BIRTH AND DEATH ACCORDING TO SHRUTI
This is the problem confronting man from the moment he takes birth. And
from the beginning of time man has been thinking of this problem. Man alone
among all created beings can think. Manava is one endowed with ‘manas’
(mind). And mind can only think. Man has thought, explored and solved many
riddles. But all this is not of so much importance as this riddle of life
and death is. The Upanishads again and again face this question. The whole
of Kathopanishad is concerned with this question. Nachiketa confronted the
deity of death himself with this question which is a matter of life and
death. He wanted to hear from the very horse’s mouth. As if this is not
enough Sanatsujaateeya in the Mahabharata dealt with this in great detail.
In the Chāndogya and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka death is discussed elaborately. For
that matter, the Bhagavad-Gita is taught to man (Nara) with the main
objective of resolving this riddle.
Whatever the discussions, it continues to vex man. We see men dying
and taking birth. But we do not see what happen after man dies. Ninety per
cent of the philosophical doctrines have not been able to give a
satisfactory explanation of this postmortem phenomenon. Only Advaita boldly
confronted this question and found the answer to it. Advaitins alone have
been successful in giving a satisfactory answer to this question. What is
the answer? While birth, death, worlds beyond and rebirth are all real from
one point of view, these are not in fact real from the advaita,
non-dualism. If you view things with difference as atma and anatma, these
are real. What is anatma? Whatever is the object of your knowledge is
anatma. And atma is what knows, the subject. What you call a creation, the
creatures, and the creator are all objects of your knowledge. They are not
the subject, not the atma which is knowledge itself.
As long as you perceive the difference between atma (self) and anatma
(non-self), you and your problems of life, death and rebirth are real. Your
very questions about life and death presuppose that you think they are
different from you. And because you think, they seem to be different from
you. For, the very nature of mind is to create difference (dvaitam manas
sarvam). And when it perceives difference it is restless in trying to
resolve the differences. And the mind is not one. There are as many minds
as there are men. And each mind finds answers in its own way. Great minds
do not think alike. ('mahaa muneenanaam matayascha bhinnah). Also, the same
mind, does not think tomorrow what it thinks today. The mind’s reach is
also limited and is not perfect. So, some say there is nothing beyond
death. Some say there are worlds beyond this to which the creatures go
after their death from where they return, are reborn. Some say there are
other worlds, but deny rebirth. Some say men are reborn as better beings,
while some say that they may, depending on the merits or demerits of their
deeds take worse, meaner births. Thus there are differing accounts of death
and rebirth. The mythological works (puranas) give very detailed
descriptions of heaven and hell, the paths bright and dark, the experiences
in those various worlds, and finally what births they will have to take
returning to this world of Karma. All these details of experiences and
their solutions are only in the dualist perception.If we take them to be
real, all the rituals prescribed from birth to death and are indispensable.
The body will fall but the soul will not. One leaves the body and begins
his journey to whatever world he is destined, determined by his deeds, to
go. And before he takes another body all the rituals prescribed for him
will have to be performed by us. The result of that performance will reach
the departed soul. All this becomes inevitable. {DEIVATHIN KURAL ALSO
SPEAKS ELABORATELY ABOUT THIS] However if you can perceive from the
non-dualist position, all this that has been said ceases to be real. You
realise all this is unreal, because in the non-dualist perception
everything is but the self, atma. There is no world that is non-self. All
is self. I am all. There is no world, this or beyond. There is no creatures
other than myself. And there is no Iswara, who overrules all this. All,
Jiva, jagat and Iswara, merge in the self. Where then are birth and death ?
They are forms of myself. Even if they are supposed to belong to me there
is no harm, for they are but stages of my self. stages will pass, but the
self does not undergo any change. You throw a stone in the still waters of
a tank. There is movement in the waters. After a little while the water
returns to its stillness. There is no harm to the waters. Ripples come and
go. The waters neither swell nor shrink.
Similarly, death and birth are stages and are not the essence of the
self. Jiva’s essence is consciousness. The essence does not come and go. It
is always there. It continues to flow from birth to death. There is no
change in it. My body moves, my senses move, thoughts come and disappear in
my mind. All these movements are ever being watched by the I-consciousness.
This I-consciousness is constant. It does not come and pass like the
changes it is watching. So, birth and death belong to the body, not to the
consciousness. Death should thus be seen as the death of the body, and not
of the consciousness. The unseen has to be understood in the light of the
seen. The coming and going of the body is what we see. And we also see how
the consciousness remains unaffected by what is happening to the body.
