MMY on Dying

"When someone dies, it is because at that point, their karma has become insurmountable in the present body. It is not possible to understand why death had to come when it did, and there is certainly no point in assuming responsibility and guilt. The course of action is unfathomable. However, especially for someone on the path of speedy evolution, the transition is purely evolutionary. They go to the celestial realms, or are reborn almost immediately.

"When life leaves the body, it is the breath leaving, like transcending. For one who has been accustomed to this experience for many years, the transition is easy, painless and blissful, not catastrophic. Dropping the body is like letting a bird out if its cage. Grief is natural. At first, when grief is deep and sharp, these emotions of the family and friends allow the soul to feel that they were loved very deeply. It is also natural that the grieving should taper off, allowing the soul to feel that their passing was not a drag on the life of their beloved ones, and that they are free to move onto their destiny. It is important to feel positivity and support for the departed soul wherever they be, because our attitude affects their evolution."

Body drops, but Consciousness stays where it is. Cosmic Consciousness (CC) is a state where the small 's' has become big 'S'. And big 'S' Self means unboundedness. Eternity. When the status of the individual has expanded to unboundedness, that is his status and that is he. When the status is unbounded, he is beyond time and space.

He's all over. Once he is all over, where can he go?

In our meditation that unbounded awareness has already expanded to eternity, to infinity. Infinite is the boundary of the individual consciousness. On the level of the body he is so many feet long and so many feet wide. But his awareness is so much unbounded. When the individual is so much unbounded, and the body ceases to function, then what will happen to that unbounded awareness? Nothing can happen to It. That It is 'I' capital. Unboundedness.

And therefore, it doesn't leave the body and doesn't go anywhere, because being everywhere it cannot leave a place and go to another place. It cannot leave one time, go to other time.

So the unboundedness is free from the boundaries of time and space. And that is why a man living Cosmic Consciousness does not go somewhere. His body goes from manifested state to unmanifested state. The body goes, he doesn't go.

Now how does CC grow? How does one grow in CC? We have known it is the growth of the nervous system. Growth means transformation. Purification of the nervous system. Modification of the nervous system. Due to which that pure consciousness becomes permanent.

One example will clarify this situation. Green water in a glass. Now the sun is shining everywhere and the glass is in the sun. The reflection is green. This is like the small 's' self- when the nervous system is not purified, it is green, it's not very clear. Nervous system is clouded with all kinds of impurities. Now that green water has green reflection.

The sun, shining evenly everywhere is not green. It's neither green nor red or no color. It's colorless. If we modify water, green water being modified, green becoming less and less. That means the reflector of the sun is being modified, resulting in the modification of the reflection.

The water becoming less and less green, the reflection is becoming less and less green. Less and less green means more and more towards the nature of the sun. Less and less green reflection means more and more becoming like the sun. At a point, at one particular moment, the water is no more green. Completely pure.
 
The reflection then is a reflection. It has its structure according to the shape of the glass, but that the quality of the reflection is the quality of the sun.

The reflection feels, 'I am the sun'. This is realization.

Just like that, the nervous system, reflecting the omnipresent being, and the reflection is of a particular quality. But with transcendental meditation the modification of the nervous system keeps on improving the quality of the reflection.

Quality of reflection keeps on becoming purer and purer. A time comes when the individual reflection, the Self, has gained the quality of omnipresent being. Hundred percent. The Self is Being.

The small self has gained the status of big Self, big 'S'. In this state, due to the nervous system, the big Self can be located and yet it is unbounded.

When the reflection has become like the sun, and the reflection has gained the quality of the sun around it, then it is omnipresent sun. It is the same sun that is shining everywhere. Yet, because of the glass it has its individuality. So it is an individual entity and it is omnipresent sun both at the same time.

Now, the glass breaks. Water spreads. What has happened to the reflection?

Nothing has happened to the reflection except that it ceases to be located. The reflection that was here when the glass was intact was the same sun as everywhere - it has the same quality. Now the glass is not there, it's broken.

Where has gone the reflection? It has gone nowhere. It's just there, because it has already gained the status of the sun. When the body drops, nothing happens to it. It doesn't go. It doesn't come out from the body and doesn't go anywhere because anywhere it can go, it already is there. And therefore we don't talk in terms of death.

A man who has risen to Cosmic Consciousness, we just don't talk about him in terms of death. We talk about his body ceasing to function. He doesn't depart from the body. He doesn't go anywhere. Only for other people he ceases to be located.

Excerpted from a lecture in August 1970 at Humboldt State College, California
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi