Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
22th April 2019
Death (1)
“Sophistication”
Life is eternal since God is the source of life and God is eternal. Nobody knows when death started, for nobody knows when life started. Death has no barriers: it happens to the young and old in every religion, culture and tradition. Sophistication is a process of life, which includes death. Man tries to prevent death, but it spares no-one. If the grief were real, why would God create it, if God were compassionate and loving? Man prays that death should not occur, but why has God still maintained death in life?
If death has to happen, it would require birth to be present in the very moment death happens, because only the birth of something can die and nothing else. Furthermore, the birth of something would require life to keep it alive. Therefore, life has to be present when death occurs, otherwise death just cannot happen. Since death contains life, it cannot be an end; it has to be life that is changing into its next form!
Birth would require death to be present in the very moment birth happens, because only the death of something can lead to birth and nothing else. And the death of something would require life to keep it dying. Life has to be present when birth occurs, otherwise birth just cannot happen. Birth and death are present in every moment as life, for life is eternal. Death, therefore, is life that is changing!
Life is a journey of energy or light and sound and, on this journey, there is death and rebirth of the dead in a sophisticated form. Death and rebirth of the dead is the sophistication of life. So understand that death is the end and the beginning too. Death is needed for life to survive - this is the paradox. Life cannot be eternal if death is absent - this is the paradox. God or life cannot manifest an eternal life without death - this is the paradox. Eternity has to include death if it is to be eternal. The entire universe dies every moment only to be born every moment. Such is the intelligence of life.
Embrace life as well as death for life is fresh and death is an invitation to the sophisticated. There is nothing to grieve for in life as life maintains itself eternally. Life was here before you came into it and will be here even after you leave it. Life and death are together and never separate. You cannot find life alone or death alone: they live together and die together, and this is what makes life and death a mystery!
Everything in life is maintained as a reflection of the light. Life is light or soul, and this soul is everywhere and appears as everything, including the dead. The soul needs to be present for the dead to be present. The dead cannot be present if the soul is absent. The soul sophisticates the dead into other forms of life. So even in the dead the soul is present: the dead cannot be without the soul. The belief that the soul leaves the body after it is dead is a fairy-story. If soul is everywhere, where will the soul go after the body is dead? The dead too is alive because the soul is within it. It is just that the mind cannot think aliveness in the form of the dead. The soul does not go anywhere for it is everywhere. In understanding this one lives happily ever after. Enlightenment is the realisation that the soul is eternal - sophisticating as everyone and everything!
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2007
Editor’s Note:
Paradox is a contradiction in reason or expectation, however valid the reason or expectation seems. Man celebrates the live birth of a human being or an animal; man grieves at their death. In the former, there is a rise of joy for the new life; in the latter distress at the loss of life. Herein lies the beginning and end of life, albeit illusory. This is the perceived framework for every span of life. The process of life gifted here needs no justification – it needs understanding. This article offers deep understanding of the sophistication of one of the most engaging and distressing experiences that every member of humanity may endure and discuss on a daily basis: death. The article needs patient study and reflection: ‘’It will not’’ – as Shakespeare put it – ‘’be deep searched with saucy looks’’.
Julian Capper, UK