Beyond the Grave – Part Two
Our experiences in the afterlife continue to be influenced by our thoughts. Whatever beliefs we hold in our waking life about the nature of life after death, will come to manifest themselves, just as certainly as our beliefs dictate our experiences while we are alive.
The more strongly we believe in them, the more dramatically they are likely to manifest. Just as our mental images create our lives on earth, so they determine the nature of our experiences after death. As these mental images vary, so the after-life conditions come to vary as well.
Just as individuals experience vastly different scenarios in life, so they come to experience vastly different conditions after death. These conditions are created by belief.
MAHARAJ: “Mind is the very foundation of your bondage and liberation. The Muslims have the concept that after death the soul is confined to the tomb until the dissolution of the world; therefore they provide for that soul. In the Christian religion also they say that man, once buried in the grave, will be awakened only on doomsday and judgement will be given.
QUESTION: Does that really happen to those people?
MAHARAJ: If they die with that concept it must happen, because the mind creates everything.” 9
Again, the images which appear in the after-life state appear devastatingly real to each newly transformed soul. Yet these images are nothing more than the projections of their minds, as we see from this colourful passage from the Advaita Bodha Deepika:
“The jiva (soul) overpowered by the unreal coma before death has different illusions according to his past actions. After death, he believes ‘Here is heaven; it is very lovely; I am in it; I am now a wonderful celestial being; so many charming celestial damsels are at my service; I have nectar for drink’, or, ‘Here is the region of Death; here is the God of Death; these are the messengers of death; Oh! they are so cruel – they pitch me into hell!’ or, ‘Here is the region of the pitris; or of Brahma, or of Vishnu, or of Siva’ and so on.
“Thus according to their nature, the latencies of past karma present themselves before the Self, who remains always the unchanging Ether of Consciousness, as illusions of birth, death, passage to heaven, hell or other regions. They are only delusions of the mind and not real.” 10
The regions of Heaven and Hell will seem absolutely real to those who experience them, just as the world appears so convincingly real now in the waking state of consciousness. These regions will however be projections of those thoughts which characterised their minds. As Ramana Maharshi points out:
“You carry heaven and hell with you. Your lust, anger, etc. produce these regions. They are like dreams.” 11
Certain cultures, such as those of ancient Egypt and Tibet, have traditionally placed particular emphasis upon the need for souls to understand the nature of their after-death experiences. In these cultures, the art of living well was not just a matter of conducting their affairs wisely in this world, but of recognising the stages and nature of their experiences in the next.
Individuals were not only encouraged to live well, but also to die well, in the full light of understanding. In the Tibetan culture, death was regarded as the onset of a journey into the vivid world of Bardo, the intermediate world where spirits wander after death, while waiting to be born again.
Instructions for the conduct of affairs in this after-world came to be set down in a lengthy book, which the Tibetans called the Bardo Thodol, or Book of the Dead. The first part of this book deals with the experiences which occur at the moment of death, and describes the various visionary entities that may be encountered by the wandering soul.
The latter portion of this book is concerned with the process of rebirth, and prescribes how a soul may avoid an unfortunate reincarnation. In translating this esoteric work, the English scholar W. Y. Evans-Wentz stressed that whatever took place in the world of Bardo, was nothing more than the illusory projection of the witnessing mind. As he wrote in his introduction to this work:
“Definite psychological significance attaches to each of the deities appearing in the Bardo Thodol; but, in order to grasp it, the student must bear in mind that the apparitional visions seen by the deceased in the Intermediate State are not visions of reality, but nothing more than the hallucinatory embodiments of the thought-forms born of the mental content of the percipient.
“Accordingly the Peaceful Deities are the personified forms of the sublimest human sentiments, which proceed from the psychic heart-centre. The Wrathful Deities are the personifications of the reasonings and proceed from the psychic brain centre. As the Bardo Thodol text makes very clear by repeated assertions, none of all these deities or spiritual beings has any real individual existence any more than have human beings.” 12
To the soul who before death was utterly convinced of the reality and identity of his or her existence, the entities encountered in the world of Bardo will seem absolutely real.
Similarly, those who in their earthly lives had believed implicitly in the existence of Heaven and Hell, find these regions to be just as magnificent or terrifying as they had imagined them. Despite their illusionary nature, there will appear to be nothing wraith-like about them.
