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Lights Out ? - or Only More God?!
by Peter Holleran
"O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live,
understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.
If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of
deliverance in death?
It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him
because it has passed from the body:
If He is found now, He is found then,
If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death." - Kabir
"At the time of death the initiate will be as happy as a bride
on her day of marriage!" - Sant Kirpal Singh
There are those who say that these quotes reflect either scare stories or false hopes, but I am not one of them. There is truth in the first quote, but with a message of fear attached to its conclusion, and much, much truth and hope in the second, but which can also be only partly understood. I am fundamentally of the mind that there is a seamless web of life and death within the great Tao, and there is nothing to fear. We are eternal, and life goes on, for better or worse, and with greater or lesser understanding. Our over-emphasis on self-importance, be it worldly or spiritual, is our chief problem in this matter. That, and the conflicting stories about what happens after physical death that we have inherited from the traditions of man. In this article we will try to mentions some of these, while portraying a rational distillation of the basic relative stages and processes in the after-life, with due regard to the ultimate spiritual point of view that transcends these. Yet even the notion of 'transcendence' and 'transmutation' are only natural processes with the Tao, with even ego-death and annihilation unnecessary for complete Oneness and the fulfillment of our humanity to be the case. Again, there is too much fear over these matters. The 'true men of old' were not like that, embracing all, and taking life and death as they came without undue concern. This is not to say there are not difficult passages, and various relative deaths; indeed, that would be going to far on the other direction.
There is no particular order to this essay, topics being discussed as they presented themselves. It may be considered a companion piece to Dying in the Master's Company on this website, with this essay tying up some loose ends not covered in that article.
Every spiritual guide that I have known, however great and complete their teaching may be, at some point or another if one reads them closely, seems to says something to make us question. These may be lacunas, or statements for teaching purposes meant for certain ears only. There may be the inherent veiling nature of physical embodiment, imparing more accurate knowledge acquired on higher planes. Absolute precision in language at all times is not necessary to be a genuine agent of grace. There is also the question of the maturity of the disciple to consider, as to the teaching that he is given. But truly, there should no longer be any secrets or gaps in a teaching. The sacrifices of many have brought humanity to this point, where we must not hesitate to question.
So, both Nisargadatta and anadi have said that consciousness or the state of presence doesn’t last beyond the portals of death, that one is just immediately de-manifested into the absolute unconsciousness, until such time as the personality - and soul - are re-created or re-constituted into a new birth, with, however, according to Mahajarj, the I Am and the memory traces or vasanas continuing. anadi, whose teaching I find intelligent and stimulating, went so far in his book The Human Buddha (1999) as to deny even the existence of the bardos, writing that they were only put in the literature to motivate people out of fear. By email to me he softened this a bit by saying that they simply weren't there like most Tibetans believe they are. I can accept that. One can certainly experience the afterlife from an enlightened and an unenlightened perspective, just like this world. And, in his newest work, book of enlightenment (2011), he does speak about higher states of consciousness, where cognition doesn't require an object to know itself (1). This, in fact, is what the Sant tradition has always said, that the free soul knows intrinsically by her own light. And it opens the door to permitting the existence of lesser states of consciousness where cognition does require an object. So the comment about bardos, and the lack of any intermediate level of experience between enlightenment and ignorance, does not seem warranted. According to Tibetan Madhyamika teachings, to deny the intermediate states (bar srid) is a form of 'nihilism' - a heretical view . (2) Perhaps this remark was meant for certain persons only, as it was part of a question and answer session with students, and not a philosophical dissertation. His central point, however, a very important point, is "Why worry about consciousness after death? What matters is to be conscious when you are alive. If you are not alive now, you will not live after death either." But we are alive now, only in varying degrees of forgetfulness. Even that is something to notice, not to fear.
The Blessed Prophet Muhammed said:
“Humans sleep. It is when they die that they awake.”
It is a common fundamentalist interpretation of the Prophet's words that when the veil of incarnation is lifted man will see the workings of God and his relative place or destiny within it. Yet the greatest Sufi masters didn't talk quite like that. They recognized many intermediate states, such as various heavens which are available to some, but not to all, depending on one's level of virtue and awareness in life.
Shakespeare wrote:
“To sleep, perchance to dream...Ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause." - Hamlet
We think devout Muslims would do well to listen to Shakespeare and Kabir!
On the nature of the death process - with which we agree only in part - anadi states:
"The concept that one can choose how and when to incarnate, is one of many spiritual superstitions. No one can choose, for the choice is being made by the higher intelligence. After the dissolution of the physical body, which is the container of human consciousness, and the only vehicle for it, one dissolves into the state of rest. The human soul is unable to exist without the body. There are certain energies and presences, which do not need a physical form in order to exist, but they are certainly not human spirits...After the dissolution of a particular individual human Me, one returns to the deep sleep state, where the information of existence is not present. There is no need to prepare oneself for the next life or after death challenges. Some traditions, out of fear developed specific practices. For example, their adepts make special visualizations to be able to leave the body in such a way that the negative post-death experiences could be avoided, so that the pure land or heaven could be reached directly. However, there is no reality behind these concepts but simply a false belief system. there are certain areas in life where one simply needs to trust. We didn't decide to come into this life - the higher intelligence decided. Why shouldn't we trust the same Intelligence to direct the destiny of our soul, according to the principles of love and harmony, also after the dissolution of our human form?"
"After this dissolution, if the blueprint of soul is not complete, soon, when the timing is right, one incarnates again in a particular body and in a particular environment to which one is destined...The journey of the soul's evolution is complex and almost impossible to be grasped by the mind...In the dimension of time, knowing and not-knowing are mixed and support each other. Our knowledge is ultimately an expression of our essential clarity and intelligence. While not-knowing, the divine ignorance, represents our humility and child-like innocence. Our knowledge is freedom from the false and the not-knowing, which ultimately is the I AM, is freedom itself; pure rest within the heart of the creator." (3)
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the only complete security is abidance in God, and the only proper disposition to take at death is one of complete surrender to the process and to the unknown. Nevertheless, the traditional view that there are intermediate states after death and before rebirth, in my opinion, still stands as a reasonable assumption. Furthermore, there are many intelligences involved in the process aiding man. According to Daskalos, the master of Cyprus, one's bodies (physical, psychic and noetic, or physical, astral, and mental (both higher and lower) are made by the Archangels of the elements', and in other traditions they speak of the 'lords of karma'. Then there is also the situation of one who has a genuine Master. It is a very intricate affair. One is free to say it is all a play of emptiness/consciousness, or God, if he chooses, but within relativity there are also a vast host of beings involved in making things work smoothly. It is not all determined but neither is it random. One's higher or true self/soul also has a say in the matter on what karma he chooses to take on in his next incarnation.
