For example, the pranic body holds all the desires that arise in life. The mental body holds all the feelings of guilt experienced in life. The etheric body holds the experiences of mental pain felt in life. When the spirit leaves the body it crosses all the seven body layers. The physical body dies. But, the remaining six bodies do not totally die. If you are holding a lot of desires in your life, all those unfulfilled desires are held in the pranic body. So even though the physical body dies, the pranic body does not die. When the life force leaves the pranic body, the being experiences tremendous suffering. 167 When you leave the physical body, your consciousness will be torn from the body and you will immediately fall into coma.

According to doctors, coma is the automatic mechanism to make you not to feel the pain. It is automatic anesthesia. If the pain becomes too much, you can't bear and you automatically fall into coma. When you move from the first body layer to the second body layer, all the unfulfilled desires, all the ways in which you wanted to live but did not live come up. When this happens, it is almost as if ten people are standing in a room kicking a football around. What will happen? Just like how the football is kicked from corner to corner, your consciousness will be kicked from all corners. In each corner, some desire will be standing and kicking it. At the time your consciousness is trying to leave the body, all your desires will be forcing you to re-enter the body so that you can enjoy them further and fulfill them.

On one side, the desires will be forcing you to enter the body again so that you can live and enjoy, while on the other side, the body will say, No! I am tired. I can't host you anymore, just leave!That is what causes the pulling and pushing at the time of death. The pulling and pushing is nothing but the fight between your desires and your body. Somehow, you manage to move away from the pranic body, and enter next into the mental body. When you enter into the mental body all your guilt rises. All the guilt about the way you felt you should have lived your life but never lived, all the mistakes committed, all the regrets, everything comes up. All the guilt that we collect over our Please lives rises as we understand, pass through the desire is about mental body.

the future and guilt is about the past. But actually, both are one and the same. The way in which we want to live is desire, and the way in which we wanted to live but didn't, is guilt. Guilt is nothing but reviewing our past decisions with updated intelligence. Like this, step by step, you move through different body layers. The less the unfulfilled desires, the lighter is the pranic body and the easier it is to leave this body. Similarly, the less the guilt, the lighter is the mental body and the easier it is to leave this body. One more thing, when the desires, guilt and pain are less intense, you not only have an easy death with less suffering but you also age gracefully.

Ageing gracefully is what vanaprastha sannyas* is all about. Being able to live in fulfillment in the latter part of life is the tremendous gift of vanaprastha sannyas*. All the guilt that we collect over our lives rises as we pass through the mental body. Then we come to the etheric body which is related to all our sufferings. All the suffering that we went through during our life is stored here. The first four bodies are related to the physical body-mind system. They store all the engrams related to desires, guilt and pain experienced during that lifetime. The fifth body is experienced during deep sleep and when leaving the body. The sixth body is associated with happy memories and the seventh body is beyond sorrows and happiness, the ultimate consciousness.

Please understand, even attachment to happy memories brings us back into the cycle of birth and death. The desire to experience more and more similar incidents that are happy and joyful pulls us back and we take more births. Happiness is a temporary feeling created by the mind. Bliss, the seventh body, is the true reality. It is the causeless, unending happening inside you of spontaneous energy, joy and auspiciousness. It is like a fountain that continuously happens inside you for no reason. Actually, the reason your favorite candy gives you happiness is that it acts as a trigger to put you into this space of bliss that is your true nature. But you mistake the happiness to be because of the candy, the external object.

The happiness is because for those few moments, you come in touch with your inner bliss. The cleaner the bodies, the lighter they are and the easier it is for the life force to leave the body. Just like its peel comes off a ripe banana, the life force easily moves out of the body. Vanaprastha sannyas - The third stage of life according to the vedic tradition, where the wife and husband lead the rest of their married life in spiritual activities in pursuit of the Ultimate Truth. Death happens everyday In the seven bodies, the first four bodies physical, pranic, mental and etheric, collapse into the causal body every time you go to sleep. The darkness of the causal body is associated with the deep sleep state, which is what rejuvenates you every day.

