[Advaita-l] Dying to live Peacefully-2

[sreenivasa murthy]

Dear Sri Sadanandaji, What a paradox it is to talk of living and dying in Advaitin group instead of realizing the truth that one's true svarupa is ajaH (unborn) and amaraH (undying)!
With namaskars,Sreenivasa Murthy

 

    On Tuesday 26 December 2017, 9:51:00 AM IST, kuntimaddi sadananda via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:  
 
 
Dying to Live Peacefully -II

 

JK says: Death is going to strip you of everything - your family, your sons, your character, your ambitions.

So why not strip yourself of all that now? When you do it, then you will know what death is”.

Fundamental question then is how to strip yourself of everything while living? 

Continuing the discussion: 

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JK, in essence, has a point in terms of how to die every minute - die to the past. The best exercise as a part of meditation that I suggest, that I myself do is, to mentally withdraw yourself from the body and feel your own death and see the consequence of what dying involves. I am not talking about the physical pains etc. but mental withdrawal to everything that we think as ours starting our own body as it does not really belong to us, as we have to leave body right where it is. It is an instrument given to us for our transactions in this world. After its purpose is over we have to leave it here and go. JK puts it, strip yourself of everything; name, fame, all relationships, all wealth, all poverty, all possessions, obligations, relationships and all transactions. Swami Paramarthanandaji calls it with acronym, PORT (possessions, obligations, relationships and transactions) that one has to give up slowly or at least mentally). When we strip ourselves from all belongings we recognize that nothing really belongs to us. The ownership that involves ‘this is mine’ or mamakaara is based on false understanding. Nothing really belongs to us, that includes anything and everything that can be put under the category of ‘this’, or that can be objectified.  We came into this world with nothing and we are going to leave taking nothing with us. Any objectifiable entity that comes under the category of ‘this’ is not us nor it belongs to us. Vedanta puts simply – you are not ‘this’ (ahankaara) and any ‘this’ does not belong to you (mamakaara). You have to leave all that which can be put under the category of ‘this’, i.e., any objectifiable entity since you are not an object but the only subject in the universe, as for as you are concerned.  This is true from everyone’s reference.  

 

Stripping oneself from all these mentally is mental sanyaasa.  One can do that as mental exercise, and slowly do it even at transactional level to the degree that the mind can get detached from the PORT. Leaving means withdrawal of the ownership (which is actually notional) as you can see how your parents/grandparents/great grandparents left everything including their own body when they died, without taking anything with them.  They left it, whether they liked it or not, because whatever they left really did not belong to them. Similarly nothing in this world belongs to us. Vedanta says all that you can take with you is your dharma, locked in your mind as your vaasanaas. If death involves leaving everything, then why not leave all that ‘now’ voluntarily, and experience the beauty of death. You will find that the mind becomes fresh and free from the dead past and the unknown future. This mental exercise itself will help detach oneself from the final death, since you are dying every day, nay, every second; yet alive to experience the present, nay your own real presence stripped out of everything. You can see yourself that you do not die, yet you are only dying to all that you claimed that it is yours. You are Free; unlike in the deep-sleep state, you are conscious of yourself free as there is nothing to bind you. ‘Now’ transcends the time since it is a thin line where the past meets the future. It can be second, microsecond, peco second …. ; at last no time left and what is left is only you who is conscious of the disappearing present.  You alone are real since everything is stripped out. That is the essence of Vedantic teaching, tat tvam asi, you are that. The rest are details. 

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To be continued

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