While much of the above quotation by anadi is no doubt true, particularly regarding various old Buddhist beliefs, and the need for simple surrender to the process of death, the highlighted sentences have not gone undisputed. Neither anadi nor Nisargadatta died or went through a process of recapitulating death, the veritable mystical death-in-life, and consciously returned with the certain knowledge of whether or not that assertion was true, nor were they explorers of the subtle realms (Nisargadatta saying that 'such things required special training', which he did not profess to have). Saints and mystics in all traditions, including Kriya Yoga, Sant Mat, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity, and, I dare say, even sages such as Ramana Maharshi, have spoken otherwise, from experience, not dogma. They all agree, certainly, that such realms or experiential states are not ultimate truth - but that they are relatively real, and part of multidimensional reality just as this gross plane is, they most positively affirm, and that consciousness and life already exist independently of the physical body is a fact. I suppose that for some the burden of proof would lie on whether that which is spoken of as the silver cord in the Bible - which is said to permit one to leave the body before death and return - is true or not. The saints say it is. The experiences of Sadhu Sundar Singh of India, the famous 'Christian yogi', strongly suggest it is. [This is a fascinating link].
In the Siddha tradition of India, and based on what we have purporting to be the words of Jesus, certain great adepts can dematerialize and rematerialize their physical bodies at will, without regard for time or space, and can reappear on earth even without reincarnation. They can certainly exist consciously in the after-death realms. The consensus is, however, that for those who do reincarnate, no matter how conscious one is after-death, be he ordinary soul or adept, upon rebirth he will 'lose' his enlightenment, at least for a time, when he takes on a new body. That is in fact part of the adept's sacrifice for us.
Perhaps the greatest 'Researcher' of the subtle realms in recent times was Daskalos. His teachings are explained in great detail in the article The Idea of Man on this website. For a very brief recap, he teaches a form of esoteric Christianity that states that there is an Absolute Beness that is a self-sufficient Multiplicity-in-Unity, composed of an infinite number of ‘Holy Monads’, each of which radiates myriads of Spirit-Beings. This Absolute (the Father) is part of a Trinity, the other two parts being what he calls the Christ-Logos and the Holy Spirit, roughly equivalent to Shiva-Shakti. Those Spirit-Beings or Pneuma destined to become human beings pass through the archtypal Idea of Man, becoming eternal ‘Self-conscious Souls’. These souls emanate a projection of themselves that becomes involved in an incarnational cycle, the purpose of which is to garner experience in the realms of time and space and separation, eventually returning to the God-State (Theosis) as a Pneuma with the fruits of self-conscious individuality. This, he says, is the Parable of Christ about the Prodigal Son. Those Spirit-Beings who do not pass through the Idea of Man remain Archangels, who have responsibilities of creation. The human entity, after descending from the realm of Self-conscious Soul, becomes cloaked in three bodies: noetic or mental (the ‘body’ of thoughts), psychic or emotional (the ‘body’ of emotion and sentiment), and the gross physical. All of this occurs in the eternal Now, he points out, so his teaching has an element of nonduality within it, although not as radical as advaita.
After death, the present personality lives on for a time in more or less clarity within the psychonoetic realms, depending on the understanding in which it lived while on earth. Most people, however, have a subjective shell around them, consisting of the 'elementals', or thought-forms they created while in physical form, that prevents their clear seeing of the reality of the subtle realms. Also, while we have, created by the Holy Spirit, ‘glorious’ psychonoetic bodies on their respective planes that are shaped according to the archtype of man that exist for the support and maintainance of the physical form, we are also given at the beginning of the incarnational cycle an ‘amorphus psycho-noetic body’ that is shaped ‘like a sack’ and is centered around the heart region. Our task, so to speak, through maturation of our character, is to develop and shape that body until eventually it will resemble the form of man, at which time it fuses with the archtypal or supportive psychonoetic form (made possible because both forms share the same etheric body) and we will be able to live and function in those inner realms clearly, as well as and more importantly progress beyond forms and bodies until we consciously reach back to the level of soul and Spirit-Being from which we began, after which we, through the divinely informed psycho-noetic form developed during the incarnations, will enable us to be of greater service in the lower realms, if we so choose or dedicate ourselves to.
I’ll admit the concept of two separate psychonoetic bodies is confusing, and Daskalos’ successor Kostas says that very few esoteric schools are aware of their existence. However, the idea of ‘building a soul,’ meaning a subtle body, in order to conscously function in esoteric dimensions, was mentioned by George Gurdjieff and others. It should be noted that whether there is one or two of these bodies, their development comes naturally as we advance spiritually, and there is no special means needed for shaping them to conform to the divine archtype of man. Whether pursuing a direct or gradual path, it has already been happening as a matter of course as one matures.
So, for those who do have clarity, from right living, spiritual investigation, and metaphysical knowledge gained during their incarnation, Daskalos says that continued learning can actually take place after death, through the aid of many beings, archangels, masters, invisible helpers, archtypes, etc., before the essence of the previous incarnation and the new learning is passed up to the 'permanent personality', the respository of the condensed experience and wisdom gained through all of one's lifetimes, and before one then passes into a deep sleep prior to being reborn. Kostas, a master in Daskalos' inner circle, said:
"In the event that the present personality becomes adapted within a reality of those other dimensions, it will be offered the opportunity to acquire more knowledge for advancement on the spiritual path. The subconscious of every human being will be given the opportunity to be enriched there as well...If you manage to construct solid foundations on this plane of existence..then your progress within the psychonoetic dimensions could gallop in a geometric progression...In this dimension you have many questions that you are unable to answer experientially. The confines of gross matter are an obstacle to the advancement of your awareness. Within the psychonoetic worlds, on the other hand, there are no such obstacles. The very moment you begin within those worlds to raise questions and become a researcher of the Truth you are in a much better position to explore and discover for yourself what is real and what is not."