So till you cross the fifth body, this death happens every day. This is what happens when you fall into your daily sleep. When the departing spirit moves beyond the fifth layer of causal body into the sixth layer, which is the cosmic body, the process of death is complete. If the life force does not have to take another body to fulfill its remaining desires it then enters the seventh layer of nirvanic body, which is enlightenment. If the life force has to come back assuming another body to fulfill its desires, it is death. Waking world Vs Dream world One more thing: when you enter into the dream state and start dreaming, this whole world in which you live now becomes black and white because you are in the dream world.

You forget this whole world of your waking state and the dream world becomes very real and seen in multicolor. If you come out of the dream, this whole world that you wake up to is again seen in four dimensions, 4D. Now when you are in this physical body and in the waking state, you experience this 169 world as 4D, in multi-color. When you are in the dream world, you experience that world as 4D. So, when you are here, the dream world becomes black and white, and this world becomes 4D, and when you are there, the dream becomes 4D, and this world becomes black and white. In the same way, when you move away from the physical body to the pranic body at the time of death, this whole physical world will become unreal and be seen in black and white.

All your achievements, your pride, your efforts, your sorrow, your happiness, everything will no longer have any meaning and will appear in black and white. You will wonder, Why did I do all this work? Why did I think of all this as a base for my life? Let me explain why this happens. When you are alive you invest in your personality. You build up your personality based upon a few pillars - money, name and fame, relationships, pride that you have a big community, support circle, and so on. When you move from the physical body, all these pillars, all these foundations will be completely shaken. You can't sign your name on your checks any more. Your signature is not accepted. Your bank balance is no more related to you.

You can't handle your bank account. Your car will not be useful to you. At the most, only the ambulance will be useful! Only the conscious glimpse can come with you. Whatever has been the foundation for your being will be shaken. When the foundation is shaken, naturally you won't have anything to hold on to. As of now, this whole world will appear in 4D. All this talk about spirituality, meditation, growing the inner being, consciousness etc. will appear as black and white. That is why, when I call people for meditation, they tell me, I don't have time to meditate. Let me finish all my work and then come. I have a few more years to think about it. Be very clear, never say, I don't have time to meditate.

Be very clear to yourself and say, I don't feel that it is that important in my life right now. If you are not ready to meditate and say, I don't think meditation is so important in my life, then you are honest. But if you say, I don't have time, then you are just fooling yourself. Everyone has got the same 24 hours on hand to do what they feel they should. It is not that the few who are meditating are jobless. It is just a question of priority, of what you really want in your life. If spirituality and meditation appear as black and white to you now, you will not divert your energy in that area, that's all. You see, now we are in two dimensions, the material world and spirituality.

Right now, what is happening is that however many pillars we build our personalities and life upon, all those pillars are based on the material world which appears to be 4D. Not a single pillar is based on consciousness or our inner space. Our whole personality is built only based on the outer space - our name and fame, what society speaks about us, etc. If everyone's opinion of us is that we are great, we think we are great. If everybody says, You are useless, we start getting depressed. 170 This happens because not even a single pillar of our building, our inner core or our being, is based on spirituality. The entire structure is based on the outer space. That is the reason that when those pillars are shaken by anybody, we start suffering terribly.

If we have even one pillar based on consciousness, we can depend on that to stand straight without suffering. If we build at least one pillar based on our inner space, this pillar will shine in 4D at the time of death and help us leave the body beautifully. The art of dying There is a beautiful Zen saying, Learning the art of dying is the real and the ultimate knowledge that we can learn in our life. A small Zen story: One day, an enlightened master suddenly declared that he was going to die the next day morning around 6 oclock. Of course, enlightened people always know about their death. They can declare before hand when they are going to die. He declared that he was going to die around 6 oclock in the morning.

