From jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca Mon Aug 16 00:12:33 1999
Newsgroups: alt.meditation.shabda
Subject: The Mystery of Death (6/6)
From: jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca (James Shannon)
Date: 16 Aug 1999 07:12:33 GMT





                             MYSTERY OF DEATH

                                   by

                              Kirpal Singh 

                              [Part 6 of 6] 

                           
                                    V

                            WHAT AFTER DEATH?


            "And God said, let there be light; and there was
        light." (Gen. 1:3). And this is the true light that
        lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And
        light is the life of men.

            In memorable words like these all the scriptures
        describe the genesis or creation of the world and of
        all that is in the world. Rays of Light vibrating 
	with the Music of Life, emanating from the Formless
        Absolute Existence came to manifest the world in its
        variegated colours in countless shapes and forms.

            As above, so below. The Spirit and Power of
        God manifested in the vibrating holy Light, pervades
        all the four Grand Divisions of universe: Sach Khand,
        the abode of Truth or the Changeless Permanence in
        Its pristine purity, with the material cause (the mind)
        yet hidden and involved therein; the Brahmand or the
        egg of Brahman, the second Grand Division of the
        universe brought into being by the universal mind of
        elemental essence by the Will of the Supreme Being;
        and the next, Und, or the third Grand Division,
        called the astral world with mind-stuff in its subtle
        state; and lastly, Pind, or the physical world, the
        fourth Grand Division, the handiwork of the gross mind.

            During our sojourn on the earth-plane, we work
        out our destiny or fate as planned with great precision
        and exactitude by what is called Prarabdh Karmas which
        determine in broad outline the general framework marking
        the duration and course of life in each case. This
        plane is a big counting house or a clearing office, so
        to say, in which each one has to square up his or her
        accounts, coming down the ages, and in doing so, we
        willy-nilly open fresh accounts and raise credits and
        debits to be paid off and cleared in the distant future,
        and no one knows how and when and in what form and in
        what manner. Thus, while reaping the harvest sown in
        the past, we prepare the ground for fresh sowing, in
        season and out of season, with seeds good, bad, or
        indifferent; and all this we do promiscuously,
        prompted by mind and the senses.

            The sages call the earth-plane as 'karam
        khshetra' or the field of actions where sowing and
        harvesting automatically go on all the time, under
        the superintendence, direction and control of Dharam
        Rai, the king of shadows who measures and judges
        each thought, word and deed, however trivial and
        insignificant it may appear to be, rightly and justly
        and administers justice to each at the end of one's
        life-span. Nanak calls this region 'Dharam Khand,'
        for each pilgrim-soul coming to this region has to
        realise in fullness, the existence of the 'Law of
        Retribution and Requital,' which governs all alike
        with no favours and no exceptions. Each is weighed
        with the weight of his own acts and deeds and
        learns, sometime with hard blows, and heavy knocks,
        the grand lesson of Brahman, the Lord of the three
        realms: the gross or physical, subtle or astral and
        causal or instrumental (Pind, Und and Brahmand);
        all of which are the mind-zones of the universal
        mind with numberless planes and sub-planes including
        inter alia various hells and heavens with intermediate
        stages as one may create by one's senses, sensibilities
        and susceptibilities, likes and dislikes, loves and
        hatreds, prides and prejudices, born of desires of one
        kind or the other. Each one thus builds his own
        habitat and not only here but also in the hereafter;
        the astral and mental worlds where one stores up his
        impressions gathered from time to time, in different
        incarnations from the beginning of time. All these
        linger in the soul in the form of general latencies in
        the folds of the karmic body; and a part of them at
        the time of rebirth prepares an etheric body in
        advance of the coarse, dense body. Thus 'destiny
        is cast into the mould before the physical vesture
        is prepared,' to work out the causes involved therein.

            Similarly, at the time of death the departing
        soul carries with it all the life-impressions, deeply
        engraved on the tablet of the mind and the ruling
        passions of the entire lifetime, now singled out in
        blazing colours which determine the course of its
        future destination in the astral and/or mental world
        of spirits. Stripped of the physical mantle, each
        soul displays its subtle individuality, as it were, in
        the light of the noonday sun. Men may deceive
        themselves here for any length of time, by wearing
        pious looks and dressing in attractive clothes. They
        may for the time being succeed in deceiving others;
        but none can play the hypocrite in the astral world
        where one is denuded of the solid outer covering,
        the gross garment of the flesh:

            O Nanak! it is there that the divine mystery is
              finally revealed,
            The Perfect are they who worship Perfection,
            And the imperfect are perfected over there
            Such, as dying come to be born again are yet
              imperfect.