The soul will insist that these regions are the true reality, beyond all other experiences. The specific character of these divine or infernal regions will, however, depend on the particular beliefs which motivated that individual soul during its earthly life. As Evans-Wentz explains:
“Accordingly, for a Buddhist of some other School, as for a Hindu, or a Moslem, or a Christian, the Bardo experiences would be appropriately different; the Buddhists’ or the Hindu’s thought-forms, as in a dream state, would give rise to corresponding visions of the deities of the Buddhist or Hindu pantheon; a Moslem’s, to visions of the Moslem Paradise, a Christian’s, to visions of the Christian Heaven, or an American Indian’s to visions of the Happy Hunting Ground.” 13
The question arises as to what the after-death state of an atheist would be, who had held no earthly views at all about an after-life, and who had believed that life simply ended at the moment of death.
When Alexandra David-Neel, a French scholar who lived and travelled widely in Tibet at the beginning of the 20th century, asked this question of a Tibetan Lama, he replied:
“Perhaps such a man would see apparitions corresponding to the religious beliefs he held in his childhood, or to those familiar to him held by the people among whom he has lived. According to the degree of his intelligence and post mortem lucidity, he would perhaps, examine and analyse these visions and remember the reasons which, during his life-time made him deny the reality of that which now appears to him.
“He might thus conclude that he is beholding a mirage. A less intelligent man in whom belief in total annihilation was the result of indifference or dullness, rather than of reasoning, will perhaps see no vision at all. However, this will not prevent the energy generated by his past actions from following its course and manifesting itself through new phenomena. In other words, it will not prevent the rebirth of the materialist.” 14
In spite of the emphasis which the Bardo Thodol places on the after-death state and the need to ensure an auspicious rebirth, Tibetan Lamas remain perfectly aware that the very idea of an individual soul is itself illusory. For as their orthodox creed proclaims, “All aggregates are impermanent; no ‘ego’ exists in the person, nor in anything.” 15
While the nature of the after-death state remains a mystery to most people, there are cases on record of individuals who have apparently approached the portals of death and, after a brief glimpse beyond, have returned to the world of waking consciousness. The anecdotal accounts of their experiences are referred to as “near-death-experiences”, or NDE’s.
It is difficult to draw precise conclusions of the after-death state from NDE’s, partly because the subjects involved find it so difficult to put their experiences into words, but also because there is no guarantee that what occurs in a near death-experience is representative of what actually happens after death.
A sufficient body of experience exists on record however, to suggest that a common thread of circumstance does run through these experiences, and that they do in fact vary according to the culture, and therefore belief of the individuals concerned.
Among the cases of NDE’s that have occurred to western subjects, certain specific features have tended to recur. These features can be grouped into five broad stages which commonly form part of an NDE. These five categories tend to be repeated among people raised in a western culture, and to recur, regardless of the subject’s age or sex.
The first stage of a near-death-experience is reported to be a feeling of extraordinary peace, warmth and comfort. Although the incident responsible for the NDE may have been traumatic, there is seldom reference to any lasting sense of pain. Almost invariably, a momentary flash of pain gives way to a profound sense of peace.
As the experience continues, subjects find themselves separated from their physical body. They find that they are able to look down upon it, and to observe others working on their inert physical form. Often they seem to float in space, and like Jung, find themselves looking down upon the earth from a great height.
In the third stage, subjects frequently report what they call a “tunnel” experience. In this stage they find themselves moving down a dark, horizontal, cylindrical tunnel, often at great speed. In some cases this tunnel experience is accompanied by a rapid review of some or all of the events of the subject’s life.
In the fourth stage of a near-death-experience, western subjects report that they emerge from this tunnel and encounter a brilliant, although not dazzling, white or golden light. This light is not a mere source of illumination, like a lamp, but seems instead to possess an impersonal, though deep and compassionate sense of being. It seems to be alive.
In the fifth and final stage, the subject recalls experiencing a landscape of exquisite beauty, which represents a form of supernatural paradise. The subject witnesses scenes of surpassing beauty, with trees, flowers, mountains and seas lit with a kaleidoscope of living colour which defies description. In cases where this fifth stage is reported, the experience inevitably ends with the subject being drawn back to the physical body. 16
Continued in Part Three
References:
9 “Seeds of Consciousness”, The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, edited by Jean Dunn, Grove Press, New York, 1982, p. 81.
10 “Advaita Bodha Deepika”, translated by Swami Saraswati, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, 1967, pp. 18-19.
11 “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi”, recorded by Swami Saraswathi, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, 1968, p. 46.
12 W. Y. Evans-Wentz, “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, Oxford University Press, London, 1927, pp. 31-32.
13 Ibid, pp. 33-34.
14 Alexandra David-Neel, “Magic and Mystery in Tibet”, Penguin, New York, 1971, pp. 39-40.
15 Ibid, p. 23.
16 Brian Bates and Adrian Stanley, “The Epidemiology and Differential Diagnosis of Near-Death Experience”, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol.55(4), 1985, pp. 542-549.
