(Paris, afternoon of July 6, 1986)
Q: Could you tell us how the process of death, or I could say of dying, takes place? What happens at that time?
PR: Which death is he referring to? Q: To the physical death.
PR: I don't know. [laughter] In India, we have a saying that to know what happens at death, you must die once. [laughter] That is why, as I said this morning, the saints have full knowledge of death, because they die before they die. That is what Babuji calls a living death. So, we must be alive after we are dead before we can know what death is, isn't it? If we are dead finally, we cannot know anything about it. That is why we have been denied a knowledge of death even though, according to tradition, we have been born and have died so many times. That is what our Indian philosophy says: "We die without gaining a knowledge of death." And anything which we do without gaining a knowledge about it is a wasted experience. So, in that sense, all our previous deaths have been wasteful deaths, useless deaths. So, now we should try to die usefully, that is, gainfully, because it is common sense knowledge that we overcome that about which we have full knowledge, and when we can know all about death while we are still alive, then death has no longer any power over us. That is the condition of living death of Sahaj Marg. So, that is the answer.
Today someone, I think it was Nicolas, was talking about a book about people who are almost dead. It gives experiences of so many people who are unconscious, clinically dead, but who somehow came back. According to them death is in four stages, and the last stage is the one where they see brilliant lights, it's filled with happiness, filled with joy, so much so that when they come back alive again, they are very unhappy about it. They blame the doctors for bringing them back and even ask, "Why did you bring me back? It was so wonderful there." But that is only a taste. I should say it is an accidental experience. And if an accidental experience can give us so much bliss, what must be the
real thing!
So, all this fear of death, questions of death, it is because of our identification with the body. And the life of the body is something which wants to keep us here, whereas the soul wishes to go back from where it came. That is why, often, in the spiritual life at a certain stage there is a great deal of tension, because one half is diverted here, and one half is diverted there, and one is pulled from the lower self, and one is pulled from the higher self. It creates havoc. And that is when, if the guru's grace is not present with us, it is easy to fall back into this physical existence. I mean while we are alive here, not after death. And if this happens a few times, then we lose the ability to go up. So, like in airplanes, you have this point of no return. We must also cross the point of no return on
our spiritual journey, and then we are safe. So, it is all the Master's grace that He sees we are across that border.
Of course, that does not mean that tensions cease. I personally believe that there will always be some tension as long as we are physically present here. That is why saints are in a hurry to get away. On one side there is the tremendous longing to go back home, and on the other side there is this great humility of theirs which recognizes the unnecessary dangers in being present here in the physical life.
I read in a biography of Vivekananda, for instance, that when someone praised him for his qualities, he confessed that he was afraid of each day because, while it is a day full of opportunity for advancement, it is also a day full of opportunity for fall. That is why many people have called the spiritual path 'the razor's edge'.
In Sahaj Marg we don't have to be afraid about it, because so long as we are sincere, we are honest in our pursuit, our Master looks after us. But that was not the case with all the systems, you see. I think that is one reason why people had to run away to jungles and forests to minimize the pull of the worldly attractions. It is the greatness of the Master of Sahaj Marg, my Master, that a system is available which we can practise while living in this existence in our normal way and, in a sense, it can be only practised like that, because life has to be lived and transcended.
Every psychologist knows that you cannot transcend anything from which you run away. Of course, the people in the West should not misunderstand this as having to face challenges by deliberately seeking out dangerous things. Trying daily to find a new danger to face is as stupid as running away from danger. So, the so-called spirit of adventure, you know, I don't have much respect for it, because it is also under the compulsion of fear, though it is only a change in the reaction. One man tries to run away from that which he is afraid of, another man tries to physically overcome it. And both lose.
So the way is to live without either being afraid, or without having to face challenges, you see. That is the naturalness of Sahaj Marg — that we seek to live life in a natural way in the environment in which we are put, and accept that which comes to us, transcending it as it comes. In a sense, it is like going up a staircase full of steps. We climb up one step to be faced with another. We go on climbing, up and up and up. There is neither revulsion nor anger, nor a feeling that it is something nice to climb stairs because it develops our leg muscles.
I am saying this because we should recognize one very important fact: such physical, mental, intellectual equipment as we are born with is given to us to cross what we call the ocean of existence. They must all be developed to such capacity as it is necessary for them to be used by us intelligently. Excessive development of any of them is an absurd waste of energy. I would like you all to deeply think over this, because the West is so dependent on its physical perfections, its intellectual greatness. But if you look into it, it's all really very, very childish.