            The astral world is the world of spirits or
        disembodied souls-souls having cast off the physical
        body and yet enfolded in the subtle and mental
        coverings. It is also called 'Pitri Lok,' the place of
        the Pitris or manes of the deified souls of the
        departed ancestors. Here the souls are imprisoned
        in the seven-shelled encasement of the astral world,
        drawing subtle material from each of the seven
        sub-planes existing therein. It is here that they
        work out the causes which they set going on the
        earth-plane, by undergoing certain purificatory
        processes in the divine crucible so as to make them
        worthy of the land of the shining ones after the dross
        is burnt off. Mrs. Annie Besant (1847-1933), a pupil
        of Mine. Blavatsky, in her famous study 'The Ancient
        Wisdom' has given a graphic description of the
        various sub-planes in what she calls 'Kam Lok,' a
        lower sub-plane in the astral world. As the name
        indicates, it is a 'place of desires' and is said to
        contain seven sub-divisions in it, each peopled
        by persons of varying natures and temperaments.
        The scum of the society, the vilest of the vile, the
        murderers and marauders, ruffians and profligates and
        persons with bestial tastes and brutish appetites who,
        while living on earth, shaped for themselves bestial
        astral bodies, now appear, after death, in savage forms
        in their natural likenesses and native hideousnesses, in
        the lowest strata of the infernal region, roaming
        about, roaring, raving and raging, fiercely and
        furiously, pret-like wandering in search of means for
        the gratification of their insatiate desires. In these
        gloomy and loathsome surroundings, they reap the
        harvest of their own sowing and learn the much-needed
        lesson which they failed to learn during their lifetime
        as they were whirled away on the tide of lusts and
        desires. Nature's lessons are bitter and sharp but
        merciful in the long run, designed, as they are, for
        their ultimate good.

            To the next sub-plane go such souls as quit
        their bodies with some deep anxiety weighing heavily
        on them or such who had implacable appetites or
        desires for self-enjoyment and gratification.

            Then there are two sub-planes for those who
        are educated and thoughtful people chiefly occupied
        with worldly affairs during their lifetime on earth.
        Their attention is directed more onwards than
        backwards because they belong to the progressive types.

            From the fifth sub-plane onwards the environ
        changes considerably becoming astral in the true
        sense of the word, i.e., truly starry, studded as it is
        with stars and the surroundings are cheerfully
        inspiring. These three sub-planes are euphemistically
        termed heavens-heavens of a lower type, sometime
        spoken of, as by the later Jews, as infernal heavens,
        being situated in the infernal world as distinguished
        from supernal heavens.

            The religious and the philosophic busy-bodies
        find their way to the materialised heavens in the
        fifth region which they desired and coveted while on
        earth: like the Happy Hunting Grounds, the Valhalla
        (the final resting place of the illustrious dead and
        the heroes slain in battles), the joy-filled Bahisht
        or paradise of the Muslims, the golden Jewelled-Gated
        New Jerusalem or the Lyceum-filled Heaven.

            The souls of the more advanced type like artists
        find a place in the sixth sub-division. The seventh
        or the highest sub-division is entirely for the
        materialistically-oriented intellectuals like
        politicians and administrators and men of science
        who were pronouncedly materialistic on earth and
        wedded to the ways of the world in acquiring knowledge.

            Life in Kam Lok is said to be more active,
        forms more plastic and the spirit-matter more highly
        charged and more subtle, and intangible and
        imperceptible though transparent or translucent. The
        thought-forms here appear and disappear with
        kaleidoscopic rapidity because of the great velocity
        of the vibrations generated by sensations, feelings
        and emotions.

            A spiritually advanced person with a purified
        astral body merely passes through Kam Lok without
        delay. The pure and the temperate though less
        vapid in his plight, dreams away peacefully through
        it. Others, less developed still, awaken to
        consciousness in the region similar to the one in
        which they worked in their lifetime. Those whose
        animal passions still cling to them (prets) wake up,
        each literally and exactly 'to his own place' in the
        appropriate region to which he belongs.

            This plane is treacherous and tricky, and as
        such those who are initiated by a Perfect Master of
        the time into the divine mysteries of the Beyond are
        not permitted to tarry lest they be bewitched here.
        On the contrary, they are quickly led under cover
        through it, to higher regions for gaining maturity and
        stability so as to be able at a later time to face it
        with confidence and to stand the tempting witchery
        and delusive and illusory charms of the place, and
        do not get stuck-up in their march upwards in the
        spiritual region.

            From the astral world of desires, some of the
        souls pass on to another world, the world of thoughts.
        It is a mental zone (mano-mai srishti) created by
        the thinking mind or manas as it is called. Thoughts
        have tremendous energy and each person, while on
        earth, creates his own dream-land by flights of
        imagination and fancy and to this, the soul, after
        death, is gradually led on to experience 'the castles
        built in the air' as the saying goes.

            Mind at every stage from the universal Brahman
        with His pure mind-essence down to the individual,
        weaves a world of its own and takes delight to live
        in it as a spider caught in the web of its own making
        and flits up and down, right and left, of the
        gossamer texture so artistically set up with a light
        filmy substance coming out of its own body, So do
        the thought-patterns and thought-images of each
        individual go out to make a wonderful thought-kingdom,
        far in advance of the time that the thinker in the
        body is freed from the prison-house of the physical
        existence in the material world.

            As you think, so you become. This is the law
        of nature, and no one can escape from its operation.
        In this world of thoughts, thought-vibrations are the
        only channels of communication between soul and
        soul, and all the souls live in close communion with
        each other. There space and time do not matter.
        If at all there is any separation between them, it is
        only due to the lack of sympathy and not for anything
        else. All in all, life there is richer, fuller and
        more advanced than in any of the foregoing regions,
        but it continues to be delusive, it being the outcome
        of the mind-stuff of each and no one here can totally
        escape from delusion, though each one enjoys in full,
        his own heaven-world, vast and expanding or shallow
        and restricted according to one's own mind-stuff, but
        all the same each one retains in him, a sense of
        reality in the midst of surrounding illusion.