His disciples said, No, no, please wait for 2-3 hours. It will be too cold early in the morning. Why don't you wait for a few hours so that we can prepare for the last rites? The master agreed and told the disciples that he would pass away around 12 oclock. Exactly at 12 noon, he greeted them all and left the body! Auspicious death A true story: The great master from India, Paramahamsa Yogananda*, had moved to USA in 1920 and settled there. How he left the body is very interesting. Till the last moment he was doing his routine of giving discourses and attending programs. On the day of his passing away, he was attending a banquet in honor of the then visiting Indian Ambassador to USA, Binay Ranjan Sen, in Los Angeles.

At the conclusion of his speech, he just relaxed from his body and died. His body did not deteriorate for more than twenty days. No odor of decay came from his dead body at any time. There is a beautiful write-up about his death in his autobiography as an appendix. It was such a beautiful experience. Even his death was auspicious for him. Reality is a dream You are not the eyes. The eyes are just an instrument. Many times you can see, your eyes may be open but you are not seeing, not registering the scene you are seeing. Just remember you are seeing through the eyes. If you look through the eyes, suddenly you will see you are witnessing everything. You are not the two holes called the eyes.

You are only seeing through the two holes called eyes. If you feel you are the two eyes, you are caught in ego. In your dream, as long as the attention is on the objects, you will continue to dream. When your attention is turned towards yourself – that is from the seen to the seer, you will be awakened. The moment you realize you are something beyond the eyes, your attention is turned to the seer. Then you realize that this world is made of the same stuff of which your dream is made. As long as you think you are seeing, the whole attention is on the seen. That is what I call ego. When you step back and realize you are seeing through the eyes, the whole attention is on the seer.

That is what I call innocence. Innocence means having a clear understanding that whatever you see in the outer world is made of the same stuff out of which your dreams are made. These are the steps: the first is getting the idea that what you see is a dream. The next is having the shakti, the energy, to change the dream. The third is the buddhi, the intelligence to know it is a dream and so there is no need to change it! Paramahamsa Yogananda - An enlightened master well known for his book Autobiography of a Yogi. He founded Self Realization Fellowship movement in USA in 1920. life and death vs Waking and sleep Air and prana To understand this powerful, life-transforming truth, we need to understand about this stuff of which the dream world and this world are made of.

We need to know about prana*, the life energy that sustains us. Understand, the air you breathe is just a vehicle in which the prana comes in and goes out. Prana is the life force, the energy itself. Understand this one example. If a truck comes inside this campus and leaves something and goes out, the truck is like the air, the breath. The product that is delivered is prana. life or death depends on the direction of prana One more thing: as long as the incoming breath is bringing in more prana and going out as an empty vehicle, your life will be strengthened. If the reverse starts happening, if the air comes with less prana and goes out with more prana, it means death is nearing or the life energy is going towards death.

When death nears, just the empty air will enter but when it goes out, it will go with the prana. Prana - life energy or life force. There is a beautiful concept in Ayurveda* called as the peak age which is based on this science of prana. Till a particular age, the person will be receiving more prana through the incoming breath and less prana will be going out through the outgoing breath. The moment the outgoing breath starts carrying more prana than the incoming breath, they know now the person is moving towards death. Controlling life through awareness Constantly, life is slipping and entering into death. life slipping into death is what we usually call living. Please understand, actually we don't live. We are just waiting for death to happen.

Ordinary human beings don't live. life just slips into death, disappears into death. That is the reason however many years you may live, you don't feel satisfied, and you don't feel you have lived your life because you don't even know what life is. When you become conscious of life, when you start thinking, contemplating about your life, when you bring awareness into your life, you create a new center in your being. Between this life and death, when you bring more awareness into the life, you create a new center, a new space in your life - that is what I call consciousness. Ayurveda - Traditional Indian system of medicine, Ayurveda literally means knowledge of life. Whenever you are conscious, you will start deciding about your life.

