jatasyahi dhruvor mrutyu What is born is sure to die. (Gita II-27)
Physical Death Once it is born, one day this physical body will die. It is nothing to be worried about. The death to the physical body will come naturally. Some people even try to end the physical body. There is the story of a man who was always quarrelling with the wife, was unhappy and wanted to commit suicide by jumping into the well. He asked his wife to bring torchlight and when asked why, he said, “So I don’t stumble on the way to the well.” The wife asked, “If you are going to die, does it matter if you stumble or not stumble?”
At the time of the physical death, the gross body dies and is left behind, but the astral and the causal bodies along with the soul live on. These two bodies do not die easily.
The Astral and Causal Suppose there is a bottle with water that is closed and is placed in a pond. The water in the bottle is not free. When the bottle is broken the water inside and the water in the pond become one. Similarly the astral and the causal bodies like the bottle are covering the soul and the soul is not free. The soul is not free from memory, emotion and experiences covering it. The physical, astral and causal bodies cover the body like the layers of clothes we wear. With physical death we give up the outer layer. The astral and the causal go with the soul. The physical body dies in every birth but the astral and causal bodies transmigrate.
What Happens in Meditation What do we do during meditation? We try to bring temporary death to the physical body and to the mind. During meditation, when we try to concentrate deep and try to be free from body consciousness and have no sense of the body, then it is death to the physical body. During meditation we do not recognize the body and mind.
We bring a temporary death to the body and mind during meditation but after some time the old mind tries to play with us. If we analyze our life, we are like toys in the hands of the mind. The mind controls us. God gave us the mind to help us to serve us like a maidservant, to help me in daily life but unfortunately because of our ignorance and the wrong association with the mind, mind started dictating to us. If the mind is my servant the mind should obey me, but the mind is not doing that and we are responsible for the wrong association, the wrong emotion, wrong experiences and instincts.
A beautiful monk in India at the beginning of this century, as he was roaming in the Himalayas one day decided, “Either I will experience the bliss of deep meditation and Samadhi or I will give my body as food for the fish in the Ganges. I will realize here and now.” He was young, younger than many of us. His name was Swami Ramatirtha and he was realized.
The Cycle of Birth and Death In springtime in Texas, beautiful wild flowers come up, which die after some time and again come up the following year. The physical body is like that. Made of five elements of earth, water, air, fire and space it goes back to the elements and again comes back as long as the astral and causal bodies remain.
Those who are intelligent do not want to play this game because so long as the play continues there will also be trouble. Suppose we are playing chess. So long as we play we should play for joy and relaxation. But what happens is we get engrossed with the pawn on the chessboard so much, that when the pawn is killed we get pain. And in the play if you win and I lose, you are happy and I am sad because we forget the purpose of play, which really should be for joy. You are excited and I am depressed. This should not be the spirit. When there is a cricket match between India and Pakistan, it is just like a war in India. People are so excited. This is not the true spirit of the play. If life is a play I will play with joy and I would not like to prolong the play as it could then get boring. I do not wish to get boredom into my life and I will finish it quickly. I know that the physical body would die and before that I will play in such an intelligent and tactful way that I will bring death to my astral and causal bodies also.
Liberation In case of those who are liberated, the astral and the causal bodies also die. At the time of death all the three bodies disappear and they merge completely in God.
The real end to life it to spend your time and breath in such an intelligent way that you can bring an end to the causal and the astral body also so there is no rebirth and you enjoy total freedom.