Birth and death are only changes. How can the witness of change change
itself ? How can there be death when there is no change. The truth is we
exist before death and continue to exist after death. That is what the Gita
is saying “Na asato vidyate bhavo na abhavo vidyate satah” What is not can
never appear, what is can never disappear. What may happen is that what has
been unmanifest, may manifest, and the manifest may recede into the
unmanifest. The sun now shines in the sky. In the evening we do not see it.
It is not the sun’s death. It is seen in other parts of the world. We
ourselves see the sun again the next morning. It is not reborn. The sunrise
is not birth and the sunset is not death. They should be called the
manifest and the unmanifest states of the same sun. In the beginning it was
unmanifest. And then it manifested itself. And again it recedes into the
unmanifest state. But in all the three stages it is. It is invisible in the
first and the third stages. It is visible and manifest in the middle. This
is what the Gita is saying ‘avyaktadini bhutani vyaktamadhyani bharata,
avyakta nidhananyeva...'
So, it is these manifest and the unmanifest that we call birth and
death. When a Jiva is born it does not mean that something that never
existed before has emerged anew. Also, when a person dies it does not mean
that he is totally lost. How can he appear when he never existed before? He
was certainly there but in a subtle form. Similarly, when he dies he does
not vanish into nothingness. He continues in the subtle form. It is really
the body that dies when the jiva leaves it, not the Jiva, says the
Upanishad.
* But even from the point of view of the Jiva, birth and death are
not in fact real.* Jiva is there while doing the deeds and he is there to
experience their fruits. He takes a body to do the deeds. And for doing
them he is in that body for a length of time. When his allotted fruits for
the life are exhausted, he departs for some other worlds and returns in
another body. So, the Jiva is there before taking a body and after leaving
it. Where then does he cease to be and where reemerge? So, birth and death
are not for the Jiva but for the body it gets in and leaves. However, as
the I-consciousness attaches itself to the body, when this gross body
falls, the Jiva continues to attach itself to the subtle body, that is mind
and prana. As this body is not visible like the gross and with flesh and
blood it is called the subtle body. This is where the Jiva can be caught
and so it is also called the linga sarira. When the gross body falls the
subtle emerges, and with it emerges the Jiva.
It is this that we call departure (utkramana). Mind shows the way and
prana walks the talk. It takes the Jiva to the destined worlds (‘karmana
pitru loka’) Those that perform mere deeds go through the dark path to the
world of manes. Those that worship the deities reach through the bright
path, the respective worlds of deities they had worshipped (vidyaya
devalokah). Those who had done neither of these two and had performed
prohibited deeds will go to various hells like rourava. In the worlds of
deities they have bodies of enjoyment, and in the hells bodies of torture.
Until they exhaust the fruits in those worlds there is an unseen link
between them and us who are living in this world of Karma. We are indebted
to them due to the blood we share with those in the same family line.
Because of hunger and thirst arising out of the link with our prana, we owe
it to them to offer them oblations of food and water. As they are devoid of
the gross body and are naked in the form of air. We imagine that they
require too the offering of cloth to cover them.
All this comes under dharma, one of the four purusharthas. Dharma
is what holds ('dhru', to hold). Karma,the fruits of Karma,and the
experiencing of the fruits cling to us. As long as these are there the
jivahood is inevitable. As long as there is the Jivahood, it cannot be said
that the Jiva has birth and death. If he dies, who is it that goes to the
other worlds and experiences pleasure and pain in those worlds ? And if he
dies, how can he be born again ? Some are born in the form of some
creatures and some in the form of lifeless things. So, as soon as the
fruits allotted for the life have been exhausted, the body must fall, but
the owner of the body does not die. The gross will go but the subtle
survives. The subtle will not go as long as there is the causal body
(karana sarira). This too should die.What is this causal body ? It is but
the nescience, the absence of awareness. What is awareness?It is to be
aware of the non-difference of the self into self and non-self. When this
awareness is lost, the difference arises, and with it the Jiva-hood and
birth and death.
