Life and Death

Space Image known as "Eye of God"
Swami Vishwananda and Mahavatar Babaji Speak About God and Life and Death: Do you believe in death?

Mahavatar Babaji: Jagadguru Mahavatar Babaji appears standing in Divine silvery-white light. His right hand and forearm then become focused in the light with his bodily form partially obscured as the light intensifies in vibrational attunement to the Divine energy that He radiates and that pulsates with Cosmic Consciousness. In His hand Babaji holds a sphere of great light that dances and moves to the rhythms of His creative manifestation of light energy into the illusion of physical form. He gently and carefully closes his hand around the sphere of light as tenderly and lovingly as a mother holds her newly born infant, and with precision then casts the sphere into the world of form – Earth.

Babaji says: The cosmic lingam of life and death resides in my hand as light options merge with Cosmic Consciousness to bring into manifestation man’s physical world. In Oneness with the Divine Mother, I hold the formula for life and death on planet Earth. I exercise, by Divine Right, the ability to create human forms at will. My nature is Divine Love that wills itself into form. My purpose for being on Planet Earth is to assist Mankind into realizing the Self and eventual Union with the Divine – Oneness. [Excerpted from Unity With The Divine.]

Swami Vishwananda
Darshan Talk October 3, 2009: There are two questions that people often ask me. Last week somebody asked me “Swamiji, have you ever seen God?” This is the first question and the second question is: “Do you believe in death?” Good questions. For the first question,” Have I seen God?” Yes, and not only one time, actually everyday. I see the Divine Mother and I see God everyday because the Divine is inside all the beings that breathe.

The Darshan of the Divine is ever present. If you have the eyes to see that, you will see. That’s what Christ said? Where does the multitude of beings all around come from? Does the multitude not come from God? And where are they all going? They are going towards God. Some say we are doomed, which I don’t believe at all. We make ourselves doomed. We make ourselves miserable.

When we are far away from the light, we are in darkness. We have this choice: If you want to be in the light, you will see the light. But if you refuse to see the light, don’t complain that you are not seeing the light. If you sit in the dark room and say “It’s dark, it’s dark,” and you don’t want to move to the next room where there is light, then why do you complain? The same thing: the Divine is ever present. If you want to see the Divine, you will see, but you have to be sincere in your wish.

Many people say: ”Swamiji, I want to see the Divine, but it’s difficult.” Well, just by knowing that the Divine is ever present, you will have the Darshan of the Divine. Like I said once, ‘It’s not by seeing a light that you can call that light The Divine.’ It’s good if He comes in the form of the light. Be happy about it; but yet the light has a limit. The Ultimate doesn’t have a limit. You are breathing the Ultimate. You are living in the Ultimate. You are part of the Ultimate and this is the real Darshan of the Divine. So there is no use of looking for something which has a limit. The Ultimate is inside of you. So, yes, everyday you have Darshan of the Divine with each person that you meet. With each work that you are doing, you are serving the Divine and if you just say to yourself, “Yes, I see the Divine Mother everyday in every being,” you will see the Divine Mother in every being.

Coming to the second question if I believe in death: Well, no, I don’t. How many of you believe in death? Please be sincere. Lift your hand. How many of you believe in death? Nobody? Oh at least one person, who is sincere. Very good. Are you sure you don’t believe in death? Sincerely I said? Be truthful a little bit towards yourself. Give me an answer please. (Person at Darshan: Guruji, it depends on where we are looking. When you are looking at the body, well there is some change, we can call it death. If you look at the soul, it might be different." Yes, very good. Well, I said I don’t believe in death, because I know it doesn’t exist. It’s one of the illusions, like many other illusions that the Divine created. That’s why I said “I don’t believe in death.” I know that I am eternal and immortal. Of course I don’t refer to the body. The body has it’s limit.It reminds me of Sri Paramahamsa Ramakrishna. If you don’t know him there is a beautiful book called “The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.” Read it. It’s very inspiring. It will help you a lot on the spiritual path.

Sri Ramakrishna lived in the 19th century. He died on the16h of August 1886. In the Hindu tradition when the husband dies, the wife has to break or remove all her jewelry. Here, they put more jewelry on, eh? So in the Hindu tradition it is like that: You have to remove all the jewelry. So Sarada Devi, the wife of Ramakrishna was always wearing bangles which she received from Ramakrishna when they got married. When he married Sarada Devi, Ramakrishna was 23 years old and she was five years old. Shocking, isn’t it? But that was normal at that time.

When Ramakrishna died he was 50 years old. For 27 years Sarada Devi had these bangles on her arms and never removed them. She grew up, and of course, the bangles became very tight on her arms. So at Ramakrishna’s death, she was wondering how to break these bangles and decided to cut them. As she was going to cut the bangles, she heard the voice of Ramakrishna saying, “Sarada Devi, what are you doing? Why are you breaking these bangles that I gave you? Do you think I am dead? I am not dead. I am still alive. I just moved from one room to the other.” It’s like the sun. When the sun is setting, we all say that it is dark? But when the sun sets, it’s day somewhere else. It’s the same when death happens, as there is birth somewhere else in other spheres or another levels of spirituality. So in reality you are not dead.

We identify death so much with the body, but the consciousness has the power of God to create a new body at will. You can see it in the lives of Saints when even being dead they appeared to somebody who was praying to them, they appeared in body and flesh. Death is something that nobody can escape. We all know about death, but we don’t want to see it, we don’t want to believe in it. When we believe in it, we see the most terrible and terrifying part of it, but we don’t see the beautiful part of it. We don’t see this bridge when the Beloved calls you and says “Come, Cross over that bridge and attain me.” So it’s not terrifying at all. Like St. Francis said at the time of his death, “Welcome, sister death.” That puts death to a shock because you take away all the power of fear and create this great joy. You experience great joy that you are moving towards the higher plane; you are moving towards your Beloved (God). Jai Gurudev!

My Gurudev, Swami Vishwananda