Dialogue with a Demi-God

In the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic, there is a fascinating dialogue between a Yaksha (Demi-God), and the eldest of the Pandava brothers, Yudhisthir. Yudhisthir was the son of the Yama, the God of Death, and was known for his wisdom and truthfulness. Legend said that the wheels of his chariot never touched the ground because of his unwavering commitment to truth. The whole dialogue is long and very interesting, but when I was reading it as a child, the one part that really stayed with me was the discussion about the greatest wonder of our human existence.

Yaksha: What is the greatest wonder?
Yudhisthir: Every man knows that death is the ultimate truth of life. He sees countless people dying around him but he acts and thinks like he will live forever.

The search for God, the Ultimate, Eternal Bliss or Never Ending Happiness starts from our inability to accept this truth. As long as our psyche doesn’t truly accept the fact of our inherent mortality there is no possibility of freedom. The great Indian sage, Ramana Maharishi went through this near death process when he was 16 years old, and came out from that experience with his psyche transformed and completely free from the fear of death. His teachings are remarkable for their compassion and simplicity.

I believe that unless one faces, and comes to term with our inherent mortality we can never transcend our worldly existence. Anyone who is enlightened has to go through this process of ego dissolution because death is the ultimate fact of life. Everyone who is born has to die. For most people, it is not a sudden flash of insight like what Ramana Maharishi experienced, but a gradual breaking of the tethers that bind us to our human existence. Most of our psyches cannot deal with the sudden dissolution of our ego.

Ramana’s death experience has been talked about in various books and online publications so I won’t go into the details except briefly. I have underlined the key points in his description.

"The shock or fear of death made me at once introspective. I said to myself mentally, i.e., without uttering the words — 'Now, death has come. What does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.' I at once dramatized the scene of death. 'Well then,' said I to myself, 'this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body, am "I" dead? Is the body "I"? The body is silent and inert. But I feel the full force of my personality and even the sound "I" within myself, — apart from the body. So "I" am a spirit, a thing transcending the body. The material body dies, but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. I am therefore the deathless spirit.' All this was not a mere intellectual process, but flashed before me vividly as living truth, something which I perceived immediately. The 'I' or my 'self' was holding the focus of attention by a powerful fascination from that time forwards. Fear of death had vanished at once and forever. Absorption in the self has continued from that moment right up to this time. Other thoughts may come and go like the various notes of a musician, but the 'I' continues like the basic or fundamental sruti note which accompanies and blends with all other notes.