Death and After

Divine Life Society Publication: A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India by Sri Swami Krishnananda

The Lord assures that one who leaves this world, thinking of Him alone, reaches Him, in the end. One's future is governed by one's last thought, at the time of death. As this thought is, however, the cumulative result of what one has been thinking throughout one's life, it is to be understood that one's future life is determined by the nature of the present life taken as a whole. As a bitter tree does not bear a sweet fruit, one's last thought cannot be expected to be a divine one, if the life that precedes it is one of error and wickedness. By its fruit, we know the tree. Whatever one has been contemplating in one's life, that becomes the last thought which fixes the nature of the future life. Whatever one thinks deeply at the time of death, that one becomes in the next life. He who, by the practice of yoga, meditates, in an undivided consciousness, on the Supreme Purusha, resplendent like the Sun, and thinks of Him at the time of his death, with deep concentration, devotion and power of aspiration, reaches Him, the Divine Being. In a concise statement, the Gita says that, by controlling all the senses, by centring the mind in the heart, by drawing the prana to the head, engaged in the practice of yoga, uttering the monosyllable - Om the Brahman - and meditating on Him, he who departs hence, attains the Supreme Goal. There is no return to the consciousness of mortality (samsara) and pain after attaining the Divine Purusha.

The Gita confirms the two paths of the departed soul mentioned in the Upanishads - the northern and the southern - in a more pithy statement of this route. The blessed soul moving towards its salvation is said to course through the Deities of Fire, Light, Day, the bright half of the lunar month and the six months of the northern motion of the Sun. The soul that is destined to return to rebirth passes through the presiding powers of the Smoke, Night, the dark half of the lunar month and the six months of the southern motion of the Sun. The Gita does not throw light on the apparently intricate meaning of these stages of the soul's movement after its departure from the world, and we are left in the same position as in the Upanishads on the subject. In all probability the Northern Path (archiradimarga) and the Southern Path (dhumamarga) are certain mystical experiences of the Soul in the subtler layers of the Cosmos, through which it traverses, determined by the spiritual and non-spiritual tendencies in it, respectively.

In its classification of the three natures of the individual, the Gita makes mention of the fate of the soul in accordance with the predominance of the qualities of Prakriti operating in it. When, through every sensation or perception in the body or personality, the light of intelligence gets radiated, it is to be understood that Sattva is predominant in the person, and meeting death in that condition, one attains to the shining regions attained by those who are knowers of the highest Reality. When greed, restless activity, impulse to undertake initiatives, distraction and longing are seen in a person, it is to be understood that Rajas is predominant, and meeting death in that condition, one is born among those who are attached to activity. When ignorance, inertia, heedlessness and delusion are seen in a person, it is to be understood that Tamas is predominant, and meeting death in that condition, one is born in the wombs of the deluded and the irrational. Those who die in the state of Sattva go to the higher worlds of light, in Rajas to the middle world of action, and in Tamas to the lower world of darkness.

But, when one beholds no agent of activity other than the properties of Prakriti, and knows That which is above the Gunas of Prakriti, one attains to 'My Being', says the Lord in the Gita.

Death and After - A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India by Sri Swami Krishnananda