He just opened his eyes and said, “Koka! Listen, if you enjoyed only five senses related pleasures, when that five senses cannot function any more, you fall in depression, because life will feel empty, then if you enjoyed only kind of a thinking, the intellectual pleasures, like scientists mathematician logicians, when that logic is failing, the powerful logic is giving way, you will fall into depression.”
He was narrating beautifully, “If you are all the time hooked on to the TV when your eyes fail you fall into depression, if you are all the time hooked on to the music when your ears fail you fall into the depression, if you are all the time hooked on to the tongue when your tongue fails you fall into depression, if you are all the time hooked on to the physical pleasures when your body fails, you fall into depression, if you are all the time into this intellectual debates and brain candy when that fails you will fall into depression. Even if you have developed only the power of repeating the name of God through Japa (silent chanting), when your logic slowly fails you will not be able to do that, you will fall into depression. If you have visualized and meditated on God when your visualization is getting dull, you will fall into depression, you will not be able to hold anything.”
He was describing step by step, he said, “Throughout my life, I developed to rest in that pure unclutching space and my integrity to my Guru, so even though one by one, my senses have failed, my intellect is failing, my ability to remember is failing, my visualization is failing, my emotions are failing, all that are failing, but, because my whole life I developed the strength of resting in my pure completion and unclutching space or pure questioning, whatever I say, that Advaita nirvikalpa Samadhi (space of oneness), now I am simply resting into it, beyond that is my integrity to my Guru which is holding me from the bottom. So I just know I am relaxing in the right space, there is no depression, there is only joy, this is what you can learn from my life as lesson.”
This is the most powerful, old age insurance you can have. The one and only thing you need to develop is your ability to rest in an unclutched space, the space of Perpetual Completion, Sahaja Samadhi and even that will collapse, that time only one thing can hold you – that is your integrity to your Guru!! He said the only thing he developed in his life is his ability to relax in Nirvikalpa Samadhi. When that also gave way, he knew he would just fall into his Cosmic Mother’s lap because he was completely integrated to Her! The joy was beaming on his face!
He was so honest and integrated about what he was talking, the power of his integrity I got entangled with that experience, I was literally vibrating the space from which he was describing, the entanglement was what I feel his initiation to me. That was the way he transmitted whatever he wanted to give me – a blessing, fulfillment, completion.”
The best thing you should develop in your system is your ability to be in the space of unclutching, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the space of Sadha-Shivoham, the space of Perpetual Completion, space of Sahaja Samadhi, space of Nithyanandhoham, whatever different words I may use, I mean only that space which is technically called by Sadha-Shiva as Sayujya Samadhi or Sadha-Shivoham or Nirvikalpa Samadhi by Patanjali; Nirbija Samadhi by Adi Shankara. You should develop only that space and that space also will give way at one point, then the space you fall is that ‘Integrity with your Guru’. You need to understand that is the last space you will fall, after that you can’t do anything, that hand has to just take you in and digest you.
He said “The last point I am going to fall, the Nirvikalpa Samadhi I have developed in me and I am sure about my integrity with my Cosmic mother, I will go to my mother’s house because I was so integrated to her. I will fall into her lap and I will go to my mother’s house.” Understand, the moment he said this, and it clicked with me, the entanglement was so beautiful, I could see what he was saying was with complete integrity and it just entered into my system, literally may be one hour, that conversation was going on, I was literally in his space, I was literally living what he was talking. When he completely narrated, and I just held his hand. I said “Maharaji! Can I hug you?” He smiled and I just hugged him. Then I think after that he was in the body, may be two days or less than two days, then he gave me mother’s padha thuli, feet dust (kum-kum) of Sharada Devi to me for worshipping, which he was was worshipping his whole life.
Exactly what I learnt from Vairakyananda Swami is something cannot be taught. The only teaching I can give you is “it cannot be taught”. Build the ability to be in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, Unclutched Space, Complete Completion, Sahaja Samadhi, Perpetual Completion, that is the only right spiritual practice you can do!! Nothing else! When all things collapse, the only thing that can take you to the ultimate is your ability to be in the unclutched space when you are in the body. When everything is active if you have made that opening in you, the Sahaja Samadhi and you will fall through that opening into your integrity with Guru, He will simply hold you, you will relax into enlightenment.
Understand, compromise on anything but not on Integrity with Guru! That will take care of you and save you anywhere! He said, I know one thing, I have developed the joy and bliss of unclutching space in me, that chemistry I have developed in me, and my integrity to my Guru, as long as I exists, I will fall into that unclutched space, and from there I know I will fall only into my Guru, because my integrity with my Guru, over! What a way to spend the old age and time in death bed and what a way to leave the body. I tell you the fruit of the way you live is only the way you leave the body. Nothing else! Not what you left, but the way you left is essence of your Life.
This 3rd verse of Keno Upanishad is the essence of Swami Vairakiananda’s teachings to me.
na tatra cakShurgacchati na vAggacchati no manaH
na vidmo na vijAnImo yathaitadanushiShyAta.h
anyadeva tadviditAdatho aviditAdadhi iti shushruma
pUrveShAM ye nastad.hvyAcacakShare
Translation:“Where the eye goes not, the speech goes not, nor the mind and the intellect, we do not know, we do not understand, how that reality consciousness can be taught it is distinct from the known as it is far beyond man’s finite objective nature that is what the mind eyes ears or speech, the senses can perceive and it is beyond the unknown as it can be known by man’s divine infinitive subjective nature thus the word from the ancient masters who revealed and explained tatvas.”
If you have developed that unclutched space and integrity with your Guru, your life insurance is done. That’s all, after that everything you do is bonus. If you have not done that, develop that with all your energy and intelligence, don’t wait in the old age you can develop, NO! Do it now! That’s the most important first priority thing you need to do for your life. Let you all have that experience and truth of Nirvikalpa Samadhi and the integrity with the Master! Let you all have this most important Life Insurance for life and death, for living and leaving!
Now catch it! Namaste 😀