But, unfortunately, the moral perfection is lost, and most people don't know what spirituality is, or whether it even exists. It's like a carpenter who is eternally sharpening his tools, but doing nothing more than that. What is the use of sharp tools, if they are not going to be used for some purpose? All that we can do is to exhibit them to everybody who comes, and this is what we are doing — exhibiting our bodies, exhibiting our intelligence. So, we have a lot of things to show which are useless. But, spirituality says, develop that which can only be seen by another developed person; and that is what we are trying to do here in our spiritual efforts in Sahaj Marg.
And, if I may add one piece of advice: even love should be like that, unseen. All this ostentatious, exhibitionistic love — to whom are we trying to prove that we love someone? All this exhibitionism, at best it is ridiculous, and at worst it is obscene. Excuse me for making this remark, but it is true. Because love is such a super-fine thing and such a transcendental thing. I spoke about it this morning. It is common to all humans. If it is common to everyone, what is the need for us to show it and flaunt it in front of everybody else? And at the highest level it is so sacred that it is something between the lover and the beloved. A third person has no reason, no business to know about it.
You see, it is not shame of love that keeps love hidden in the East, it is its sacredness. And in the West — you may think about it, why it is so open and so flaunted about in public! So in that sense, all sacred things have to be protected. They cannot stand public gaze. So please remember that love is a very, very sacred thing, it is not profane, it should not be made profane. And the less it is expressed openly, the more it grows internally. So, one who wishes to develop love should avoid all expression of it, because only then it grows and grows. So, this is another secret. It's not a secret, I think everybody knows about it.
And if one loves, and there is a beloved to be loved, surely the beloved knows all about it and doesn't have to be told every few minutes that he is loved or she is loved. If you have money in your pocket do you go around saying, "I have money, I have money, I have money."? Then, why have we to speak about love, "I love you, I love you."? What for?
So, please think about it. I know it is a little difficult, and sometimes people also get annoyed, you see! But this is not a criticism, when we are here to learn from the Master, and when Babuji has said that at the highest level you cannot even know whether you love or not, that is, consciousness that you love your beloved should also go. It is such a fine, super-fine thing, you see, that as my Master has said, "If you know you love, that is itself a desecration of love." You see, that knowledge somehow depreciates the value of true love.
So, when all of you are so interested in knowing how to love and how to develop love, we should understand these spiritual truths and try to realise, with the heart, that there is no such thing as Eastern love and Western love. Love is human. At the human level it is
expressed in many profane ways; but when we want to become divinised, the love must become divinised with us. Otherwise the whole exercise is a futile waste of time. So it is necessary to first understand it and then to practise it.
And it is necessary that all our abhyasis, brothers and sisters, should try to bring these principles into their lives. And let me give you one assurance in this matter. If you have the courage and the faith to practise these things, you will find that there are immense returns by way of increased love in your lives, not a decrease. This is absolutely an assurance you can have, because one of the reasons for all this stupid love, what I call roadside love, is the fear that if we don't indulge in these things, we may lose out on our love lives. But all those who have given in to this sort of thinking will surely accept in their hearts, that if they got anything out of it, it was only a guilty feeling — not pleasure, not love, nothing like that.
Well, a human being can make a mistake once, even twice, perhaps three times, but all your lives! That is not understandable. And it does not go well with the so-called Western achievements in intellectual knowledge, science, technology. Because if you have eyes to see, and if you are willing to understand, no civilization, however high, however glorious it may be, can last unless it is built on a foundation of moral soundness, moral strength. This is not something which you do not know. All of you know the history of the great civilizations of the past. It is foolish to think that only today you have a civilization in the West. More than that, it is arrogant. There have been greater civilizations in the past, and all of you know that they fell because when they reached the peak of power, lust took over, shameless lust took over, and the civilization collapsed. I mention this only to tell you that it is not only personal evolution which is at stake, it is a whole race which has to evolve. And pleasure and aspiration cannot possibly ever go together. Spirituality says, if you seek pleasure, you die, whereas if you aspire, you find pleasure in it. It is a higher pleasure, an eternal pleasure, whereas all the rest that we see around us are transitory — transient, momentary pleasures. So I wish to give you one piece of good news, that spirituality does not deny pleasure. It only says, do not seek it in the physical, my friend! Because how long can you enjoy physical pleasure? Seek that which can be enjoyed eternally.
So, that is the message of spirituality, and that is the assurance and the promise of the spiritual life: that if we deny the lower life, we can get the higher life. So spirituality takes away with one hand the small thing, to give you many times, a million times, that same pleasure in a different way, in a different form. This is the message of my Master, and we should try to understand these things, practise them and fulfill our existence in the higher way.