He gives the caveat, however, that all of this depends on the steps you have taken during one's physical lifetime:
"The further you are advanced in this world on the path for the research of Truth the easier and faster will be your advance within the psychonoetic worlds." (4)
Furthermore, Daskalos assures us, that, contrary to some traditions, the so-called 'second-death' is nothing to fear, that it is not like the first death at all, but more like a beautiful meditation as one gradually expands into a world more and more light, the noetic world, shedding the psychic or astral body, before either passing into even higher spheres and then eventually passing into sleep (the 'third' death) and being reborn:
"Some people hear about a second death and they are horrified. They imagine something analogous to earthly death. The second death is the dissolving of the psychic body in Kamaloka. You don't even recognize it because it is a very gradual process. It is not something that happens suddenly, it is unlike the death of the gross material body which, after it dies - or rather, after you drop it - you can see lying there. The second death is the gradual cleansing of the psychic body from its negative vibrations whereby the surrounding environment becomes increasingly numinous. It is something analogous to the illumination over landscape as the sun rises...The second death is a process toward higher levels of awareness and illumination..All human beings have the potential of having this experience. They will have it, assuming they have come to their senses and assimilated the lessons of life just lived. Otherwise the masters of karma will put the ego to sleep. That is, the psychic body will dissolve instantly, will pass momentarily through the noetic dimension and descend down to the gross material level in a new incarnation. In such a case the individual will not experience or have consciousness of the noetic body. It is a very complicated process...It is an individual matter of how long you stay within the psychic dimensions and not a fixed mathematical formula which is the same for everyone." (5)
And further:
"I have reached the realized that all human beings are free to choose how their next life will unfold prior to the second death. They can choose before the second death how they are going to come down and deal with their karma." (6)
The decision into which physical body to be born is made by both the self-conscious-soul and the archangels of the elements, who craft the three bodies of each incarnation.
Many, many traditions starting with the ancient Puranas use a septenary system of planes making up the relative universe. Roughly speaking , they correspond to the various bodies or koshas of man, varying from system to system: physical, astral, lower and higher mental, causal or buddhic, super-causal or anandic, and atmic. The psychic planes are composed of seven main planes with seven sub-planes in each, and, according to some, even more subplanes within those; to a degree, there are subdivisions in the noetic worlds and even the true formless heavens of light above. There are, however, in this ancient septenary reckoning, basically four planes of form and three 'formless' planes that the soul, depending on its level of awareness during life, may experience after death. The noetic plane and above are beyond time and space as we know it, that only sages, saints, and their initiates may reach. "At the higher noetic spheres you do not learn about things outside yourself. You become those things...You can consciously acquire any form you like and still be you...Thought at these levels is yourself..Thought there is love itself...When you reach such a stage do you undervalue things that are not at that level? No, because in reality there is no higher and lower." (7) All of these mentioned planes are within relativity, and simultaneously within the nondual absolute. Most people fall into a sleep upon experience of the formless planes, being then reborn, but those spiritually awakened souls have some discernment there.
The astral regions are alluring and the lower sub-planes among them contain 'hellish' realms, although most so-called hells are private psychic dimensions unique to a person, who arrives in the afterlife more or less covered with a psychic shell created by his own thought-forms or elementals formed during life. That is why certain people do not even realize that they are dead for some time. More will be said about this later, but an interesting experience can be had even before death by the initiate of a true master-saint. Kirpal Singh explains:
"At times, the Master takes the initiate 'under cover' far beyond certain planes which are bewitchingly beautiful so that he may not get entangled therein and be lost in the wonders of the way." (8)
This can extend to being taken in such a 'protective bubble' to get a 'preview' of different realms including hells; I have known several people who claim to have had such an experience.
For the average good person, generally, the experience of death is relatively liberating and benevolent:
PB writes:
"Philosophy teaches that every sincere seeker finds a certain compensation - in a beautiful and ethereal world after death - for the failures, disappointments, and miseries which make up so much of the stuff of the human story."
"Unless the human ego were itself an emanation of the Overself it would be quite unable to identify itself with the sensation of severance from the body during the process we call dying." (9)
"For as the Bhagavad-Gita truly says, "A little of this knowledge saves from much danger." Even a few years' study of philosophy will bring definite benefit into the life of the student. It will help him in all sorts of ways, unconsciously, here on earth and it will help him very definitely after death during his life in the next world of being." (10)
In general, of course, this is not permanent and one will sooner or later (be it months or decades) pass into incarnation again, but it does affirm that there is conscious life after death for the as yet unliberated souls.
PB nevertheless reminds us of an opportunity for the prepared, and also keeps our mind fixed upon the ultimate goal and the proper attitude towards it:
“The aspirant whose efforts to attain inner freedom and union with the Overself while living seem to have been thwarted by fate or circumstances, may yet find them rewarded with success while dying. Then, at the very moment when consciousness is passing from the body, it will pass into the Overself.” 11)
The Tibetans make much of the potential of liberation in the dawning of reality, the 'dharmata bardo, that occurs for every creature at the actual moment it separates from the gross body, where one, if he can recognize it, may merge into the clear light of reality. However, they also warn that for most people - those not accustomed to meditating on rigpa or primordial, pure consciousness - it is essentially 'over in an instant'. (12) Therefore the great need for practice if this brief interlude is to be fruitful. Kirpal Singh also mentioned this instant with reference to the non-practitioner:
"On the death bed one may get a glimpse of reality but then it is too late to comprehend it." (13)
However, the initiate of a saint has a concession, that he will meet his guide at the time of death, or before, and be taken directly to a plane suitable for his spiritual advancement, whether or not he needs another birth.
Yet even those not initiated by such a master are assured of the benevolent protection and guidance of many helping presences in the unseen realms. We are not alone.
PB continues speaking, however, of the highest viewpoint:
"The wise man lives secretly in the even, sorrow-soothing knowledge of the Oneness, and remains undisturbed by the inevitable and incessant changes in life. From this lofty standpoint, the tenet of rebirth sinks to secondary place in the scale of importance. What does it matter whether one descends or not into the flesh if one always keeps resolute hold of the timeless Now? It can matter only to the little "I," to the ignorant victim of ephemeral hopes and ephemeral fears, not to the larger "I AM" which smiles down upon it." (14)
This last paragraph makes some advaitists happy, who believe, that at death everyone, saint or sinner, goes directly back into the non-dual Supreme person, which is already the case even before death, only without realization. So nothing changes and no one goes anywhere. Yet this is only one view, that there is the One Self behind all perishable individual selves, and no souls, or suchlike realities within the totality of Reality. [That was not the view of PB in the about quote, imo]. Many traditions are more rich and varied than advaita, such as Sant Mat and high Buddhism. All levels interpenetrate and are one with the non-dual truth. There is nothing to be negated. There is mystery. Even Sankara and his followers had to resort to dualism to explain creation: he posited para-Brahman and apara-Brahman, and also maya as an attribute or property of Brahman - or simply as an unexplainable mystery - which was not, strictly speaking, based on logic, which the advaita school prides itself upon. Perhaps there is such a thing as transcendental logic, beyond polarities, that we must resort to in these matters?
