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Living Dead
In India you know, saints stop eating, they stop breathing.
They stop breathing – it’s an unimaginable feat of the will. Any fool
can stop eating; when he doesn’t get something to eat, he stops eating.
But if I try stopping to breathe? It’s impossible. But saints have been
known to do it. They said, “My existence is of no use. Whatever I came
to do I have done, finished.” They left. See, that is the absolute control
of an evolved being who has control not over life, but over death itself.
Therefore, India has revered the great saints of the past who could
die at will, not under compulsion. They chose the moment of death, lay
down and went to sleep. They don’t die, they exit, you see. That is
the mystery of evolution, that until a human being can leave life like
an actor leaving the stage, at will, purpose accomplished, he is subject
to the law of eternal recurrence, until he evolves.
We have a saying that ‘to know what happens at death, you
must die once.’ That is what Babuji calls a living death. So, we must
be alive after we are dead, before we can know what death is. Isn’t
it? If we are dead finally, we cannot know anything about it. That is
why we have been denied a knowledge of death even though, according
to tradition, we have been born and have died so many times. That is
what our Indian philosophy says: “We die without gaining a knowledge
of death.” And anything which we do without gaining a knowledge about
it is a wasted experience. So, in that sense, all our previous deaths
have been wasteful deaths, useless deaths. So, now we should try to
die usefully, that is, gainfully, because it is common sense knowledge
that we overcome that about which we have full knowledge, and when we
can know all about death while we are still alive, then death has no
longer any power over us. That is the condition of living death of Sahaj
Marg.
Let us free ourselves of these obsessive tendencies. Let
us note that there is only one wealth, one wisdom, one beauty which
we can carry with us – that is the beauty, the wisdom, and the wealth
of the eternal which is inside me – the Self in me, which is eternally
beautiful. It does not know age. It does not know sickness. “Janma
mrityu jaraa vyadhi.” They say, the four upaadhis of existence.
janma [Birth] – if you take it, all the other three follow.
Mrityu, jara, vyadhi – death, old age, sickness.
One who is born will inevitably die. That is why the Gita says, “It
is never born, and never dead.” “Na jaayate va mriyate”– because
one which is born, must die, even if it is a god. Therefore, Avatars
have died. Rama died. Krishna died.
So you see, that which is born must die. Naturally, it has
to age, it has to face sickness. Therefore this craze for mukti.
Why are people so fascinated by mukti even when they don’t
want mukti; when they don’t want to die? Suppose we ask, “How
many of you want to be liberated now?” How many people will say yes?
Because we want mukti at a moment of our choosing. We do not
know when we shall die. Like spirituality should be ideally commenced
at the moment of conception, but since nobody knows when conception
is taking place, it is not possible, therefore it is delayed to the
eighteenth year, nobody knows when death is stalking him. To say, “No,
no, wait, Yama! I am going to be liberated by my Master.” And Yama laughs.
He says, “Which Master? Have you a Master? Come. You are mine.” Mukti
not of our choice, but His choice. Mukti not at the time of our choosing,
but of His choosing. All that we can do is to prepare ourselves for
that moment, praying to Him, “Lord, at the moment of my death, may you
come and lead me to the hereafter.”
As Babuji said, “If you remove the saltiness from salt, what
is left? It is no longer salt. If you remove the sweetness from sugar,
what is left?” So, when all the qualities are removed from us, what
is left? It is that which has no qualities, no form, no name – God.
So, divinisation comes by removing things. I am arrogant – remove it.
I am wise – remove it. I am capable – remove it. It does not mean we
become incapable. On the contrary, we become more capable. Ice cannot
come in, through the chink under the door, but the wind can blow through
it. Isn’t it?
Subtler and subtler, you have access to everything in creation.
Grosser and grosser, you are limited by everything. All this is grossness
– wisdom is grossness; strength is grossness; power is grossness; ego
is grossness; arrogance is grossness. So Babuji said, “Even wisdom we
have to surrender.” As Vivekananda says, “The intellect we need, but
so far and no further.” We come to the boundary, and then we respectfully
bid it good-bye, because now we don’t need intellect. If I am going
into a territory where there is no north, no east, no south, no west,
why do I need a compass? Where there is no wind, where there is no rain,
where there is no sunshine, why do I need clothes? Isn’t it? There is
never hunger, never pain, so why do I need a body?
So, one by one these things are cast off. And then comes
death – the divine moment when everything is God. And what remains?
As Babuji said, “Remove all qualities one by one, and what remains is
God.” You understand? Thank you.
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