For example, the more you become aware, the more you start designing or choosing what type of car you should drive, what type of house you should live in, and what type of life you want. You start deciding every inch. You become conscious about everything: how you should talk, how you should behave, how you should think, every inch you start becoming aware. The moment you start becoming aware, you start deciding, and you start controlling your life. When you become completely aware you will start controlling your death also. These two events of life and death then happen at the conscious level. If you are consciously thinking, it is life. If your consciousness can't think, it is death. Awareness - control dreams and deep sleep, life and death In the unconscious level, two things happen as well, dream and deep sleep.

In the unconscious level, if you are aware, it is dream. If you are able to see anything, if you are able to sense anything, if you are able to feel anything, if you are able to experience any movement, then it is called dream. If you are not aware of anything, if you are not able to feel anything, if you are not able to understand any movement, it is deep sleep. The moment you start becoming In the aware, you start waking state, controlling your when you are life and death also. aware or you are in what psychology calls as conscious state, it is life. If you are not aware, it is death. When you bring more awareness into your life, you take charge of your life.

In the same way, in the dream, if you start bringing in more awareness, you will take charge of your dreams and deep sleep. Controlling life and death and controlling dream and deep sleep both require one important condition: awareness. Awareness is the main requirement to control life and death and to control dream and deep sleep. Bringing awareness into your dreams can not only help you control the dream and deep sleep, it can also help you control life and death. Prana movement in sleep and death The moment you start moving towards the dream state, the prana starts coming towards the vishuddhi*, throat center. The more you move towards the deep sleep state, it moves towards the anahata*, heart center. It is the same in the case of life and death as well.

The more you are alive and energetic, the more the prana accumulates and gets centered in the forehead. Vishuddhi chakra -Chakra or subtle energy center in the throat region. Locked by comparing ourselves with others. Anahata chakra - Subtle energy center in the heart region related to love. Dream and sleep, life and death can all be handled by When the incoming breath this single key, is bringing more single thread prana and the called prana. outgoing breath is going empty, your prana will be centered on the forehead. If the incoming breath is getting less prana and the outgoing breath is taking more prana, slowly the prana will slip into vishuddhi* , throat center. If the incoming breath is not bringing prana at all and only the outgoing breath is taking the prana, you will fall completely into the heart center.

Actually, falling from life to death, falling from the waking state to the deep sleep state, are both directly related to prana movement. If the prana movements of inhalation and exhalation are handled properly, you can handle life and death as well as dream and deep sleep. Dream and sleep, life and death can all be handled by this single key, single thread called prana. Stopping the cycle of life and death If you can be aware when you fall into the dream state, when your consciousness is slowly fading away, when you are falling asleep, you will be able to change the dream itself. If you are able to change the dream, let you be very clear, the first thing you will do is you will stop dreaming.

You will stop dreaming because you know the uselessness of dreams. You know you are wasting time and energy in dreams. Person who is aware of dreams will never dream. He will simply stop dreaming. Person who is aware of life will simply stop the cycle of birth and death. He will not take one more body. You need to understand this: when I use the word death, I don't mean you will commit suicide. When I say that when you become aware of life you enter into death, it does not mean that you will commit suicide. You will stop living in the normal way. You will stop living with identity. You won't give importance to identity. You will be reborn. If you can be aware when the prana falls into the heart center every day, you can stop, alter and manage your dreams and deep sleep.

If you are aware of prana slipping from ajna to anahata* each time you go to sleep, it means that at the end of the life you will be able to change your life and death. If you want, you can bring it a little early. If you want, you can postpone. You can play in whatever way you want. Meditation technique This technique has two parts: one that you do when you fall asleep, when you are lying Vishuddhi chakra -Chakra or subtle energy center in the throat region. Locked by comparing ourselves with others. Anahata chakra - Subtle energy center in the heart region related to love. in the bed and the second one that you do whenever you can remember during the whole day.

