Introduction

One of the questions that usually pops in our mind is concerning death. Recently thanks to many improvements done by science we are actually witnessing something new that has never happened in the whole history: we are able to monitor what happens to a body that is dying.

Many people suggest they had a so-called “NDE”; Near-Death Experience.

What does it mean?

The NDEs

There is verifiable evidence of people during brain surgeries being closely monitored and having no electrical or chemical activity in the brain and still regaining consciousness and telling tales of ‘being’ there all along, from popping out of their bodies and witnessing what the surgeons were doing and talking about it, to being led by other beings into heavenly realms where they were privy to knowledge and understanding that wasn’t accessible in our world. These facts can be scientifically verified as not being able to be produced by a dying brain alone, many times even the heart stopped pumping blood as well.

I have found some answers from the book “Be As You Are” by David Godman. This book is a compilation of Talks made by Ramana Maharshi and luckily we found answers concerning death asked by some devotees.

One of the answers give an interesting insight into the world after death and how the mind is actually tricking everyone into believing that the indivual soul exists:

“But it must be distinctly understood that it is no soul which comes and goes, but only the thinking mind of the individual, which makes it appear to do so.”

Ref: Q&A Below

And proceed to give us a very precise explanation of what happens after the biological death:

“After the death of the physical body, the mind remains inactive for some time, as in dreamless sleep when it remains worldless and therefore bodiless. But soon it becomes active again in a new world and a new body - the astral - till it assumes another body in what is called a `rebirth’.”

Ref: Q&A Below

“When one begins to die, hard breathing sets in; that means that one has become unconscious of the dying body. The mind at once takes hold of another body, and it swings to and fro between the two, until attachment is fully transferred to the new body. Meanwhile there are occasional violent breaths, and that means that the mind swings back to the dying body. The transitional state of the mind is somewhat like a dream.”

Ref: Q&A Below

So it seems like the mind is somewhat surviving the death as well.

This answers the famous question concerning NDEs and how people indeed experince something while dying that feels like a dream but more vivid.

According to Ramana Maharshi the mind is waiting to acquire a new body.

Here the final question pops-up: Do we retain individuality?

“But when the waters evaporate and return as rain on the hills, they once more flow in the form of rivers and fall into the ocean. So also the individualities during sleep lose their separateness and yet return as individuals according to their samskaras or past tendencies. It is the same after death - the individuality of the person with samskaras is not lost.”

Ref: Q&A Below

Q&A:

Q: Theosophy speaks of fifty to 10,000 year intervals between death and rebirth. Why is this so?

A: There is no relation between the standard of measurements of one state of consciousness and another. All such measurements are hypothetical. It is true that some individuals take more time and some less.

But it must be distinctly understood that it is no soul which comes and goes, but only the thinking mind of the individual, which makes it appear to do so.

On whatever plane the mind happens to act, it creates a body for itself; in the physical world a physical body and in the dream world a dream body which becomes wet with dream rain and sick with dream disease. After the death of the physical body, the mind remains inactive for some time, as in dreamless sleep when it remains worldless and therefore bodiless.

But soon it becomes active again in a new world and a new body - the astral - till it assumes another body in what is called a `rebirth’.

But the jnani, the Self-realized man, whose mind has already ceased to act, remains unaffected by death. The mind of the jnani has ceased to exist; it has dropped never to rise again to cause births and deaths. The chain of illusions has snapped for ever for him.

It should now be clear that there is neither real birth, nor real death. It is the mind which creates and maintains the illusion of reality in this process, till it is destroyed by Self-realization.

Q: Does not death dissolve the individuality of a person, so that there can be no rebirth, just as the rivers discharged into the ocean lose their individualities?

A: But when the waters evaporate and return as rain on the hills, they once more flow in the form of rivers and fall into the ocean. So also the individualities during sleep lose their separateness and yet return as individuals according to their samskaras or past tendencies.

It is the same after death - the individuality of the person with samskaras is not lost.

Q: How can that be?

A: See how a tree whose branches have been cut grows again. So long as the roots of the tree remain unimpaired, the tree will continue to grow. Similarly, the samskaras which have merely sunk in the Heart on death, but have not perished for that reason, occasion rebirth at the right time. That is how jivas [individuals] are reborn

Q: How could the innumerable jivas and the wide universe which they produce sprout up from such subtle samskaras sunk in the Heart?

A: Just as the big banyan tree sprouts from a tiny seed, so do the jivas and the whole universe with name and form sprout up from the subtle samskaras

Q: How does the jiva transfer from one body to another?

A: When one begins to die, hard breathing sets in; that means that one has become unconscious of the dying body. The mind at once takes hold of another body, and it swings to and fro between the two, until attachment is fully transferred to the new body.

Meanwhile there are occasional violent breaths, and that means that the mind swings back to the dying body. The transitional state of the mind is somewhat like a dream.

Q: How long is the interval between one’s death and reincarnation?

A: It may be long or short.

But a jnani does not undergo any such changes; he merges into the universal being Some say that those who after death pass into the path of light are not reborn, whereas those who after death take the path of darkness are reborn after they have enjoyed the fruits of karma in their subtle bodies.

Some say that if one’s merits and demerits are equal, they are directly reborn here.

Merits outweighing demerits, the subtle bodies go to heaven and are then reborn here; demerits outweighing merits, they go to hells and are afterwards reborn here.

A Yogabrashta [one who has slipped from the path of yoga] is said to fare in the same manner. All these are described in the sastras.

But in fact, there is neither birth nor death. One remains only as what one really is. This is the only truth.

Q: I find this very confusing. Are both births and rebirths ultimately unreal?

A: If there is birth there must be not only one rebirth but a whole succession of births.

Why and how did you get this birth? For the same reason and in the same manner you must have succeeding births.

But if you ask who has the birth and whether birth and death are for you or for somebody distinct from you, then you realize the truth and the truth burns up all karmas and frees you from all births.

The books graphically describe how all sanchita karma [karma accumulated from previous births], which would take countless lives to exhaust, is burnt up by one little spark of jnana, just as a mountain of gunpowder will be blown up by a single spark of fire.

It is the ego that is the cause of all the world and of the countless sciences whose researches are so great as to baffle description, and if the ego is dissolved by enquiry all this immediately crumbles and the reality or Self alone remains.

Q: Do you mean to say that I was never even born?

A: Yes, you are now thinking that you are the body and therefore confuse yourself with its birth and death.

But you are not the bodyand you have no birth and death.

Q: So you do not uphold the theory of rebirth?

A: No. On the other hand I want to remove your confusion that you will be reborn.

It is you who think that you will be reborn.

See for whom the question arises.

Unless the questioner is found, such questions can never finally be answered.