            A sanctuary of special interest in the mental
        world is Dev Lok, the abode of the Devas or the
        shining ones - people highly enlightened in their
        time and greatly advanced in their researches. Here
        are located the Svargas and Baikunths of the Hindus,
        the Sukh Vati of the Buddhists, the heavens of the
        Zoroastrians and Christians, the Arshas of the less
        materialised Muslims and the Supernal Paradises or
        Pleasure-grounds of the later Jews. Here lies the
        garden of Eden from where man was expelled and
        excluded by God for his first disobedience of
        His commandments. John Milton (1608-74), a great
        poet and genius of his age, and a profound political
        and spiritual thinker has, in his immortal classics,
        'Paradise Lost,' and 'Paradise Regained,' given a
        wonderful account of the Fall of Man and his
        Resurrection and return unto Him through the
        intercession of the Son of Man.

            Without wading through the scriptures of
        various religions, dealing with post-mortal existence
        of man in the various realms, we would do well to
        once again refer to Brahma Vidya or the Divine
        Wisdom rightly termed by the Greeks as 'Theosophia'
        which provides an adequate philosophy, embracing
        in its fold, the wisdom of the east and the west.
        Turning, again, to the great occultist, Mrs. Annie
        Besant, we find the mental plane inhabited by human
        beings after they cast off their physical and astral
        vestures. Purged of the selfish animal passions, each
        one enters into this region to reap the harvest of his
        good deeds, whatever the same may be, large or
        small, according to the measure of good thoughts of
        personal self-aspirations and ambitions, hopes and
        fears, loves and interests. "We cannot have more
        than what we are, and our harvest is according to
        our sowing. Be not deceived; God is not mocked;
        for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
        reap." (Galatians VI:7). It is a universe of the
        'Good Law,' mercifully just, and brings to each, the
        exact wages or meed of his work on earth. Everything
        thought of, every aspiration worked up into power,
        frustrated efforts transmuted into faculties,
        struggles and defeats becoming pillars of strength and
        power, sorrows and errors forged into shining armour;
        now find fruition in one of the seven sub-planes or
        heavens in the land of midnight sun where self-
        consciousness awakening, makes one fully conscious
        of his non-self surroundings ; with memory spreading
        out into the hitherto unknown past, bringing to view
        the causes that worked out his life on earth and the
        causes that are wrought by him likewise for the vast
        future. The past, the present and the future now
        present to him an integrated view of life, like an open
        book, with nothing to hide and withhold. Here he
        develops for himself an all-seeing eye and becomes a
        perfect seer so far as his individuality is concerned,
        in the true sense of the word.

            In this heaven-world, the lowest part is assigned
        to the least developed souls with sincere and unselfish
        love for their families and friends, an admiration for
        nobler, purer and better persons than themselves.
        The measure of their meed is accordingly narrow and
        shallow, the cup of their receptivity being small; but
        still bubbling over to the brim with joy, purity and
        harmony; and they are reborn after a while on this
        plane with improved powers and faculties.

            Next, come in men and women of religious
        faith with hearts and minds turned towards God -
        the personal God of their own choice, with any name
        and any form they had faith in, and to them the
        Nameless and the Formless appears in the said
        likeness in which they lovingly worshipped Him,
        overwhelming them with devotional ecstasy according
        to their mental and emotional capacity. The Divine
        veils Himself in the form familiar to His devotee. It
        is really strange that men forget that all deities
        reside in the human breast. We have but to turn
        inward to get a glimpse of the Formless in the very
        form in which we adore Him the most. It is therefore
        said: "Formless is He and yet all forms are His;
        Nameless is He and yet all names are His; Call Him
        by any name thou wishest; And He turns to thee."

            To the third plane, come devoted and earnest
        souls who see and serve God in man and worship
        Him in His manifested creation. At this place they
        are perfected into great philanthropists of times yet
        unborn, and endowed with a rich power of unselfish
        love for mankind.

            The souls of Master-minds in fine arts, like
        music, sculpture and painting; the researchers and
        discoverers of the laws of nature; eager and reverent
        students delving into the depths of knowledge, get an
        opportunity in the fourth sub-plane for developing
        into perfect Teachers of mankind in the ages to come;
        and when they do come, they serve as torch-bearers
        and leave their footprints on the sands of time.

            Next, there are three lofty regions of formless
        heavens. A large number of souls simply reach the
        lowest reaches, have but a brief stay, and a flash of
        insight, according to their sowing and then they come
        back to the earth-plane with a dip into the great
        unknown. But souls with deep thinking and noble
        living correctly and immediately perceive truths, see
        the fundamental causes and the underlying unities
        and learn of the changeless working of the divine
        law in all harmony in the midst of the most
        incongruous effects as appear to untrained eye - And
        where "though all things differ, all agree." (Pope).
        More advanced souls with memory perfect and
        unbroken, find their way to the sixth sub-plane and
        after garnering the riches of the divine mind
        (Brahmand), return as great pioneers of mankind to
        justify the ways of God to man and to glorify God.
        The 'mighty dead' of ages gone by here get a taste
        of the 'glorious living,' seeing and witnessing as
        they do, the working of the Will of Brahman in Its
        fullness with no link missing in the chain of causation.

            In the loftiest sub-plane come the souls of the
        Masters of Brahma Vidya and their initiates
        (Brahmacharis) for none but an initiate can find the
        'strait gate'and the 'narrow path that leadeth unto
        life' and so the chosen few enter into the land and
        life of Brahman. They enjoy their self-consciousness
        to the highest point but are not yet endowed with
        cosmic consciousness.