Ramana clarifies the concept of no survival of consciousness without a body after death:
Question: Then when we leave this body, that is when the ego leaves it, will it (the ego) immediately grasp another body?
Bhagavan: Oh, yes, it must. It cannot exist without a body.
Question: What sort of a body will it grasp then?
Bhagavan: Either a physical body or a subtle-mental body.” (15)
So right there he makes his position clear that it is only the ego that needs a body to survive, not consciousness or the soul, and that, in fact, the ego will continue for a time in its subtle body before the 'second death,' when that dissolves into its subtle elements when it is necessary to reincarnate. [However, it should be noted that Ramana, while frequently critiquing the 'astral' worlds as being secondary, irrelevant, or only existing in the mind or the 'Self', does not speak much about the higher noetic worlds and formless dimensions beyond these, in which ego and mind as we know it does not function. Thus, his treatment of life after death seems rather cursory in comparison, say, to that of Daskalos, or the esoteric Christian and Sant Mat traditions].
Nevertheless, he succinctly sums up the possibilities:
“Some are born immediately after; others only after the lapse of some time; a few are not reborn on this earth but get salvation from the higher regions, and a very few get absorbed here and now.” (16)
Schools are divided whether there is actually complete dispersal of all elements or whether the same ego and subtle body (antahkarana) continues from life to life, with only the gross personality dispersing.
For the Tibetan Buddhists, there are three types of persons who will reincarnate immediately upon physical death. The first is a realized adept who chooses to do so for the purpose of uninterruptedly serving others as a boddhisattva. The second would be a very highly advanced person who wishes to progress in the most rapid fashion to full enlightenment. The third is the more unfortunate soul who is sent back without experiencing the bardo at all (myshams med pa lnga - "without an interval") as a punishment for committing one of the five so-called grave deeds: killing one's father, killing one's mother, killing a realized being, malevolently causing a buddha's body to bleed, and sowing discord among the sangha, all of which require an immediate karmic retribution. The reader can judge for himself how much of this is traditional superstition, scare tactics, or may actually be real. Such a person doesn't even go to one of the hells, which it is hard to see as a better option than immediate rebirth! However, it is better in the sense that it is a place of learning and karmic expiation, perhaps in a shorter time than in a subsequent incarnation. By the way, Daskalos wrote that he got the sense that some 'hells' were 'below' the earth. I got that impression, too, through several nighttime experiences many years ago. Daskalos has a refeshing view of hells, that they serve a purpose of education and evolution:
"You should never assume that the so-called hells are some kind of psychic torture chambers. The hells - and purgatories are schools and workshops for the acquisition of experiences so that human entities may ascend towards their perfection. In reality there is no punishment. There is only experience. if there is suffering it is not because the Absolute wishes to punish us for our transgressions but so that we can find out who we really are." (17)
Interestingly, while there are many accounts of NDE's by Christians and others of transports to or previews of such realms, Jesus, in all his recorded sayings did not ever mention the word Hell. Only St. Paul and other priest-scribes, it must be assumed, must be accountable for such ancient Zoroastrian fire and brimstone teachings in the Bible. Much explaining needs to be done!
To see any of the inner realms clearly, like this present one, in any case requires some degree of maturity. As PB wrote:
"It is all like a gigantic dream, with every human inserting his own private dream inside the public one. A double spell has to be broken before reality can be glimpsed - the spell which the world(s) lays upon us and that which self lays upon us. The man who has completely awakened from this spell is the man who has gained complete insight. This faculty is nothing other than such full wakefulness. It is immensely difficult to attain, which is why so few of the dreamers ever wake up at all and why so many will not even listen to the revelations of the awakened ones." (18)
What he says is that on the inside, as Daskalos also mentioned, the elementals that make up the personal self created during life plays a more intrusive role than it does when anchored to the physical body in the gross world; let loose in the inner regions, it can exist as an overlay on the actual relatively objective (although ultimately Subjective) worlds that exist there. On the other hand, he gives the hopeful words that those subject to mental illness will not be so afflicted once they are out of the physical body, for though such illness is caused by elementals disrupting their psychonoetic bodies, once freed from the gross material form, the tormented brain will bother them no more, and the problems with their other bodies will be dispersed in various ways with the help of the always present 'invisible helpers'..
The question remaining, as Shakespeare said, is "in that sleep what dreams may come?" That is to say, what is the nature of the consciousness that prevails in those intermediate states between death and rebirth: Is it hazy and dreamlike? Is it vivid and self-conscious? Are there beings 'trapped' for long periods of time in some of these 'regions', such that one of the ministrations of these great souls is to help and guide the misfortunate (and fortunate) ones a step further along in their spiritual destiny? In some cases, all of these are true. In both Sant Mat and Buddhism, however, it is also said that for souls with a great Master, spiritual progress towards liberation from the inner realms may even be possible after death, depending upon ones prior development and the grace of the guide. Paramhansa Yogananda said that most prepared souls achieve their freedom from the inner realms. Jesus assured his disciples of this also (“in my Father’s house there are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you,” etc.).
Sant Kirpal Singh makes this clear:
"The initiates have a great concession: at the time of death, your Master will come to receive you, and not the angel of death. He usually appears several days or weeks before death to advise you of your coming departure from this world. I'm talking about those who keep the precepts! For those who do nothing with the gift of Naam, he may or may not appear before they leave the body...In your final moments, and much beforehand if you have gained proficiency in meditation, Master's radiant form will take you to a higher stage where you can make further progress. At the time of death the initiate will be as happy as a bride on her day of marriage! He may then place you in the first, second or third stage, or he may take you direct to Sach Khand. In some cases, where worldly desires and attachments are predominant, he will allow rebirth, but in circumstances more congenial for spiritual growth." (19)
Sundar Singh describes one particular case that may of interest to those who are inclined to read an article of this type (!)
