Hello friends!
Our topic for discussion today is Immortality.
It's a very interesting topic indeed and one that is very central to our spiritual life.
So let's dive right in and read what Swami Kriyanandaji has written in Affirmations for Self-Healing on the topic of Immortality.
He writes,
You are not your body.
You are not your thoughts,
Your desires,
Your changing personality.
Your body has a certain age,
But you yourself have no age.
Your body may tire or become unwell,
But you yourself,
The fatigueless soul,
Cannot tire,
Can never know disease.
Tell yourself always,
I am a child of eternity.
Don't be identified with your outward form nor with change,
But live in timelessness.
It is our identity with change that creates the illusion of passing time.
Feel that through all outward changes,
You,
The immortal soul,
Remain the same.
Death itself will be but one more change.
Be not identified with it.
Then,
When death comes,
You shall rise in eternal freedom.
What a great promise,
My friends,
Isn't it?
And I cannot help but think of this chant,
Which was translated into English,
Originally by Adi Shankaracharya.
No birth,
No death,
No caste have I.
Father,
Mother,
Have I none.
I am he,
I am he.
Blessed spirit,
I am he.
Mind nor intellect,
Nor ego feeling.
Sky nor earth,
Nor metals am I.
I am he,
I am he.
Blessed spirit,
I am he.
This is a chant that we often chant,
And the melody was given by our guru,
Yoganandaji.
And this chant itself is an affirmation.
And an affirmation helps us to distinguish between truth and fact.
So what do I mean by that?
The fact is that we have a body that ages.
We have a body that is susceptible to illness.
We have circumstances around us that change all the time.
But the truth is that we are the soul,
And we are not affected in our truest reality.
We are not affected by any of these things.
And that is why we are affirming all these 52 qualities with the help of this book,
Is by affirming,
We are choosing always to focus on the truth instead of the fact.
So the fact may be that,
Yes,
You are sick,
But the truth is,
And we can use,
Let's say,
If you're feeling tired,
You can use from this book,
The affirmation on energy to feel more energetic,
More enthusiastic.
And how does that happen?
Because we focus on the truth,
And the more we focus on the truth,
The more the truth expands and becomes more and more vivid in our own awareness.
And that is how the affirmations work so beautifully for us to inculcate certain changes,
Certain attitudes that are central to our spiritual life.
Yoganandaji taught the energization exercises in which the main purpose is to recharge the body battery with cosmic energy,
The cosmic energy which enters through the medulla and then goes on to different nerve channels and different body parts.
And I'll not go into detail,
But he often urged his students,
His disciples,
To never admit tiredness,
To never say that,
I am tired.
If you want to say,
Then say,
The body is tired.
Because you are not the body,
As Swamiji writes,
You are not your thoughts,
Your feelings,
Your emotions.
So why say,
I am tired?
Simply say,
The body is tired,
The body is sick,
The body needs food,
The body needs attention,
But inwardly,
I am untouched.
Because I am the soul,
The spirit which is one with God,
And I just need to increase my awareness to improve my knowing that I really am one with the divine.
At Ananda,
We often refer to each other as great souls.
So we say,
Hello great souls,
And that's how we greet each other.
And this is something Swami Kriyanandaji started,
And it's so central to have these greetings,
I believe,
Because every time,
Every interaction helps us to remember that we are great souls.
Even though we may not feel so great at different points in our life,
But we are that.
We are that,
And we just need to improve our knowing.
Even,
Let's say,
The practice of who am I,
Asking this question again and again,
Which was one of the central teachings of Ramana Maharishi,
Helps us to really introspect.
And the more we introspect on this thread,
The more we realize simply that we are the spirit,
We are the soul.
And let's say you start introspecting,
You know,
You are not your body,
Because when you're five years old,
Maybe you are three inches tall,
And when you're 30 years old,
You are,
I meant three feet tall,
And when you're 30 years old,
You are six feet tall.
So are you the three feet version of you,
Or are you the six feet version of yourself?
Well,
You are neither,
Right?
So let's go a little deeper.
Are you your thoughts?