            In the end, Mrs. Annie Besant sums up the
        position thus: "Such is an outline of the 'seven
        heavens' into one or other of which men pass in due
        time after the 'change that men call death.' For death
        is only a change that gives the soul a partial liberation,
        releasing him from the heaviest of his chains. It is
        but a birth into a wider life, a return after brief exile
        on earth to the soul's true Home (Home of the universal
        mind), passing from a prison into the freedom of the
        upper air. Death is the greatest of earth's illusions;
        there is no death, but only changes in life conditions.
        Life is continuous, unbroken, unbreakable; 'unborn,
        eternal, ancient, constant,' it perishes not with the
        perishing of the bodies that clothe it. We might
        as well think that the sky is falling when a pot is
        broken, as imagine that the soul perishes when the
        body falls to pieces."

            The run of mankind after death finds no rest in
        the three worlds: the physical, the astral and the
        mental. The souls freed from the physical vesture
        are carried on, up and down, in the giant Brahmanic
        wheel of life by the momentum of their own thoughts,
        words and deeds. It is all a play of the individual
        mind with its vast field of ramifications spreading
        out from the lowest, the physical, to the mental
        worlds wherein one builds his own tabernacles in the
        hereafter, for a temporary stay, long or short,
        according to one's needs for learning the lessons
        of Brahman; as he advances on the path towards
        Perfection, and each soul gathers as rich a harvest
        as he can; before exhausting the causes set in motion
        through the external stimuli from powers that be
        in his surroundings in the various planes in the
        three worlds thus described.

            The causal or the seed-body of the human soul,
        the innermost vest, has yet two more very subtle and
        sublime linings underneath respectively called the
        buddhic (the vigyanic) and nirvanic (the anandic or
        blissful). It is only a brave soul, very brave indeed,
        like that of prince Sidharatha, who may enter into
        Buddha-hood and become Buddha, the Enlightened
        one and enjoy the bliss of the Creator of the three
        universes; and comes to the earth-plane to give the
        Law - the Law of Dhamma or Dharma unto the world
        with emphasis on desirelessness so as to free the
        mind of all attachments and then to tread the
        eight-fold path of righteousness leading to Perfection.
        Again, it may be a Jain Tirthankara, the Mahavira,
        the bravest of the brave, who could dare approach
        the divine throne of Brahman and give out to the
        world the Law of Universal Love and Ahimsa, love
        for all creatures from the tiniest insect, helplessly
        crawling in the dust and the water and air spirits
        floating in countless numbers, in their respective
        spheres, invisible to the naked eye.

            In the Buddhic plane, one develops the intellectual
        side of divinity in him and begins to see and realise
        the self-same Self in him, as in all around him, and
        he is as much in that Self as others are. Thus he
        comes to the great fundamental unity of existence,
        the 'Sutra Atma,' carrying everything from an ant to
        the elephant as so many beads on the string of a
        rosary; in spite of the differences in shape, size
        and colour, both within and without, due to climatic
        conditions, and mental make-up and inner development
        and growth. Now the human monad, the outbreathed life
        of Brahman, dwells in the inbreathed life of Brahman,
        with divine powers and attributes, and aspires for
        the bliss-aspect of the divinity in him - the Atmic
        or the Nirvanic consciousness of Sat-Chit-Anand -
        the heart and soul of the universe, which now becomes
        his, and he is one with It.

            It is indeed a long and weary process to understand
        correctly the Brahm Vidya and then to successfully
        practise it, and to traverse the Brahmand from end to
        end, stage by stage, from the physical world of coarse
        matter to Brahm Lok proper, the region where maha-maya
        in its finest and most subtle form reigns. The Brahmand
        is the manifestation of the Power of God, lodged in Om,
        the most sacred syllable in the Vedic lore; hence It
        is the akar or form of Om (Om-kar). It is the Logos of
        the Greeks and Ek-Onkar of the various scriptures.

            This is the ultimate end of human attainment,
        says Vedanta - the highest teachings as given by the
        later Vedic teachers and scholars (the Rishis of old),
        as a result of their intense meditative experiences in
        the snow-capped mountain fastnesses or in the thick
        forest dwellings. Brahman is the very life of the
        universe, comprising, as it does, the three worlds
        described above with all that exists in each - the
        Triloki Nath, the lord of the three-fold panoramic
        life in its fullness. Their words of wisdom, we find
        in aphoristic form, as gems of 'purest ray serene,'
        in their valuable treatises known as Upnishads which
        are rightly considered as Vedantas or the final rungs
        or parts of Veda, the efflorescence of divine wisdom;
        which ends with the Maha Vakya (the great Truth):
        'that thou art' meaning that man is Brahman in his
        real nature and essence and when one realises this
        fundamental truth, he involuntarily proclaims
        "aham Brahm asmi" or 'I am Brahman' or 'I and my
        Father are one,' or 'I speak nothing on my own but
        as my Father bids me do.' The greatest lesson that one
        derives from Vedanta is - we are all one; one in our
        origin, one in our make-up, both inner and outer
        formation, one in our potentialities and powers,
        however latent and involved they may be, but equally
        capable of developing the same, may be sooner or
        later, but the process of development or unfoldment
        of the self is essentially the same for all; and then
        the goal too is one for all mankind, for all of us are
        worshippers of Brahman. In this way, the out-breathed
        life constituting as it does, the individual mind
        merges in the in-breathed life of the universal mind
        or Mahat, 'the great mind of the cosmos'- the third
        Logos or Divine Creative Intelligence, the Brahma of the
        Hindus, the Mandjusri of the Buddhists, the holy
        Spirit of the Christians, and Allah-hu of the mystics
        and Sufi darveshes.