DEATH OF A PHILOSOPHER
"The soul of a German philosopher entered into the world of spirits and saw from afar the incomparable glory of the spiritual world, and the boundless happiness of its people. He was delighted with what he saw, but his stubborn intellectualism stood in the way of his entering into it, and enjoying its happiness. Instead of admitting that it was real, he argued thus with himself, "There is no doubt at all that I see all this, but what proof is there that it has objective existence, and is not some illusion conjured up by my mind? From end to end of all this scene I will apply the tests of logic, philosophy and science, and then only will I be convinced that it has a reality of its own, and is no illusion." Then the angels answered him, "It is evident from your speech that your intellectualism has warped your whole nature, for as spiritual, and not bodily, eyes are needed to see the spiritual world, so spiritual understanding is necessary to comprehend its reality, and not mental exercises in the fundamentals of logic and philosophy. Your science that deals with material facts has been left behind with your physical skull and brain in the World. Here, only that spiritual wisdom is of use which arises out of the fear and love of God." Then said one of the angels to another, "What a pity it is that people forget that precious word of our Lord, 'Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven' (Matt. 18:3). I asked one of the angels what the end of this man would be, and he replied "If this man's life had been altogether bad, then he would at once have joined the spirits of darkness, but he is not without a moral sense, so for a very long time he will wander blindly round in the dim light of the lower parts of the intermediate state, and keep on bumping his philosophical head, until tired of his foolishness, he repents. Then he will be ready to receive the necessary instruction from the angels appointed for that purpose, and, when instructed, will he be fit to enter into the fuller light of God in the higher sphere."
"In one sense the whole of infinite space, filled as it is with the presence of God, who is Spirit, is a spiritual world. In another sense, the World also is a spiritual world, for its inhabitants are spirits clothed with human bodies. But there is yet another world of spirits after they leave the body at death. This is an intermediate state -- a state between the glory and light of the highest heavens, and the dimness and darkness of the lowest hells. In it are innumerable planes of existence, and the soul is conducted to that plane for which its progress in the World has fitted it. There, angels especially appointed to this work, instruct it for a time, that may be long or short, before it goes on to join the society of those spirits -- good spirits in the greater light, or evil spirits in the greater darkness -- that are like in nature and in mind to itself." (20)
In Tibetan Buddhism, the first possibility mentioned previously, 'hazy and dreamlike,' pertains to the state of the average person and which they sometimes simply call 'the bardo', as opposed to the six manifested realms (three higher and three lower) where one can take rebirth. On the other hand, NDE's of people who have reported to having been in the presence of Jesus, or other masters, have said their experiences were much more vivid than anything experienced here on earth (which doesn't necessarily mean they were ultimately more real). According to PB, the highest the unenlightened person can reach is the third heaven, which would be something like the Devachan of Theosophy or Sukhavati of the Buddhists, and generally said that full nondual realization can only be attained while in the waking state on earth, that Nature would eventually bring back even advance mystics to complete their development. This may or may not be so. We do not have sufficient data in the inheritance of our spiritual heritage to definitively say this is true in all situations.
In any case, some souls may drift in and out of consciousness in the afterlife, and for them part of their experiences of these worlds may be hazy and dreamlike. For those more advanced, the higher mental realms are definitely more vivid, and in the realms beyond these, on the borderland of the form and the formless, the experiences are extremely clear and communication between souls is by merger with meanings directly intuited without any mental decoding necessary. The higher formless Sambhogaya realms, the penultimate realms within relativity, while not the non-dual Dharmakaya itself, are unattainable except for the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, that is, those who are awakened in life to a significant or ultimate degree.
While there is some truth to the argument that it is absurd to talk of realizing the 'deathless' after death (the 'deathless' being beyond birth and death'), nevertheless the saints and some of the sages say that that very thing is possible, although perhaps rare, as the non-dual reality is the case at all times and places. Truth is stranger than our philosophy sometimes.
That there is some intermediate relative experience after physical death is hard to argue with, given the overwhelming accumulated evidence of NDE research, including some of the more spectacular cases, such as that of Mellon-Thomas Benedict, and those in persons in whom all vital signs and brain activity have been completely absent, as well as accounts by those accomplished in mysticism, or initiated by a great Master and being given a preview, have reported being transported - not in dream or mere psychic vision - but in actuality, to such planes and bardos, and, the silver cord (whatever that may actually be) not yet being broken, returning to tell of what they have seen, seems to mitigate in favor of afterlife experience. In Tibet such a person who dies for a period of time (meaning all physical signs of life being absent), whether hours or days, and travels to the bardos and back, is known as a Gelug. There are many such accounts of having a spirit guide, including Green Tara or Avalokitesvara, escort one through the after death realms, heavens and hells and even beyond, in full consciousness. A number of disciples of Kirpal Singh told me they were carried in mediation as if in a 'protective bubble' by the master see various hell realms. In Tibet, moreover, they have a phrase for the grace and help such an enlightened lama or guru gives to those stagnating in the lower realms, taking them under his wing, so to speak, with boundless light illuminating the darkness, to either a higher plane or into a propitious rebirth, known as “Dredging the Depths of Cyclic Existence.” It is unlikely all of these great saints and sages were deluded or misleading us.
To recap, the usual description of what happens to the average person after death is that, after an initial swoon into unconsciousness, one 'awakens' either in a pre-astral region, or, having passed through a 'tunnel', enters such a place, where a 'life review' may occur, it actually being ones own higher or true self, the divine I Am or Overself, that witnesses the salient features of the past lifetime, after which one advances to one or another plane of existence for a period of time where some kind of purposeful after-life processing goes on, presided over by the "permanent personality," a term of Daskalos' referring to a combination of the vijnanomaya-anandamaya koshas and similar to Aurobindo's 'psychic being', before the elements of ones subtle bodies disperse and one enters a deep, restful sleep, and finally being reborn in a newly formed body-mind, shaped by the Archangels of the elements, with a seed-atom of the permanent-personality planted in the heart, and a new brain devoid of previous memory, but in which the previous character, intelligence, and evolutionary stage gradually manifesting themselves. Sensitive souls may retrieve memories from the Universal Mind where all is stored, but it is Divine mercy that we are generally confined to forget past lives in order to make the current life tolerable. It is not necessary to know such things.
In the Buddhist canon, the teachings of Sant Mat, and the words of saints such as Paramahansa Yogananda and others, it is said that in many cases one can actually attain liberation from an after death plane, with Yogananda seemingly alone in saying that this is the actually most common occurrence. This contradicts other teachings that say that only in the full waking state is liberation possible, for reasons to be considered in a future essay. In any case, the caveat is usually given that, even if liberation after death were possible, it is much quicker to attain such release in the physical world than the inner realms, for the reason being that here life lessons are etched in stone and experienced more unavoidably and directly, whereas in the higher inner worlds, while the experiences for those who are conscious are indeed more luminous and vivid, they are also more consoling than those experienced here, and therefore without or even with the help of an enlightened Master there is less incentive to engage spiritual practice. It is also harder, although difficult to explain, for one to actually awaken to the essential subjectivity characteristic of realisation. In other words, whatever 'consciousness' one does have, for whatever period of time, is not free of objectivity. It my be conscious, but it is not awake in the ultimate sense. In this light, Kirpal Singh said that the progress one can make during one's earthly sojourn in a matter of weeks could take hundreds of years on the inner planes. One must take this warning somewhat imaginatively, as the sense of time is also different there. But this is why most serious practitioners, and their masters, would prefer they take rebirth, in order to regain union with their beloved much faster. Even the gods are said to be awaiting a human birth.