Not really,
Because when you sit to meditate,
You see that thoughts are coming and going,
But something,
Someone is observing the thought,
Right?
This means that you are not the thoughts.
And in fact,
Yoganandaji clearly stated in the autobiography of a yogi,
That thoughts are not individually rooted,
But universally rooted,
Which is to say that we just attract the kind of thoughts which match with our level of consciousness.
So we are not the thoughts.
And the more we go on with this line of reasoning,
The more we learn to discriminate and decipher,
So to speak,
Our true reality.
And God,
Of course,
Is beyond time and space.
And so the more we identify with that state of timelessness,
Of changelessness,
The more we feel our own sense of immortality.
I recently had the opportunity to get a Nadi reading done,
Which is done on the basis of some scrolls written by Saint Agastya many,
Many thousands of years ago.
And they describe my life and many others' lives in accurate details.
And many other people have had such experiences of the readings of Saint Agastya or Saint Bhrigu.
And how is this possible?
This is possible because of the simple reason that these saints were self-realized masters who lived in the super-conscious state.
And in that state,
There is no time,
There is no space.
Everything is happening in the eternal now.
So anything that changes is not our true self,
Because the true self is changeless.
The true self is immortal.
And the more we realize that,
The more we can also see death itself as just another change.
You know,
The yogis say that death is like taking off a piece of garment when it's no longer useful,
And taking on another one if the soul is not already free.
And there was,
There's a story of a man who was dying,
And he had already died,
Perhaps for a few minutes,
And he had died in a public space.
So a thief came,
And he saw that this dead body had a gold watch around the wrist.
So the thief started stealing that watch,
And this man who had already seemingly died,
Came back to life.
Because his soul was so identified with the body,
With the watch,
That he could not bear the thief to steal that watch even after he had left the body.
So such strong can be the human attachment to things of this world.
But the more we have an awareness of our eternal reality,
The more easier everything becomes.
Because we are not then riding on the waves of emotion,
Of feeling,
Of changes that are happening outside,
But we learn to rest within.
And how do we develop that awareness of immortality?
Meditation.
Through scientific meditation techniques,
We can learn to withdraw the life force from the senses,
We rise above the five senses,
And we realize that we exist without the body,
We exist apart from the body.
And even when the body is still,
The mind is calm,
The heart is calm,
And the thoughts are getting stiller and stiller,
That's when we realize that we are something beyond all of that.
And in the beginning that awareness maybe comes only for a few seconds,
But over the years of regular practice of meditation,
That awareness begins to grow and grow and grow.
And so when finally,
At the end of this life,
When death is supposed to come,
You will already be so identified with that changeless eternal reality,
That to you death will seem,
Just like Swamiji says,
Another change.
And in that sense,
There will be no reason to be afraid of death.
I'd like to end by reading a few verses from the Gita,
Which exemplify the same truth.
Sri Krishna writes in the Gita,
Weapons cannot cut the soul.
Fire cannot burn it.
Water cannot drown it.
Wind cannot wither it away.
The soul is never touched.
It is immutable,
All-pervading,
Calm,
Unshakable.
Its existence is eternal.
The soul cannot even be pondered by the reasoning mind.
It is manifested,
It is unmanifested,
And formless.
Realize this truth and abstain from lamentation.
So let's abstain from lamentation and let's also affirm our true reality,
Our immortality,
With this affirmation.
Let's sit up straight,
Close our eyes,
Focus at the point between the eyebrows,
Calm the heart,
Bring your attention to the present moment,
The present moment,
And repeat first with a lot of energy with me,
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
Now,
In a whisper,
Taking it deeper into our subconscious mind,
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am ageless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
And now,
Mentally only,
Gazing deeply at the point between the eyebrows,
Let this thought sink in deeply to your superconscious mind,
Making it permanent.
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
I am a child of eternity.
I am ageless.
I am deathless.
I am the changeless spirit at the heart of all mutation.
Let's also offer a silent prayer as I say these words out loud.
Wherever my body travels outwardly,
Let me feel Thy changeless presence within.
Wherever my thoughts take me,
Let them return always like prodigal children to find repose in Thee.
Joy to you,
My friends.