The first one will create more energy to do the second part and vice versa. They are complementary to each other. First part: when you lie down, before falling asleep, just remember the area near the ajna chakra* or the third eye, the center of the forehead. Do not concentrate. If you force yourself, if you start concentrating, your sleep will be disturbed and you will have a headache. Just remember that area in a relaxed way, the way you look at a flower, just casually. Slowly, you will see that you are relaxing, you are slowly dropping into the deep sleep state. Just be aware of this movement into deep sleep, that is enough. First day, you may feel that you are not falling asleep at all and that your sleep is getting delayed by ten or fifteen minutes.

Don't bother about it. Just be aware of the prana movement in the ajna chakra* . You will be aware that you are dreaming. If you want to continue the dream, you will continue. If you don't feel like it, you will come out. There will be no intensity to the dream. The next step, you will start having the dreamless sleep. That is the deeper level. Once you start having the dreamless sleep you will also start having the dreamless day. Dreamless day means that your energy will be conserved without day-dreaming. If you are aware of the prana, that is enough. It will automatically come back to the higher energy, and your body will heal itself as the flow of prana is directly related to all your diseases.

Above all, when you are able to change your dream, when you are able to handle your dream, you will have the intense power and energy to handle the incidents of your life. life Bliss Program Level 2 – Nithyananda Spurana Program (LBP Level 2 NSP) Our second level meditation program, LBP Level 2-NSP journeys you through your own life, simultaneously revealing the secrets of death. It makes your inner space pure and clean by unloading the baggage of emotions that you usually carry with you. It teaches you to live blissfully and leave peacefully. It puts death in the right perspective so that your life becomes more joyful and meaningful. It is opening up your energy layers one by one. Your pains, pleasures, guilt and desires are opened up.

Once these open up and get healed, you experience a glimpse of god within you. Ajna chakra - The sixth energy center located between the eyebrows. Means command or will in Sanskrit. This chakra is blocked by one's own ego. You are Intelligence To be free from the fear of death, which is really the fear of losing our identity, we need to be aware that we are something more than this body and mind. We need intelligence to understand this. We then come to these questions: What exactly is intelligence? Are some of us more intelligent than others? Can we increase the level of our intelligence? Natural intelligence Intelligence is not something to attain; every single being is endowed with intelligence. Every one of us has intelligence.

It is an inherent, inborn quality of life just as fire is hot and ice is cold. I am reminded of a joke on intelligent people: Once there were four men travelling in a private airplane. Suddenly, there was an emergency as the tail of the aircraft caught fire. Unfortunately for the four passengers, there were only three parachutes available. The first person in a panic took a parachute saying, I just got married. My wife is waiting for me. And he jumped. The second person declared, I am the most intelligent person on earth. Planet earth needs my intelligence. He jumped as well. One of the passengers was an old man; he told the other remaining person, I am old already but you have your whole life ahead of you.

You take this parachute and jump. The young man quipped, You can also come, Sir. We can both go. The most intelligent person on planet earth just jumped off with my back-pack! Most of us have lost touch with our natural intelligence; that is why we are not able to live life to its fullest potential. We mistake our acquired knowledge for intelligence; we are like the man who jumped with the backpack as a parachute! Every single being in nature has been endowed with inherent intelligence. Birds have a natural intelligence that enables them Allow your complete being to simply express to fly. It is amazing to see itself. This is what I the migratory call being birds travel integrated and thousands of fulfilled. miles in the sky -with no map or guide and retrace their paths back when the season changes! Patanjali, an enlightened master from India and father of the ancient science of yoga* , says that man has in him the intelligence of all the lower forms of consciousness such as the trees, birds and animals.

Man has the capacity to produce food just like trees. He has the capacity to live by himself right from the time he is born - just like animals and birds. By nature we have all the intelligence in our human body. The difficulty is we strongly believe we are limited. We have been conditioned to think that we have only limited capabilities, that we cannot… so we have forgotten how to use these capabilities. And because of this, we are not tuned to the technique to tap into all the dimensions of our being.