Of course, the whole affair is mysterious and paradoxical.
In many traditions, such as high Buddhism, such as Dzogchen, Western esotericism (theosophy), Sant Mat, and Sufism, there are stages after reaching that of jivanmukti, human liberation, or the Atmic realization. These are beyond human conception, and have to do with a number of things: further unification of the non-dual state with the relative levels of the various bodies, for the sake of enhancement of the bodhisattva role or ability to serve others; advanced levels of development within the Divine Plan ("the journey in God, versus the "journey to God"), serving the greater Purpose in various ways. For instance, the system of the Buddha had seven initiations, of which that of the liberated Arhat, was only the fourth. There is liberation conceived as an inner freedom, and liberation conceived as freedom from karmas. Some stages, according to the Buddha, were only traversable after karma was eradicated. Further, this globe is not the highest sphere in creation, and there are worlds upon worlds in creation. "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio." if all this be true, then there are surely possibilities of spiritual evolution transcending the need for a physical body.
It might also be mentioned that the inner realms are not, strictly speaking, merely in ones 'mind,' although they may be said to be within 'Mind', as is the present one. Each of them are, as was ecstatically told me years ago by an advanced Sant Mat initiate, "both a state of consciousness and a region," on entry to which "you die and are born again - it's so perfect!" This is why even enlightened saints and sages can visit or take their abode there, and not be in mere illusion: they are real, in the sense that they are supported by the World-Mind (PB), or the Divine Logos, or 'apara-Brahman'. They may, as suggested, be experienced from both an enlightened and unenlightened point of view. That is, one may see them subjectively, that is, non-dually, as manifestations of Mind, the Supreme Self, or ones Overself, or as apparently real personal experiences. Ramana said that they exist, they were 'as real as you are.' That goes for the sublime formless realms as well - where the sense of unity, universality and infinity may well be a greater challenge for one's discriminative powers between this highest level of relativity and the truly non-dual than it is here on earth. However, on fully integrationalist paths, where samadhi and insight are combined, such powers have been exercised at every level, and may only be actualized even more on the Atmic plane, and then reintegrated more so on the planes one re-enters as he then descends or reincarnates as the case may be. The point being made is that it is not "all or nothing." The non-dual reality, emptiness/consciousness, makes room for stages, growth, bodies, planes, and evolution, as well as a holarchy of divine beings and helpers.
As a brief example, however, of seeing subtle phenomena from a personal, dreamlike perspective, and not as they are in truth, when I first began to practice meditation in 1970, at the age of twenty-one, I had a few interesting nighttime experiences. A couple of times I was drawn up towards the crown of the head by the ecstatic sound of the Big Bell. At other times, on several occasions, I felt myself concentrated in the head, somewhat separated from the gross body, but then strongly pulled within and down - wherever that was - like the bad guy in the movie Ghost. I heard terrifying ghoulish sounds along with classic ball and chain noises, groans, etc.. Having just read the Bardo Thodol, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and remembering the admonition contained therein to see everything as a manifestation of ones own mind, I tried as best I could to remain calm and contemplate what I was experiencing in that manner. Unfortunately, it didn't work! What I later realised was that the identity of 'I' at the time was on the same level as that which it was experiencing, and was therefore very much part of what was a much more vivid-than-dream experience. Finally, out of stark fear I began yelling and begging my guru for mercy and help. Eventually I came back from wherever I was, sweating and stunned. This is just my two cents on how real unreality can appear, and the need for genuine spiritual practice and awakening.
Though it has an more or less Christian context and conclusion, this is a fascinating story of one man's brush with death, heaven/hell and the afterlife.
There are also said to be what have been termed by Sri Aurobindo, 'annexes of the subtle regions,' which are personal subjective hells within the more 'objective' realms that are themselves within the ultimate Subjectivity or Mind. This was partly addressed by the quote from PB given above. These are places in which, as C.S. Lewis once phrased it, where people are 'so afraid of being taken in that they can't be taken out.' Fortunately, such private 'annexes' have a limited lifespan, eventually disperse and the soul moves on.
Whereas 'hells' are generally in the literature considered to be sub-planes of the lower astral realms, it should be mentioned that Daskalos, for one, and others have said that there are such realms 'below' the earth, whatever that means. According to Daskalos and PB, there is also an etheric or psychic band around this very earth that is composed of the tormented thought-forms of beings trapped therein by their own negative and violent vibrations. Daskalos termed this place "the Scream". It is under the care of angelic beings, but we (humanity in general) have a major responsibility for its ongoing existence. It is something to take notice of, but not for anyone especially to worry about.
Several researchers, such as at The Newton Institute are independently publishing their findings about LBL's ('Life Between Life') where they use unusually deep hypnotic trances, regress subjects back to the womb, stabilize them there, and then ask them to move back to the moment of death in the most recent life. From there they move them forward through the death experience and track the whole sequence of events and process between birth until the are born again in this life. Apparently they have done this with hundreds of people with fascinating results that tend to have strong similarities both between subjects and also independently working researchers. They are trying to develop a more objectively derived understanding of all this, free from religious and culture bias. Incidentally, the sequence of events during death only vaguely reflects the types of things that are discussed in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It may reflect a more 'normal' sequence of events, certainly for westerners, on the nature of the in-between life of the soul. Certainly to say that there is just a forty-nine day period between births is a cultural bias of the Tibetans, as this claim is contradicted by almost every other tradition. It may be an instant, a day, a year, or a thousand years, who can tell? [The same goes for the idea that it takes forty days for the etheric double to dissolve. In some traditions they advise cremation after three days, to prevent the soul from remaining attached to the physical body].
