Two days ago, I received a shocking news that one of the devotees of my master had passed on from a sudden heart attack, a lady I remembered fondly for the last 5 years in my spiritual life. She and her husband attended a few Inner Awakening programs with me and she was such a sincere devotee with a bubbly personality and a thunderous laughter. I remembered she attended one of my Laughter Meditation workshops and her laughter created a wave of energetic resonance in the room!
At the wake last night, her husband shared with me that he was not able to accept this sudden death because she had been a life companion, a business partner, a caring mother of his teenage son and his very source of emotional support. In fact, they were almost inseparable, such was their relationship. Naturally, he was taken aback by the loss, from the emotional pain of loss came the anger towards life for doing this to him. The process of grief will take some time before he is able to settle into the stark reality.
My master, Paramahamsa Nithyananda once told us that every death has a message for us, we just need to be aware. When I sat within my inner space to internalize this happening, I began to understand what life was trying to unfold within me.
- Life is a gift from Existence. When we fail to understand this truth, we demand life as if it is our birthright. Everything we have been enjoying in life is a blessing. When the time comes, even if we don’t want, we will be pushed out.
- See death in the right context. Many of us do not understand death from the right context. We always see death as a curse, a misfortune or a suffering. If we carry so much fear and worries about death, every moment we will be dying. There is no such thing as death! Just like we change our job, change our career or profession, sometimes change the city we are living in or house, sometimes change our spouse, just like that we just change the body. In this change, we forget the whole memory. Handling of memories is one of the most difficult things human-beings have to do. Handling incompletions when our body and mind are completely tired, sick, stuck, unable to handle anymore thoughts, incompletions, life just gives us the boon of rebooting which is death. Through death, we reboot and start on a clean slate, a new life, a new possibility which is nothing but the possibility for rewriting our future. That is the beauty of death which is cleaning of this memory for a fresh space! This is one of the most powerful blessings from Existence i.e. helping us to forget all those incompletions, the pain, and giving us a new possibility. Unfortunately, when we don’t have the right understanding, we take this blessing and make it as the worst curse by getting frightened about it.
- Always remain in a state of completion with life. When we live life with so much incompletions, we forget the original work we are meant to do, so death happens as a great reminder for us to get back to our original space of completion. I’ve seen different people responded to the sudden death of this devotee in different ways depending on their level of completion. This death taught me again and again that we must be complete with everything in life, whether it is with self, people, gurus or nature, so that any time we are ready to exit gracefully or else we will not be able to break the cycle of samsara (cycle of birth & death).
- Use death as your liberation. At the time of death, 2 possibilities are open for all beings – 1) take another body or 2) liberate from this cycle of life and death. If you know how to use the moment of death to be free once and for all, you are the most intelligent person! If a person with so much of patterns or incompletions, he can never escape during death. However, a person with almost no patterns, can easily slip into eternity during the time the door opens for his death. This death taught me that we need preparation while we are in the body so that we can use our death as liberation. Only a few intelligent souls who know how to make their death as liberation, hence life is celebration for them! A tapasvi (one who does penance) and seeks true knowledge remains deathless.
- Guru is the bridge to eternity. In the Vedic tradition, a Guru is one who ploughs the mind and cultivates it. Unless God appears in the role of Guru, the soul cannot realise the power (Siddhi) and liberation (Mukthi). I know this devotee who was initiated into Jivan Mukti deeksha (initiation to liberation) by a living enlightened master, He would have taken care of her transition at the time of death into her next journey – whether to assume another body of her conscious choice or to disappear into his formless state. A guru is one who has the access to the 3 worlds, He is the only one who can guide us into the Ultimate.
In essence, every death is a great reminder of our ultimate possibility, use the time while we are still alive to prepare for the ultimate happening at the time of exit! Namaste 😀