Therefore, if this perception of difference is given up and the
non-differential perspective is practised, that is awareness. In the state
of nescience, Jiva, birth and death – all these are real. In awareness none
of these exist. They are real in the state of nescience because of the
attachment with the upadhis of mind and prana, the cause of birth and
death, although these are not true (paramarthika), they are real in the
realm of practical life (vyavaharika). And because of this attachment with
upadhis, the upadhis too seem to be of the self. And so are birth and death
deemed to be of the self. It is therefore said that ‘the bodiless is
deathless’ (‘asariram amritam’). When it is bodiless, there is no question
of death, and no departure of prana (na tasya prana utkaramanti). They
subside in consciousness as waves do in the ocean they arise in. We see
people die in different ways. But the journey after death is the same for
all, though in four different paths. What are those four paths ? Those that
have led very wicked lives go to hell. Those that hve performed prescribed
duties go to the world of manes (pitru loka). Those that have worshipped
different deities go to the worlds of those deities. The fourth class who
have worshipped Brahman with form (saguna brahman) go straight to satyaloka
And this last class of people do not take birth again. They join brahma,
the cereator, in the practice of the awareness of the formless and are
liberated. This is called gradual liberation (krama mukti). The rest are
bound to return to this world.
Apart from these four classes, there are another class of people,
the awakened (jnanis). They see nothing but their self everywhere, and in
everything. For them, Jiva, Jagat and Iswara are but the self. All is self,
nothing selfish. He is all, and nothing is his. Where then is the question
of death and birth ? It is only in movement these changes are possible. To
move is to leave one and catch another. When all is self, what to leave and
what to catch ? Every thing subsides in the self, like waves in the ocean.
It is for this reason it can be said that in the case of a jnani there is
no leaving the body. Self is being, and there can be no becoming in the
case of jnani.
But the jnani also is seen to die like any other person. How do
you explain this. This has to be understood with caution. It is true that
there is death but it is not the jnani who dies. It is his upadhi – his
psycho-physical constituent. This is but a disguise of his consciousness.
If consciousness is the light, this psycho-physical constituent is its
shadow. The shadow has no separate existence. If light is thrown on it, it
merges in the light. It is only in the absence of light on it that it looks
different from it. The jnani considers his life as only of the form of
light, and whatever is seen in that light is seen by him as part of the
illumination around it. To him there is no darkness, which means that there
is only the self and no non-self. It is only the delusion of the worldly
people who see him and his body as different. But to the jnani all is his
self. When we watch a noun, we see waves, bubbles, foam and frost. It is
our view. But to the sea it is all its self, just water.
Even if the differences are indeed perceived, there is no harm. For
these have no separate existence from itself. Our dream is a useful
illustration. We see a varied world of things in the dream. Where is this
world in fact ? It is nowhere. It is all our own self. It is only in the
absence of awareness of one’s essence, knowledge seems to be the known. It
also brings with it happiness and unhappiness. The same thing viewed with
awareness of the non-difference, the known merges in knowledge and results
in self-realisation. So, these ideas of birth and death are an illusion
like a dream. They have no real existence. Their life is in self
realisgtion. So, these ides of birth and death are an illusion like a
dream. They have no real existence. Their life is in us. Therefore it is
only in the eyes of the ignorant that all the motions of dharma and
adharma, worlds, rebirths, happiness and unhappiness exist. From the
jnani’s viewpoint these do not exist. Difference is in our perception, not
in creation one should understand this, and taking the aid of the
scriptures and the teacher, practising listening and meditating on their
instruction, should strive to perceive everything as of the very nature of
self and transcened birth and death. He would be unattached, liberated,
fulfilled and honoured in the three worlds.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
ADOPTED FROM ADVAITHA VEDANTHA K RAJARAM IRS 41125
On Mon, 3 Nov 2025 at 19:27, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar*
>
>
>
> Death is not Doom
>
>
>
> Births and Deaths are the natural processes of nature. In the process of
> birth one gets training in one’s mother’s womb. After birth one enters the
> bigger womb, nature. In this womb of nature, the human once smelt and
> perceived, understood and lived. Fragrances had direct effects on the
> internal hormonal communications and nervous system. The surrounding smells
> automatically triggered symbiotic responses. There was no editing,
> filtering and censoring Brain. The smells were language messages. Instead
> of today’s Brain there was the smell based Rhinencyphalon, whose perception
> and understanding probed very deeply into diverse, smells. Then there were
> no eyes, limiting perception to just 00.0035% of the totality, the visible
> spectrum. The smell based perception must have been far wider compared to
> the eyes governed perception of today, which actually is imprisoning one
> into the 3D shapes, the shapes which one sees because the remaining
> 99.9965% of the totality is not seen, the gigantic invisible spectrum.