Subjects at the Newton Institute commonly describe: the passage to the other side (with variations on how this happens), the expanded state of consciousness one has when out of the body and first reactions to passing over, standard moving towards the light episodes, encounter with family/friends/guides, entering into a healing phase if there were emotional and/or physical challenges or disease that was hard, going before a non-judgmental 'Council of Elders' to begin evaluation of the life just lived, and beginning to assimilate learning from those experiences, eventually moving on to higher planes and re-absorption back into one's soul group or spiritual family, life in the realms inhabited between births, meetings with others to plan the next incarnation, and the process of rebirth. Other topic subjects explored were whether there a hell, what happens with people who have lived very unwholesome lives, and so on. This all matches up well with mystic Daskalos' take on all this, a master who was unusually aware and active, even for an adept, in these lower to intermediate inner planes where all these kinds of things transpires for most people.
There are reasons for taking rebirth other than the force of karma, or the desire for making faster progress towards liberation, such as that of compassionate service for others. To some extent these are not matters of personal choice per se. It is really the soul that decides in each case. So say some sages. I am only reporting.
In conclusion, while it is true that in most cases one may not experience reality as-it-is while in the after-deaths realms, just as he hasn't in life, to say that there is no awareness there, even periodically, seems unmerited. Ramana Maharshi, tending the death of his disciple Ganapati Muni, while he bemoaned that he had failed to attain mukti, testified that the latter had been reborn into a higher realm. Kirpal Singh, on the other hand, when aiding his wife's departure, at which time, riddled with cancer, she became radiant, sending forth peals of laughter and testifying to the sound of bells and the visions of masters within and without, said, when she had gone, that "She is more alive now than ever."
One additional topic that has not been addressed and which we will only briefly touch upon is that of conscious death for the adept. In the yoga traditions there are several unique methods in which an accomplished master may choose to leave his body. One undergone by a particular sect of Himalyan yogis called hima-samadhi. In this form of exit the yogi slowly lets his body freeze in the icy cold of the snows until all life processes become numb and insensitive. Then he may employ another method that is also a stand-alone technique called Sthal-samadhi in which the yogi sits in posture and consciously opens up the fontanelle, exiting the body through the Bhrahmarhendra at the top of the skull. There may be a characteristic 'clicking sound' indicating what is known as the 'cracking of the skull'. Exit through the top of the head is considered by both Hindu and Buddhist yogis as auspicious in that it may avoid complications that may arise if the soul has to pass through the vast unconscious reservoir of the unconscious in the lower centers of the body. In Tibetan Buddhism they use powa transference to accomplish such an feat. For the Shabd yogin such an exit is natural due to the grace of the master and the sound current. He is automatically pulled through the crown of the head. Then there is the strange possibility that an aging yogi may choose, if the opportunity presents itself, to leave his body and take on that of another, such as that of a younger person who is dying or who has just died, and then reviving it. In such a case the new body will appear to have the same mannerisms of the original yogi, not the recently departed. This rare occasion is called para kaya pravesha. Finally, there is the also rare exit achieved by yogic concentration on the solar plexus whereby the inner fire is generated which reduces the body to ashes. This is mentioned in the Kathopanishad and the Mahakala Nidhipanishad. Then there are the spectacular cases mentioned in Tibetan Buddhism where the adept transforms or dematerializes the elements of his physical body into either a 'body of light' or the 'rainbow body' through the culmination of his complete actualization of his nondual practice and not strictly through yogic siddhi. These are things written about, none of which most of us have to worry much about!
All of these examples were taken from Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama, who also adds these wise words of advise, "Birth and death are two events in life which are considered to be very minor according to the yogis and sages of the Himalayans." Have faith in God and just let go should be sufficient for most of us to accomplish. (21)
A disturbing and relatively frightening concept put forth by anadi, however, pertains to a time-limit on the evolution of a 'dormant soul'; that one can, in fact, undergo actual 'soul-death' if he has not chosen the path of positive evolution by a certain number of lifetimes. I hesitate to include this because much of his teaching seems precise and clarifying that I don't want to cast doubt on all of it with this one example. But he said it, not I. Yet, as PB said, those on the path are no doubt saved from such a destiny, as they have already chosen to evolve into the light. To quote anadi:
"It is a common misconception that to remember our original self is to bring into the present who we have always been. A seeker who unimaginatively follows the idea of self-remembrance may in fact falsely believe that he has already existed prior to this cycle of time as his perfect soul, which only by some inexplicable misfortune became lost in forgetfulness [In advaita, the very existence of the soul has been ascribed to maya or transcendental illusion, ignorance which, according to the philosophical school of Sankara, while having no beginning, has an end through knowledge; other traditions, such as the theological schools of Ramanuja and the various mystics, which admit the real existence of the soul, have their own explanations for the origin of our ignorance]. In reality, however, prior to becoming lost in the dimension of ignorance, we did not exist at all [this is so radical that I can only take it as meaning something like, as PB postulated, that not the Overself or soul, but an emanant of that soul has incarnated and been developing through a long process of evolution to know itself as soul once again in a new way, a way that it has never known before; to say that the soul never existed seems extreme, and it also stands in contrast with what anadi says elsewhere about the soul being in an original state of unconscious union with the creator; this implies that it pre-exists, that it has eternal being, as all traditions maintain]. Indeed, forgetfulness is our very beginning. The task of the great remembrance is our destiny, the exalted realization of our divine potential. The soul is not our forgotten past, but our ultimate future."
[In other words, he appears to be siding with those who would suggest that there has been no 'fall', but an evolutionary opportunity to grow into conscious union with the divine; this is also a critique of advaita, however. But is the advaita explanation really that foreign to what anadi says, or just a different model to explain our state of ignorance? Vedantist James Swartz says that the ever-conscious Self paradoxically can veil itself, and then manifest a lila in which either we or it 're-awakens' to itself. He qualifies this as being a 'relative' and not non-dual explanation. But Dzogchen and most advaita schools hold that the primordial unborn consciousness (both our true nature and that of the universe) is ever-awake, it doesn't need to re-awaken to itself. However, they also say 'we' (but who are 'we'?) made some mistakes of knowledge and became lost in samsara. They don't explain how that happened, or how our true nature can be ever-awake if we don't know it. Neither of these models delves into the why of the fall into ignorance, only the way out. The why or how is considered to be a question 'not fit for edification.' Yet we ask it, because it has bearing on how we view or conceive of realization or enlightenment itself. Is there a real Soul, or just 'the one Self', how do we know?, and what, if any, is the relationship between the two?