            Here in Brahm Lok souls live for long, and
        in close proximity to Brahman, imbibing the love,
        the intelligence and the bliss of that Being or Power
        and again so long indeed is the stay, that one is
        prone to believe and call it a veritable salvation,
        'the flame merging in the flame (of Brahman).' But the
        stay there, however long it may be, is not eternal
        and it lasts only till the Brahmand itself dissolves,
        and the universal mind rolls up its life, absorbing all
        the souls in its fold wherever they may be. This
        drama of infolding and unfolding of life called
        Brahmand is repeated again and again ; and the
        grand play continually goes on in and through eternity.
        The divine philosophy deals with it so beautifully:

            How charming is divine philosophy,
            Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose
            But musical as is Appolo's lute,
            And a perpetual feast of nectared sweet.

            It is from Brahman that there spring the three
        great powers (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), creating,
        sustaining and dissolving all that is of the
        matter or maya in one form or the other. These
        three offsprings or powers come into being by His
        Shakti or Maha-maya called the Mother of Universe,
        not in the sense of sex as we ordinarily know it to
        be, but once again we have to take the simile of the
        spiders' light filmy substance that comes out not from
        without but from within the spider's body or the
        cocoon or a silky case as is spun by a larva from
        fine threads of its own making to protect itself as a
        chrysalis especially as a silkworm; wherewith we in
        course of time prepare all sorts of silken garments of
        so many designs and colours to cover our nakedness
        and take delight to stunt in borrowed clothings.

            Nanak, speaking of the working of God's creation,
        also refers to the triple principle concerned with
        creating, sustaining and destroying it - all working
        according to the Will of the Supreme Being, as
        Viceregents, only exercising delegated authority; and
        strange as it may seem, it is not given to them to
        know Him, since they are but the part of the objective
        creation and He, the Supreme Being, is subjective and
        formless:

            The great Mother, conceiving, brought forth
              three regents;
            The first creating, the second sustaining, and the
              last destroying.
            What He desires, they perform,
            They work under His Will.
            But great the wonder, though He watches over
              them, they behold Him not.
            Hail, hail to him alone,
            The Primal, Pure, Eternal, Immortal, and
              Immutable in all ages!

            As to the vast and stupendous work connected
        with the running of the three worlds in the creation,
        including all sorts of hells and heavens in them,
        Vishnu, the second counterpart of Brahma, in the
        great triumvirate or trimurti, wields the power of
        administration. Once questioned as to how he (Vishnu)
        could manage such a big show and make elaborate
        arrangements for the innumerable souls entrusted
        to his care for providing all sorts of comforts
        and woes in the supernal and nether worlds in his
        domain, he just smiled and said: "Oh! I have nothing
        to do at all, for whosoever comes into any of my
        worlds, he brings with him his own load of pains and
        pleasures, thereby creating his own hell or heaven
        both on the earth-plane and thereafter. Whatsoever
        each one needs in any of my realms, he arranges the
        same for himself and I simply look on unconcerned
        at the human drama, tragic or comic or tragi-comic
        as the case may be, unfolding the infold in himself."
        Thus runs the divine machinery automatically, all on
        its own and by itself but all under His Will.

            Brahman is a great power, too great for the
        human mind to conceive, and of the Beyond, none
        but the Saints know of and can speak with authority -
        not the formally canonized saints as we know of but
        Saints of the status of Sant-Satguru, authorised and
        commissioned by Truth - the Truth that was in the
        beginning, the Truth that now is, and the Truth that
        shall remain hereafter - to teach mankind and initiate
        such aspiring souls into the mysteries of the Beyond
        and beyond the Beyond state; as may be ripe for the
        purpose of understanding correctly and properly the
        Causeless Cause of all the causes that operate down
        below, in each of the worlds; and are ready to
        live the life of the spirit as jivan mukats or
        liberated beings while yet in flesh: "A jivan mukat,"
        says Nanak, "is one who knows and practises the art of
        'death-in-life' and when he finally quits the stage, he
        quits it for good, never to return again." This is what
        Pra Vidya or the knowledge of the Beyond teaches.

            Apart from this, there are many categories of
        teachers of Brahma Vidya which is 'Apra' in
        character and paves the way for the 'Pra,' and all
        of them teach people in the ways of Brahman, each
        according to his own capabilities. The Prophets
        and the Messiahs generally prophesy the coming of
        great events, train mankind to live a godly life and
        bring to them the tidings and messages of God
        (Brahman). The Avtaras are incarnations of the
        various powers of Brahman and their function is to
        keep the world agoing in a balanced and orderly
        manner, holding the balance of the social order
        aright between righteousness and unrighteousness.
        The yogis and yogishwars remain within the sphere
        of their yog-maya (mind-force) and lead their
        initiates up to the highest point within their yogic
        powers.

            The Brahm Lok has many sub-loks called Puris,
        Bhavans, Tabaqs or Divisions, each allotted to one or
        other of the powers of Brahman like Brahma Puri,
        Vishnu Puri, Shiv Puri, Indra Puri, etc., to each of
        which the souls of the worshippers of these powers
        collectively called Brahman are irresistibly attracted
        and drawn in course of time, each to his own destination
        in the place to which he belongs.