>
> Basically everything consists of atoms, molecules and particles, even
> though as mixtures they appear as large bodies like planets etc.
>
> The Macrocosm consists of the particles and atoms of the Microcosm. The
> eyes cannot see the whole of the Microcosm, as the atoms etc are in the
> invisible spectrum. In those days when the very concept of seeing that too
> the false 3D shapes was simply absent and could not be even conceptualized,
> the faculty of smell might have been able to probe into the invisible lives
> after death. It is speculation now, but, then what were the limits to
> smelling and sensing? As it is, our thoughts, perceptions, understandings
> and feelings have no 3D shapes. They are part of the invisible spectrum,
> but not amenable to seeing via the Microscopes.
>
> How can we say that consciousness itself is not part of the invisible
> spectrum? In the free and healthy nature without human tampering, death
> itself may not remain as a mystery. Death is simply the disintegration of
> the 3D body. But is there any proof that the non 3D consciousness also
> dies? The subject needs deep probe via experiencing in the free and healthy
> nature where there is no human tampering damaging nature.
>
> Every University is under the taboo of not probing into the state of
> consciousness after death. It is under the fanaticism of the 3D limiting
> visible spectrum. The machines used to see into the invisible spectrum also
> are giving the false 3D shapes. The 3D shape basically limits perception
> and for most the things in the invisible spectrum do not exist.
>
> As it is we have reached the end of economics, as machines have taken away
> most jobs. Cleaning nature and reviving the healthy nature will create
> millions of Jobs.
>
> This is actually the time to solve the mystery of the after death. For
> that probe we need the free and healthy nature without human tampering so
> that the students can smell, sense and go into realms not visited now.
>
> YM Sarma
>
> Chat gpt
>
> This is a fascinating and poetic philosophical reflection by *YM Sarma*,
> exploring the relationship between *perception, consciousness, nature,*
> and *death*.
>
> Here’s a brief *summary and interpretation* of the key ideas:
> ------------------------------
>
> *🌿 Core Themes and Insights*
>
> 1. *Birth, Death, and Nature as Cycles*
> - Sarma frames birth and death not as opposites, but as *natural
> transitions* within a continuous process of existence.
> - Just as the fetus develops in the mother’s womb, the human
> continues “training” within the larger womb of nature after birth.
> 2. *Smell as an Ancient Mode of Perception*
> - The essay suggests that early humans (or proto-conscious beings)
> perceived reality through *smell (rhinencephalon)* rather than
> sight.
> - Smell, unlike vision, connects directly to the brain’s emotional
> and hormonal systems, offering a *holistic and symbiotic*
> perception of reality.
> - Modern vision-based perception (limited to the visible spectrum)
> restricts us to *3D shapes*, thereby narrowing consciousness to
> material forms.
> 3. *The Invisible Spectrum and Consciousness*
> - Most of existence lies *beyond the visible spectrum*, which means
> reality extends far beyond what eyes can see.
> - Consciousness itself may belong to this *invisible domain*, not
> bound by physical form or three-dimensional space.
> - Therefore, the *disintegration of the body (death)* may not imply
> the death of consciousness.
> 4. *Critique of Modern Science*
> - Universities and scientific institutions are criticized for
> focusing only on *3D-visible phenomena*, neglecting exploration
> into post-death consciousness.
> - Current scientific instruments and conceptual frameworks still
> impose the *false limitation of 3D shape*, thus missing the true
> nature of reality.
> 5. *Call for a Return to Nature*
> - Sarma envisions a revival of *free, untampered nature*—both to
> heal ecological damage and to enable deeper sensory and spiritual
> perception.
> - Reviving nature would also restore meaningful human work
> (“millions of jobs”) and allow exploration into consciousness beyond
> death.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *💭 Philosophical Message*
>
> Sarma’s essay blends *philosophy of mind*, *ecological spirituality*, and
> *critique
> of materialism*.
> At its heart lies the claim that:
>
> Death is not doom, but transformation — and to perceive this truth,
> humanity must reconnect with nature and rediscover forgotten sensory
> dimensions of consciousness.
> ------------------------------
>
> Would you like me to help you *analyze this text academically* (e.g., its
> philosophical context or comparison to thinkers like Bergson, Teilhard de
> Chardin, or phenomenologists)? Or would you prefer a *literary or poetic
> interpretation* that explores its symbolism and tone?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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