Geeta Darshan #10

This question is precious and worth deep reflection.

No one can see his own death. Death can only ever be seen as the death of another. Because death happens outside; it never happens within. Understand this.

Whenever you have seen death, you have seen someone else’s. Whatever notion you carry of your own death has been formed by watching others die. It is not that you have not died many times—you have died many times—but your notion of death is borrowed from seeing others die.

When another dies, you are outside. The body becomes motionless. Breath stops. The heartbeat ceases. The blood no longer flows. The person cannot speak. He becomes lifeless. But that which was within never dies.

And how can a man see his own death! The one within cannot see, “I am dying.” He will still find, “I am alive.” If there is awareness, he will see clearly, “I am alive.” If there is unconsciousness, he will not notice at all.

We have died many times, but in unconsciousness. Hence we have no idea. We do not know what happens in death. If even once we die with awareness, we become deathless—because then we will know that everything dies only on the outside. What I had taken to be “me” has broken, scattered; the body is destroyed—but I, I still am.

No one has ever experienced his own death. Those who die unconsciously never know what happened. Those who die consciously know: I am alive. What died was the body; I am not the body.

So think of it another way. Even in imagination you cannot picture your own death—let alone experience it. Imagination can be false, you have heard that anything can be imagined. But try to imagine your own dying, and you will see—it cannot be done. Whatever you do, you will imagine your body lying dead, but the one who is seeing it remains standing alive outside, even in imagination. However hard you try to think, “I am dead,” how will you die? You cannot die even in imagination. Because the one who is thinking, seeing, to whom the fantasy appears, remains alive as the witness.

It is difficult to die in reality; it is difficult even in imagination. People say imagination is limitless. It is not. Imagine death and you will discover even imagination has limits.

Therefore Arjuna sees everyone going into the mouth of death, but not himself. No one can see himself. If Arjuna were to see himself going into death, then who would be the seer? The one going into death would be separate, and the one who sees would be separate. If Arjuna is seeing the march into death, his body may well go into death, but Arjuna cannot—he will remain standing outside. He is the one who sees.

That which is the soul we have therefore called the drashta—the seer. It sees everything. It even sees death.

So it never occurred to Arjuna; there is no way it could occur. He is outside—he is the one who sees. Everyone else is dying—friends and foes, great warriors—but it does not even occur to Arjuna that “I am dying,” or “I will die.”

This is the curious thing: you see people dying every day, you even feel fear, but if you reflect you will find the conviction never settles deep within that “I will die.” However frightened you may be on the surface that death will come, inwardly the thought never penetrates: “I will die.” Within, the trust remains: only others die; I will not.

This trust is a reflection of that deep inner center where death never enters. Death happens only around it, on the outside. Your house is taken from you again and again. Your garments are taken from you again and again; they wear out and are discarded, new garments are obtained. But you—you are never destroyed.

Therefore imagining your own death is impossible. The direct vision of your own death is impossible. And one who attempts to behold his own death comes to the experience of the deathless.

All meditative processes are attempts to experience one’s death. All the methods of yoga are efforts to see yourself dying consciously.

What will happen? Everything will die, and you will remain.

This happened to Ramana: he felt that death was coming. He was ill; death seemed to be approaching. And when death is coming anyway, why struggle? He loosened his limbs and lay down. He said, “All right. If death is coming, let it come. Let me see what death is!”

The whole body grew cold. It seemed the body had become separate. The body appeared dead, and yet Ramana felt, “I am alive.” That experience became the revolution of his life. Before that he was Ramana; after that he became Bhagavan. Until then he had known, “I am this body, which will die.” Afterward he knew, “This body is not me. I am that which will not die.” His identification changed. His entire vision changed. A new birth began—a deathless life, a new beginning.

All the processes of yoga are to teach you the art of dying voluntarily. The ancient scriptures say: the acharya, the master, is death—because a master with whom you cannot taste death, what kind of master is he?

But the experience of death is very paradoxical. On one side, whatever you had taken yourself to be—name, fame, address, body—everything dies. On the other side, that which you had never imagined within you, the arising of a center for which there is no possibility of death—the deathless.

Arjuna therefore did not have that experience. And you too fear death only until you have the experience. The discrimination between what within you belongs to death and what is deathless—that discrimination is wisdom. To draw the line between what in you is going to die and what will never die—that drawing of the line is wisdom. In samadhi that line is drawn. You become clearly divided in two.

