Ik oankaar sat naam satgur parsaad.
Dhan dhan paar braham parmesar ji.
Dhan dhan gur-guru-satgur-gurbani-sat sangat-sat naam.
Guru pyare ji,
Gur fateh parvaan karna ji.
We have tried to answer your questions as follows, please feel free to communicate further. Thanks to the Almighty for giving us an opportunity to speak to a truth seeker like you.
QUESTION 1: WHAT IS DEATH?
There are two deaths that we need to understand on this spiritual path, the first death is the death of the physical body and the second one is the death of Haumai, death of Ahankaar, death of ego.
Let us talk about the first kind of death (that is what you are referring to in your question) first: the death of physical body – based on your previous lives and more specifically based on your Karams from the previous lives you have been given this human life, obviously your deeds from the previous lives have been good that is why you have been given this human life, because Gurbani says: Gur seva Tey Bhagat Kamai Tab Eh Manas Dehi Paayee – you must have done some seva of Dhan Dhan Paar Braham Pita Parmesar and also you must have accummulated some Bandgi from your previous lives that is why you have been very fortunately blessed with this human life. You have basically taken birth to continue collecting more Bandgi and Seva in this life and keep on moving closer to the Akal Purakh, that is why the human life is very important, this is the only form of life on earth which is given a chance to reach salvation, which makes it even more important.
Your ultimate destiny is to be one with the Nirgun Saroop of Dhan Dhan Paar Braham Pita Parmesar Ji, no matter what that is bound to happen, if not in this human life, it will happen for sure at some point in time and space in future. However, it is dependent upon your Karni, if your Karni in the previous lives is more Sat Ki Karni than Asat Ki Karni or if your Sat Ki Karni is more and more powerful than your Asat Ki Karni then you are bound to get the Gur Parsaad of Naam, Naam Simran, Naam Ki Kamai, Puran Bandgi and Seva- Parupkaar and Maha Parupkaar, which when served with full faith and trust, devotion and love will take you to salvation, this will bring you Puran Braham Gyan – Puran Tatt Gyan about your own existance and your merger with Akal Purakh, it is also called full self realization of your ownself and you will be relieved of the cycle of death and birth, but if your Asat Ki Karni is more and more powerful then you will continue to go through the cycle of death and birth until you qualify yourself for the Gur Parsaad of Naam, Naam Simran, Naam Ki Kamai, Puran bandgi and Seva- Parupkaar and Maha Parupkaar. So based on your Karni from previous lives there is a certain time in space that is provided to you to improvise your Karni towards making it Sat Ki Karni- more precisely there are a certain number of swaas breaths you are provided to live in your current body, which is called wealth of Swaas – wealth of breaths. Please keep in mind the life element in your physical body is your Atma – which is also called the soul, and this soul is a part of the Nirgun Saroop – so it is also called the Jyot – and this Jyot operates your body, all your senses and limbs work because of this Jyot inside you, and as soon as the Jyot is withdrawn or the Atma leaves the body upon spending the wealth of breaths then the physical body dies, which is the first kind of death. When the Jyot leaves the body or when the life element leaves the body, when the soul leaves the body, when the Atma leaves the body then the body dies.
At this point you are either not born again if you have already achieved the salvation, or you are born again if you have not been able to achieve salvation yet. According to your Karni all your good and bad deeds are carried over to your new life with your soul.
The second kind of death is the death of Haumai, death of Ahankaar, death of ego which leads you to full awareness (divine wisdom) about your existance as a Jyot, a soul, or Atma and not physical body, which is perishable and only you as a soul prevail, you as a Jyot prevail, you as Atma prevail forever because you go back and merge in the Nirgun Saroop. This death brings you salvation and relieves you from the cycle of death and birth. How the death of Haumai takes place? When you go through the Puran Bandgi process, then you win over the Maya completely, you win over the Panj Doots- Kaam Krodh Lobh Moh and Ahankaar and all your desires are eliminated then you win over the Maya, at this point your mind is eliminated, your own wisdom is eliminated and is replaced by the divine wisdom, Puran Braham Gyan, Puran Tatt Gyan, and your Hirda gets filled with all the divine qualities, your Hirda gets filled with Puran Jyot Parkash and all your senses and actions come under the direct control and direction of this Param Jyot – this is also called the salvation stage or complete self realization stage. As a part of this process you see and physically sense that everything that happens inside you and around you is done by divine super powers and there is nothing that your physical body does, there is just one super divine power that is behind everything and that super divine power is running the entire universe. When this happens then that is called death of Haumai, death of Ahankaar, death of ego and by doing so you achieve the salvation.
QUESTION 2: WHY ARE WE SO SCARED OF IT AND HOW DOES THIS PROCESS TAKE PLACE?
As already explained the physical death comes when your wealth of Swaas- wealth of breaths provided to you based on your Karni from previous lives is completely spent, at this point the soul is withdrawn from the physical body or the Jyot is withdrawn from the physical body, or the Atma leaves the physical body, and since it is you – soul or Jyot or Atma who was running this body and when you leave the physical body then there is no life left in the physical body and therefore it dies and goes back to the elements that it was complised of (water, fire, air, earth and sky – five non compatible elements being held together by your soul or Jyot or Atma – super divine power).
The scareness comes due to attachment, the misunderstanding of understanding your ownnself as physical body and not the Jyot, soul or Atma. The scareness comes from the fear of losing everything in all physical senses, the fear of losing all your relations, all your physical possessions, all the worldly attachments. So this fear of losing is called attachment and is the reason for scarenes. When we go through the Puran Bandgi process then we become fearless, we become free of the attachment and that is why the death of a Puran Purakh is painless because he has a full understanding of this attachment and his detachment from all these worldly things makes his departure painfree and pleasurable. As a mater of fact when we go through the Puran Bandgi process and when our Sat Sarovars are illuminated with Naam then we do get the divine powers to leave this physical body and we do get out of body experiences, which is same as experiencing death, and these kinds of experiences are very pleasurable.
QUESTION 3 : HOW DOES IT COME AND WHAT STEPS OCCUR WHEN DEATH TAKES PLACE? IS IT A PAINFUL PROCESS.
How both kinds of deaths come has already been explained. You can experience it yourself if you dedicate yourself to the Puran Bandgi process, when you will go in to Samadhee then you may have out of body experiences as we explained and you yourself can experience death before your physical death occurs. As far as the pains are concerned, yes it is very painful for a common person, because a common person won’t like to die any way due to the fear of losing, due to attachment and so on, so obviously it will be very painful for him to leave the body and let the body die. So it is very, very painful in all physical senses when the death occurs. There is only one way to get relieved of this pain and make it a pleasurable experience and that is to achieve salvation.
DASSAN DASS