            The ancient Greeks speak of this three-fold aspect
        of Divinity as the 'Three Sisters of the Spinning
        Wheel' - one engaged in spinning the thread of life
        for each, the other in adorning and embellishing the
        thread of life and the third in cutting the said thread
        of life when the allotted time comes to an end.
        Similarly, in the Christian theology we have first Logos,
        the creative principle in nature, the second Logos
        and the third Logos, who carry on similar duties of
        their own. This is the famous Doctrine of Trinity
        the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

            Where all the philosophies of the world end,
        there the true religion begins. It is only after soul,
        the 'dweller in the body,' sheds its dross personality
        comprising as it does, the three vestures or vehicles
        of body, mind and intellect, and becomes an entity
        in its pristine simplicity, an undivided whole, the
        great immortal tree, evergreen and ever fresh in its
        native essence, in spite of the ever-changing panorama
        of life around; it can break through the magic hall of
        multi-coloured mirrors and transcend the trigunatmac
        egg of Brahmand and escape into the Beyond. One has to
        be born anew like a new-born phoenix, arising out of
        the ashes of its own previous self with renewed youth
        and vigour, so as to be able to live through the life
        of the spirit that lies ahead.

            To cross the mental world is not so easy as it
        may seem to the untrained in the mysteries of the
        Beyond. It is the most delusive world where even the
        Mahatmas and the Rishis with all their learning
        and tapas, fall to hold on to their own ground. What
        is there in that vast universe which Brahman would
        not like to offer to those earnest souls who try to
        escape through his domains and reach the true Home
        of their Father! At every step, be it in the physical
        world, the astral or the mental, he tries to block the
        way of the aspiring souls. The great Prophets and
        Messiahs and all others have given their experiences
        of the fierce encounters that they had with Satan,
        Mara, Ahirman; the evil spirits, - Asuras, Demons
        and their agents in countless ways, fair or foul,
        whereby they try to obstruct the way, to win over
        the seekers after Truth by assurances of worldly
        kingdoms and principalities; and if they do not succumb
        to these temptations, then by threats of violence by
        fire, thunder, earthqakes, heaven-splittings, cloud-
        bursts, lightenings and what have you. It is in
        predicaments like these that one can only stand these
        trials and tribulations when one has by his side, his
        Guru or Murshid, for the Guru-power then draws and
        absorbs the disciple soul into Himself and takes him
        along the path of 'Ringing Radiance.' For each soul the
        Brahman stakes his all, and does not yield, unless he
        is convinced that the seeker clings to the protection
        of the Master-power (Akal or the Timeless). Do we
        not see even in the material world that the rulers
        and governments of one state seal their borders to
        prevent unauthorised emigration of their subjects, and
        devise laws to control such outflow ?

            Great indeed is the power of Time and none can
              conquer it,
            And yet Time itself is in mortal dread of the
              Timeless Music,
            Lest He himself may get lost in the Divine
              Harmony.

            We had exegesis of Dharam Khand by Nanak elsewhere
        in these pages. After that the great teacher goes
        on to describe the journey of the pilgrim-soul through
        various regions culminating in Sach Khand. The next
        two regions, he respectively calls Gyan Khand
        (the realm of knowledge) and Saram Khand (the
        realm of ecstasy). In the former, the soul's horizon
        expands immeasurably for It comprehends at once
        the manifold nature of all created things with infinity
        of forms and phenomena and understands the immutable
        laws of the workings of nature. In the latter, the soul
        becoming attracted by the Power of the Word, gets a
        taste of, and insight into the real nature of things.

            Next comes Karm Khand or the realm of grace.
        With the purification wrought by the Holy Word,
        soul is freed once and for all times of even the
        faintest, vague and indefinite traces of the dross in
        the form of vasnas, and matter no longer blinds the
        vision, and one becomes fully conscious of Him,
        coming as he does, face to face with the pure
        Essence of the Word, the Light of Life, giving birth
        to Brahmand and all the worlds included therein.

            Finally, the soul reaching Sach Khand - the
        abode of Truth, realises in fullness, complete oneness
        and harmony according to His Will - 'All hearts filled
        with God, they live Beyond the reach of death and
        of delusion ... All destined to move according to His
        Will ... Such is the beauty that to describe it is to
        attempt the impossible.' This arising of the soul
        into Super-conscious awareness is termed as said
        before, life everlasting from which there is no
        return.

            What Nanak has described above, falls within
        the realm of Vijnana (subjective inner experience,
        direct and immediate), as distinct from jnana or
        theoretical knowledge which the Master expounds
        and imparts to the disciple through a correct
        rendering of the scriptures. A Perfect Master is all
        the scriptures combined and something more. The
        scriptures after all are the records of the
        experiences of holy men who appeared from time to
        time to teach mankind in the ways of God. We can,
        no doubt, read the scriptures if we are proficient
        enough in the ancient and archaic original languages
        in which they are written; but cannot get at their
        true import nor can we reasonably reconcile the
        apparent differences and explain the discrepancies
        in the scriptural texts of various religions. He
        who has an access to the inner fountainhead of the
        life and spirit of all these texts, which of course
        is common to all men, with his first-hand inner
        knowledge, makes things easily intelligible to us all
        in a way simple enough both for himself and for us.