One is your shell, which will die—because it was born. Whatever is born will die. And within is your kernel, which will not die—because it was never born. The body has birth; you have no birth. The body has birth, the body has death. The body you received from your parents will die. But that which you are—there is no way for it to die.

But do not sit back simply believing this. We are quick to believe, especially when it is to our liking. We all want not to die; therefore to believe “the soul is immortal” requires little argument. Our fear itself becomes enough argument. If anyone tells us “the soul is immortal,” our heart is pleased—“Good, we will not die.” People rush to believe this. Do not be in haste. Belief will solve nothing. Only experience is the solution.

I say: do not accept it on my word. Krishna says: do not accept it on his word. Buddha says: do not accept it on his word. Their saying is only to prepare you to experiment—do not believe. Understand only this much: they say so; let me experiment and see. And accept it only if experience comes—otherwise, do not accept it.

Otherwise our condition is such that we go on believing without experience. Such belief will be superficial, hollow, only on paper; a slight rain will wash it away—it will not stand. A superficial belief will not keep you alert in death; you will become unconscious.

Doctors now use anesthesia for major operations. But death is the greatest operation—because your entire bodily system is separated from you. Therefore nature too cannot allow it to happen while you are conscious. Nature anesthetizes you: before death you become unconscious.

It is such a great operation—none greater. One surgeon removes a bone, another two bones, another replaces a heart. But death separates your whole system from you. It is surgery of the deepest kind. In it, making you unconscious is absolutely necessary. So before death you become unconscious. If you can remain aware in death, you will know that you do not die.

Meditation cultivates the capacity to remain aware even in death—because long before dying one has repeatedly seen oneself as separate from the body.

It is not difficult. If you experiment, it is simple. If you merely believe, it is very difficult. If you experiment, it is very simple—because you are already separate. Only a little inner awareness needs to be increased. You need to develop the capacity to look within with eyes closed.

But death is far away. You cannot even see your sleep—how will you see death? You sleep every evening. If you live sixty years, you will spend twenty years sleeping. Sleep is no small matter; a third of life goes into it. But do you know what sleep is? Have you ever watched sleep with awareness—sleep descending upon you, enveloping you, surrounding you from all sides, the body growing sluggish, sleep entering—and you watching?

You cannot even see sleep—how will you see death? Death is a very deep swoon. Sleep is a small swoon. Let a pot fall and you awaken. A mosquito bites and you awaken. Not very deep. And in such a shallow state you cannot remain aware—how will you in death?

If you are going to experiment, anyone who wants to awaken in relation to death should begin with sleep. At night when you lie in bed, close your eyes and keep only one intention: I will remain awake. Let the body relax; keep awareness alert. And keep the resolve: I will see when sleep comes; when my body passes from waking into sleep; when the gear shifts; when I enter the world of sleep—I will see it. Just silently watch.

You will not know when sleep came; you will forget the intention to watch. In the morning you will recall: I tried to watch, but I could not; sleep came and watching was lost. But persist. If for three months, continuously and without interruption, you keep trying to remain awake as sleep approaches, any day it will happen that sleep will descend upon you as dusk descends and darkness spreads, and within you will remain awake; you will see, “This is sleep.”

The day you have seen sleep, you have taken a great step—very great. Then the next experiment: through the night let sleep continue, continue, continue—but within, in one corner, awareness also remains that I am sleeping, turning over, a mosquito is biting, my limbs have grown limp, now the moment of waking is near, now I am waking.

The day from dusk to dawn the body sleeps and you remain awake—now there is no difficulty; now you can enter death. Then the third step is easy. If this much is mastered—it may take years—but if it is, you will become a different person, a new person. You will have conquered your sleep.

And one who has conquered sleep will have no difficulty in conquering death—because death is a greater sleep, a deeper swoon. If you can be awake in sleep, you will immediately begin to know that you are separate and the body is separate—because the body will sleep and you will remain awake.

Bear in mind: you will not know the separateness of body and soul until you do some experiment in which their functions diverge. Right now when you feel hunger, your body feels it and you feel it; it is difficult to decide whether the body is hungry or you are hungry. In whatever you do now, your functions are in sync; body and you are aligned. You must practice something in which one thing happens to the body and the opposite to you.

People have experimented with hunger as well. That is what fasting is—an experiment in which the body will feel hunger and I will not allow myself to feel hungry. Fasting is not the name of starving. Most people who fast merely starve—because the body feels hunger and so do they. In fact, while eating, the soul scarcely even notices hunger; in fasting it notices more.

