Life and Death: For the Living From The Realm of Death

By M N CHATTERJEE

There's this story of a young boy whose dialogue with death is as fascinating as it is exploratory, coursing down the six chapters of the Katha Upanishad.

Sage Vajasravasa, to get divine recognition, performed a sacrificial rite which required him to give up all his possessions and pleasures. But he gifted away only those cows which were diseased, old and lame, keeping the good ones for himself.

Sensing his folly, his young son Nachiketa asked him, "Father, to whom will you give me?" Finding no response, the son repeated his query. Losing patience, his father burst out, "I give you to death".

Nachiketa took his father seriously. He proceeded to the realm of death. But, Yama, the king of death, was out and returned only after three days. Apologising for having kept his guest waiting so long, he offered Nachiketa three boons. The boy first asked for his father's well-being. Second, he sought the knowledge required to perform fire sacrifice which could open up the path to heaven.

But Yama was taken aback at the third request - Nachiketa wanted to know what happens after death. How could Yama reveal such a profound truth? Yama tried to dissuade the boy from his quest but in vain. Impressed by the boy's devotion to truth, Yama relented and spoke to him of death and the metaphysical speculations on immortality. He dwelt on what is good, sreya , and what is pleasant, preya .

While sreya implies whatever leads to true well-being, preya includes short-lived pleasures mainly derived through sense organs. The wise concentrate on the former while the ignorant remain satisfied with the latter and get enmeshed in worldly ties. "They fall, repeatedly, birth after birth, into my jaws", he said.

Yama instructed Nachiketa to know the atman, the self, "the ancient effulgent being, the indwelling spirit, deeply hidden in the lotus of the heart. This is difficult. But the wise, following the path of meditation, know him and are freed alike from pleasure and pain". The self is immortal. One who has realised that the self is separate from the body, the mind and the senses has fully known him and becomes immortal.

Yama reverted to the nature and identity of the atman: Soundless, formless, intangible, undying, eternal, without beginning, without end, immutable, beyond nature, is the self, smaller than the atom, greater than the cosmos, subtler than the subtlest, beyond tarka or logic, beyond cause and effect, luminous and not depending on any reflected light.

Knowledge of the atman is unique, the fruitful product of spiritual illumination, truthfulness, detachment and devotion and not of intellectual adroitness. One who is freed from greed realises the glory of the atman. Man is the rider, the body the chariot, the intellect the charioteer and the mind the reins. The senses are the horses and the roads they travel are mazes of desire. Man has to rise above worldly attachments and temptations by a judicious use of the sense organs, self-control and discrimination.

It is necessary to tread the path of yoga, stressed Yama. The one with a steady mind and pure heart reaches the goal and is born no more. Brahmn is the supreme goal, the end of the journey. If one fails to reach it in this life, another birth will follow.

The approach to the goal is difficult to tread, like the sharp edge of a razor. One may take the help of the syllable OM which symbolises the supreme Brahmn, the ultimate reality and its utterance is spiritually uplifting. It is sabda Brahmn or Brahmn in the form of sound and is accorded divine reverence.

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See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)