Now here comes the difficult part to swallow. I am not saying it is false, only that I don't know and have no way of knowing if it is true. I will add that to assume anything resembling knowledge about it seems unjustified and unverifiable, and to say it is 'based on revelation' doesn't cut it, in my opinion:
"The dormant soul can remain inactive for many lifetimes before finally she becomes ready to awaken. Only in rare cases of evolutionary deformity does the soul never awaken. When she becomes permanently stagnated in her evolution, or serves the lower intelligence of darkness over the course of many lifetimes, an irreversible corruption of intelligence can occur that results in her total annihilation. She becomes extinct - lost forever. Like a seed failing to germinate after many seasons, she finally disintegrates."
"Each soul has only a limited number of lifetimes in which to become activated before she withers away and dies. If the soul is lost like this, one's individuality is erased and its essence of I am dissolves back into the source of creation. it is not a punishment; it is as if one had never existed. Unless our sense of me solidifies through the birth of I am, continuity within the whole is not guaranteed." (22)
I personally cannot accept this - which doesn't mean it is not true. Yet, how could one ever know if it was true or not? It is definitely contrary to the schools of Vedanta, Taoism, Dzogchen, Sant Mat, and other great traditions - all except certain fundamentalist religions. Indeed, Paramhansa Yogananda affirmed:
"Impossible!" he declared with absolute certainty. "The soul is part of God. How could any part of Him be destroyed?" (23)
Daskalos says:
"No one gets lost, no one has ever got lost, and no one will ever get lost as an ego-soul" [meaning Spirit-Being or Pneuma]. (24)
However, regarding souls like that of a Hitler or Stalin:
"There ego [soul] will not be dissolved. They will simply be put to sleep for a very long time and when their time comes to awaken they will move one step upward, but only one. Their ascent, or if you wish to call it their maturation, will be gradual and tiring." (25)
Therefore, where there is smoke there may be fire. Daskalos, tells us that there is a form of oblivion, a sub-plane of those realms where certain souls may be sent, temporarily, for a specific purpose:
"Erevos..is a form of psychonoetic abyss, which is not punishment but a necessary condition similar, I would say, to oblivion where their memories will be erased so that when they return to consciousness they will not remember anything. You will see that what separates the various worlds, the etheric of the gross material, the psychic and the noetic, is the veil of Erevos or abyss. When one enters there one ceases to remember, reflects no impressions, yet one knows one exists. Quite often human beings enter there during deep sleep. The ancient Greeks called it "The Dregs of the Water." It is a necessary condition to force human spirits that vibrate satanically, so to speak, to forget." (26)
According to Daskalos, our Moon is also such a place. I know, sounds crazy, doesn't it? But "more things on heaven and earth, Horatio"...
What anadi wrote may serve as a goad to practice, I grant that (!), in a form of 'scare-tactic' way, yet we have it on the words of Jesus that there is hope for the worst of sinners, and, as PB added, if that is the case there is certainly hope for you and I, who are probably not that bad. Anyone in whom the thought of self-knowledge, or finding God, or Truth, has present, is already on the path, going forwards, and need have no fear. Nor are such questions as fitness applicable. "The day in which the question of solving the mystery of life arises is the greatest day in a man's life. He in whom this question has arisen is fit, I tell you," said Kirpal Singh.
And the Bhagavad Gita tells us:
“Whatever a person has meditated upon his whole life, that is what he remembers at the time of his death, and that is what he obtains in his next birth.” (8.6)
Yet this famous verse itself may raise questions, as some have read it and fear that at the last minute they will forget. It must be remembered, however, and is reasonable to assume, that it is the general trend of the mind that is of importance, not just one final thought - that is ancient superstition - for what if one dies in an accident or coma? Even then, one will reawaken once the link with the body is severed, and one's character as manifest in his deeper bodies will go with him. If one has thought of the Truth, the Master, and lived a life in Him, one will naturally go where He goes, or where He chooses to take you. Or, if one's mind abides in the ‘natural state’, and one has lived life from that perspective, then? One becomes ‘trackless’, like a fish in water, or a bird in flight. Either way is supremely Good.
“I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.” - Meister Eckhart
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[For additional information, please see The Enigmatic Kabir and Dying in the Master's Company on this website].
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"Bright Eyes"
(1) anadi, book of enlightenment (www.anaditeaching.com, 2011), p. 208
(2) Jose Ignacio Cabezon, trans. A Dose of Emptiness: An Annotated Translation of the sTong thun chen mo of mKhas grub dge legs dpal bzang (Shakti Nagar, India: Sri Satguru Publications, 1993), p. 107
mKhas grub dge legs dpal bzang (1385-1419) was one of two chief disciples of the famous Tsong kha pa, founder of the dGe lugs pa school of Tibetan Buddhism, the yellow hat sect of the Dalai Lamas. In his book he critiques many schools of thought and practice of his time. It is a very interesting book as many of the views he criticizes are actually quite popular today.
(3) Aziz Kristof (anadi), Transmission of Awakening (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), p. 72-73
(4) Kyriacos Markides, Fire in the Heart (London, England: ARKANA, 1991), p. 59-60
(5) Ibid, p. 207-209
(6) Ibid, p. 202
(7) Ibid, p. 212-217
(8) Kirpal Singh, Mystery of Death (Sanbornton, New Hampshire: The Sant Bani Press, 1980), p. 16
(9) Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Vol. 6 (Burdett, New York: Larson Publications, 1999),1.1.36
(10) Ibid, Vol. 2, 5.416
(11) Ibid, Vol 15, Part 2, 3.239
(12) Dzogchen Ponlop, Mind Beyond Death (Ithaca, new York: Snow Lion Publications, 2006), p. 195
(13) Kirpal Singh, op. cit., p. 75
(14) Brunton, op. cit.
(15) My Meeting with Ramana Maharshi by Mercedes deCosta
(16) Paul Brunton, Conscious Immortality: Conversations with Ramana Maharshi
(17) Kyriacos Markides, The Magus of Strovolos (London, England: ARKANA, 1985), p. 95
(18) Paul Brunton, reference misplaced
(19) Arran Stephens, Journey to the Luminous (Seattle, Washington: Elton-Wolf Publications, 1999), p. 41
(20) The Visions of Sadhu Sundar Singh
(21) Swami Rama, Living with the Himalayan Masters (Honesdale, PA: The Himalayan Institute Press, (1978), 2001), p. 421-422
(22) anadi, op. cit., p. 165-166
(23) Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters), Conversations with Yogananda (Nevada City, California: Crystal Clarity Publications, 2004), p. 293
(24) Markides, Fire in the Heart, op. cit., p. 187
(25) Ibid, p. 188
(26) Markides, The Magus of Strovolos, op. cit., p. 22
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