            In the company of a Saint, it is said, God comes
        nearer to man, for God Himself speaks through him.
        As we all are scripture-bound in one way or the
        other, the Master takes full advantage of these
        different scriptures which come in handy to him as
        aids in his work of spiritual regeneration to lead
        different types of people aright along the line of
        least resistance in each case.

            A Murshid-e-Kamil is not content with imparting
        mere theoretical knowledge. He gives a practical
        demonstration of what he says and therein lies his
        greatness. One who cannot grant on soul-level
        some actual experience of what he asserts on the
        level of the intellect, is not a Master in the true
        sense of the word and his words cannot carry weight
        and conviction.

            A Satguru is verily Truth personified, God in
        the garb of man. His mission is to lead human souls
        to the True Home of His Father (Sat or Truth) called
        Sach Khand or the abode of Truth, the first Grand
        Division that came into being by His Will and hence
        the region of pure Spirit, eternal and indestructible.

            The Path of the Masters is a grand road leading
        from merely physical material world to the purely
        spiritual realm, beyond all duality and pairings of
        opposites. The Satguru says:

            Move ye in the vast sea of Light substance,
            In your hearts is your perfection.
            Go on, and on and on, until there is not a
              vestige of the human left.
            The Light substance knows no limit.

            His is the path not of hells and heavens, nor of
        toils and sorrows, but one of flowery boulevard
        'studded with heavenly lights and soul-stirring strains
        of Divine Harmonies;' and above all, He himself as an
        unfailing friend and an unerring guide comes, in all
        his glory in full radiance, and accompanies the
        pilgrim-soul into the great Beyond, instructing in
        the life of spirit, as he proceeds along, explaining the
        beauties and mysteries of the way, guarding against
        pitfalls and warning us of the sharp turns and twists
        that lie en route.

            The disciple, from the very beginning is taught
        how to withdraw from the body and rise above
        body-consciousness into higher regions. The inner
        man is to draw himself from his coarse bodily
        encasement, as a hair is drawn out of butter; for
        it is the soul in the 'luciform body' to use the
        Neo-Platonist phraseology, that rises to find the Self.
        Mandukopnishad tells us:

            Not grasped by the eye, nor by speech, nor by
              the gods (senses), nor by austerity, nor by
              religious rites and rituals and ceremonies,
              but by serene wisdom, the pure essence doth see
              the Partless One in meditation.

        So do the western scholars say:

            True happiness never comes through the avenue
              of senses as it lies beyond the senses.
              Boundless joy can be ours, only if we know how
              to rise above the senses and catch the sublime
              vision which comes to the pure.

            'The divine wisdom, in short, is at once the
        Science and Art of soul and only a Theocentric Saint,
        well-versed in both, can solve for us the riddle of life
        and death by giving us a first-hand experience of
        'death-in-life', thereby demonstrating beyond the
        least shadow of doubt:

            Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible
              sun within us.

            What has life and death to do with Light? In
              the image of My Light, I have made you.
              The relativities of life and death belong to
              the cosmic dream. Behold your dreamless
              being.

            Creation is light and shadow both, else no
              picture is possible.

            The darkness grows luminous and the void becomes
              fruitful only when you will understand
              that you are nothing. It is only at the Mount
              of Transfiguration that you will get revelation
              and see the mingling of heaven and earth.

            To worship Perfection is the highest education in
        life, and only a Perfect one can, by transmitting his
        own life-impulse, release the soul from its trammels
        of mind and matter and grant a vision of the sublime
        Reality. He who can, at the very first sitting, open
        the inner eye more or less to a glimpse of heaven's
        Holy Light and unstop the inner ear to the Music of
        the Spheres, alone is entitled to be called a Perfect
        Saint and a True Guru. It is of such a one that
        Shankara says:

            No known comparison exists in the three worlds
              for a true Guru. If the philosopher's stone is
              assumed to be truly such, it can only turn iron
              into gold and not into another philosopher's
              stone. The venerated Teacher, on the other
              hand, creates equality with Himself in the
              disciple who takes refuge at His feet. The
              Guru is therefore peerless, nay transcendental.

            Guru Arjun speaking of his Master, Guru Ram
        Das, says: "I have searched the entire Brahmand but
        have not found one who may come up to my Master."
        And finally he said: "Hari (God), it seems to me,
        has taken for Himself the appellation of Ram Das."

            In the workaday world, we are all very busy,
        very busy indeed, too busy to think of God, much
        less to practise the presence of living God and still
        less to live in His holy presence. If, at all, at odd
        moments we speak and talk of Him, worship Him,
        and offer our prayers to Him, we do so not to win
        Him for His own sake or to reach unto Him for our
        own sake but just to seek favours from Him and to
        get an easy and quick riddance from our difficulties
        and to escape from trials and tribulations.

            Again, if we at times, feel serious about God, we
        try to find Him in the earthly surroundings about us,
        the snow-covered mountain caves, the burning desert
        sands, the depths of sacred pools and rivers,
        worshipping Him in the elemental powers of nature like
        the rising sun, the vacuous expanse above, the
        thundrous clouds, the Lucifer and the Vesper, and worse
        still, in the hollows of trees, in the fish of the sea
        and the fowls of the air; and no wonder that with
        all our efforts we do not find Him.

            God Himself has declared: I am so big that
        the entire world cannot hold Me, nor the heavens
        can provide an adequate support to Me, nor the
        earth can provide Me a seat; but strange as it may
        seem to you, I reside in the heart of Holy Men. If
        you desire to see Me, seek Me there and you shall
        find Me. Kabir also tells us:

            How can you find the Reality, where It is
              not,
            Seek thou the Real, where Reality dwells,
            Take hold of him who knows the Real,
            He shall hie thee to Him in no time.