When you are eating, hunger is met before it penetrates deeply; it does not go far inside. If you fast, hunger remains all day. While eating, it comes twice or thrice a day; if you do not eat, it follows you all day. The body is hungry, and the soul within too becomes filled with hunger.

Fasting is an experiment of the same kind as the experiment with sleep. Let the body feel hunger and remain inwardly without hunger—then the two functions will separate.

The day it is clear to you: the body is hungry and I stand within content, without hunger—that day you will know the difference. The body has slept and you are awake—you will know the difference. And when this difference is known, then when death comes—the body will die, you will not—and you will know that difference too.

Begin with sleep. Slowly, slowly the inner differentiation becomes clear; light grows within. The light is with us, but we use it outside; we never turn it within. So we see the whole world and miss ourselves.

Therefore it did not appear to Arjuna—because one’s own death is never seen; only another’s is seen.

Therefore do not rely much on what appears concerning others; it is false, superficial. What appears within concerning yourself—only that is true, that is deep. And when your own truth appears to you, only then will the truth of another appear. The day you know “I will not die,” that day no one will die for you either. You will say, “He changed his clothes.”

Before Ramakrishna’s death, it was known that within three days he would die. Those who awaken can announce their death—because the body’s connections begin loosening. Nothing breaks off all at once: for some it takes six months for the body to disconnect.

Therefore six months before death, one whose awareness is clear can state the date: “On this date, at this hour, I will die.” Three days before, the connection is virtually gone—only the last thread remains. It becomes visible that only one thread is left—it may snap any moment.

So three days earlier Ramakrishna knew that death was approaching. His wife Sarada wept and wailed. Ramakrishna would say to her, “Foolish one, why do you cry and wail? I will not die.” But Sarada would say, “All the doctors say, all our loved ones say that your death is near!” And he would say, “Whom do you believe—them or me? Me or them? I will not die. I will remain right here.”

But how could Sarada believe? What Ramakrishna was saying was from his own inner experience: “I will not die.”

Ramakrishna had cancer, a severe cancer of the throat. Food and water had stopped. Speaking was difficult. Yet he said, “Listen, I tell you: the one who had cancer—that one will die. I never had cancer. This throat is choked, this throat is blocked, this throat is rotten, it is eaten by cancer—but I see I am not this throat. The throat will die, this body will decay and vanish—but I will not die.”

But how are we to trust this? Because we have no experience. We believe we are the body. So when the body dies, we believe we too have died. The illusion of our life becomes the illusion of our death as well.

Arjuna did not see it, and you will not see it either. The day you stand at the gates of death and see that everything is dying, even then one of you will remain standing outside. You do not die; there is no way for you to die. Therefore Arjuna is not speaking of his own death.

This question is important. And those who understand arithmetic will very clearly feel that this is how it must be: a part can never be the Whole. How can a fragment be the total? A fragment is a fragment.

If from an ocean we take a palmful of water, that is not the ocean; it can only be a part of the ocean. This is plain arithmetic. Naturally, a one-rupee note is a one-rupee note; it cannot be a hundred, it can be a fraction of a hundred, a one-hundredth. This is straightforward arithmetic. And as far as arithmetic goes, it is perfectly right.

But religion goes beyond arithmetic—and religion is a very upside-down arithmetic. To understand it you will have to make a little effort. Ordinary arithmetic we use every day, we know it; the arithmetic of religion we do not know at all. The first axiom of religion’s arithmetic is that there the Whole and the part are one.

You have heard the opening sutra of the Isha Upanishad! From that Whole, the whole emerges, and yet the Whole remains behind. If you take one rupee out of a hundred, ninety-nine will remain, not a hundred. But this sutra says something astounding: it says, even if you take the hundred out of the hundred, still a hundred remains behind. Even if you take the whole out of the Whole, the Whole still remains.

What does this mean? It upsets the entire order of our arithmetic. If this Upanishadic sutra is right, then our arithmetic is wrong—in the realm of the spiritual, arithmetic is wrong. There are reasons for it. If we understand it in two or three ways, it will become clear.

First, that which is formless—you cannot take a part out of it; there is no way. You can scoop a handful of water out of the ocean because there is space outside the ocean; therefore you can hold water in your palm.

Now, suppose it is ocean alone, and there is no space outside the ocean. Then even if you fill your palm, what you hold will not be a part; it will be the whole ocean. We take something “out” only because there is an “outside” available. We can scoop a palmful of water from the ocean because there is an outside.

It is difficult to take even a palmful out of God, because there is no space outside of God—there is only That. How will you take anything outside it? Who will take it, and where will he put it? There is no way to take anything outside of it.