            This then is the way to self-illumination. The
        process though seemingly complicated and lengthy
        is simplified by the grace of a Perfect Master (Sant
        Satguru). He provides the magic wand, the 'Open
        Sesame, that does the trick and enables one to get
        access to what is inaccessible:

            He who goes beyond the Sat Lok,
            He knows the Incomprehensible and the
              Inexpressible.
            It is in the Nameless that the Saints live,
            The slave Nanak finds peace in Him.

            Thus we see that if one could learn to die while
        living, a voluntary death at will, one gains life ever-
        lasting, free from the endless cycle of births and
        deaths and rebirths. Saints, therefore, sing praises
        beyond measure of such a death and teach us how to
        transcend the various planes, and to traverse into the
        Beyond and gain the Kingdom of God which is our
        birthright now lost to us. It is within our reach if
        we but listen to them, accept their teachings and
        follow them diligently and with willing obedience.

            After death, each one of us has to go blindly in
        a state of utter destitution and helplessness. The
        scriptures, all the world over, place a high premium
        on crossing the borderland between life and death
        on this side of the world and then death and life on
        the other side:

            Where thou hast to go after death,
            Why not gain a foothold while alive?
                                            - Sri Rag M.I

            O Nanak! learn to die while there is yet
              time,
            For verily this indeed is a real yoga.
                                            - Suhi M.I

            Die thou and remain dead to the world,
            A death like this I experience many times a day.
                                            - Kabir

            With the grace of the Master, one may ride
              over the mind;
            By vanquishing the mind, you meet the Lord for
              certain.
                                            - Kabir

            Be ye dead while ye live and be fearlessly
              free,
            With a competent Master by thy side, there will
              be nothing to rue.
                                            - Kabir

            You will get rich dividends should you know-
            How to die before death overtakes you.
                                            - Bulleh Shah

            Shabd or the eternal Life Current is the only help
        on this path:

            In Shabd we die (get absorbed), in Shabd we
              live eternally with no fear of death,
            This is the true Water of Life that a rare soul may
              get with His grace.
                                            - Sorath M. 3

            What does the Master give? He makes manifest the
        eternal Sound Current which is the life of the
        universe and in which we all live. By riding on
        this Audible Life Stream we, while living, can at will
        transcend the various planes of existence; and come
        back into the physical when we so desire:

            Without the aid of Shabd thou cannot get out
              of the clayey mould. There is no other way
              besides.                      - Soami ji

            Salvation or life-everlasting cannot be earned
        by deeds howsoever righteous or commendable in
        themselves they may be or in the eyes of the
        world. It is purely a gift of grace from a God-man
        with the Power of God working in him to the full.
        "For by grace ye are saved ... and not by yourselves;
        It is a gift of God; Not of works, lest any man
        should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9). "Not by works
        of righteousness which we have done, but according
        to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of
        regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost."
        (Titus 3:5). "Neither is there salvation in any
        other: for there is none other Name, under heaven
        given among men, whereby we must be saved."
        (Acts 4:12). "And the grace of God that bringeth
        salvation hath appeared to all men," (Titus 2:11)
        and His grace shall continue to appear hereafter so
        long as God exists and His creation continues to
        people the earth.

            This then is the way to eternal life, by living in
        the life-principle itself, ever in Communion with the
        Holy Word, the Will of God (Hukam); and there is
        no way other than this, try howsoever hard one may.
        But the revelation of the God-way in the living life-
        lines within (the Holy Light and the Voice of God)
        solely depends upon the grace of some God-man, a
        Word-personified Saint, 'unto whom all things have
        been delivered by the Father,' and of whom it is
        said, "No one knoweth the Son, save the Father,
        neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and
        he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him."
        (Matt. 11:27).

            Time and again great souls come into the world
        to remind us of our true Home. They tell us with
        clarion call that this world is not our natural habitat.
        We are here just for a brief span as travellers in a
        caravanserai and must therefore prepare to quit, and
        sooner we do it, the better it would be. We must,
        therefore, work for the kingdom of heaven and gain
        life-eternal. 'May Thy Kingdom come on earth as it
        is in heaven.' And of this kingdom, it is said: 'The
        Kingdom of God does not come by observation. The
        Kingdom of God is within, and verily this body
        is the temple of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost
        dwells in it.' This is why all the sages and the seers
        exhort us:

            The place which thou hast to quit in the end
              has gripped thee most,
            Little doth thou know of the place where thou
              hath to dwell for good.
                                            - Nanak

            Arsh (Heaven) is thy true abode, my soul,
            Fie on thee, thou art entangled in clayey
              mould.
                                            - Shamas Tabrez

            Thou my Lord dwelleth in Thy native land,
            While I am here grovelling in dust.
                                            - Nanak

            Your place is where earth is not,
            Why doth thou cling to the earth?
                                            - Soami Ji

            Human life is just as a vapour,
            Why not live in Communion with the Eternal
              Word?
                                            - Kabir

            Those who have Communed with the Word,
              their toils shall end,
            And their faces shall flame with glory,
            Not only shall they have salvation,
            O Nanak! but many more shall find freedom
              with them.
                                            - Nanak


   	                   [End of Part 6 of 6]

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