The Kingdom of God

IV

I quoted from Plutarch to you the other day: 

The experiences that the soul has at the time of leaving the body at death, the same experiences one has who has been initiated into the mysteries of the beyond. 

This is the meaning of Learn to die so that you may begin to live. And unfortunately this we have not known yet.

Again it is said: 

Forsake the flesh for the spirit.

Mark the word forsake. We live in the physical body all the twenty four hours of the day. We have the physical body, the intellect, and the soul. We know a lot about the physical body and its environments, our families, our social connections and political affiliation and the like. We have also advanced much on the intellectual side. But we know little or nothing about our soul – the Real Inner Self in us. There are values and higher values of life. Each thing has its own value.

Is not life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?

I told you the other day that in our daily life we unwillingly act wisely. When a man meets with an accident, and his very costly apparel is spoiled and torn, he says: ‘Never mind, I am saved.’ Again, when he is in the grip of a deadly malady and the doctors declare his case hopeless, what does he do? He says: ‘All right, spend all the money I have so that I may be saved.’ If there is no money in the house, he says, ‘Well, sell all my possessions so that I may be saved.’ Thus the body is to us more than all the possessions we have. Again, if he accidentally breaks his leg or arm, he cries out: ‘Well, never mind, I am saved.’ This shows that there is something even more valuable than the physical body. This something is the actual life in him – the active Life-Principle of which he is not yet actively aware, though he feels its presence in him.

In worldly affairs, we act like this. But in Spiritual Matters we behave quite the other way. We act like little children with all our care for the physical body and its environments, for attaining intellectual advancement. We pay no heed whatsoever to our Inner Self – the Real One in us. Isn’t it most strange? This is the grand delusion in which we live through all our life.

The most important aspect of a man’s life is his own self, and he does little or nothing in that direction. Whomsoever you meet, you may say:

My dear fellow, have you ever considered this? You have to leave the body some day.

But that is no terror. It is just leaving this body and entering into the beyond, about which we know nothing so far. And who is it that leaves? That is what I was explaining to you in my previous talk. ‘Know thyself’ has been the theme of all the scriptures. Even the old Greeks and Egyptians inscribed on their temples Know thyself.

You go to temples so that you may know yourself – not others; not books, religions, social forms, rituals. But they said: Know thyself. You go to churches only for that very purpose – to know yourselves and to know God.

The human life is the golden opportunity that you have. The Highest Mission of man’s life is to know himself and to know God. If he has not done that he has not achieved the object for which man’s life was meant. You may be an excellent engineer, you may be a great astronomer, you may be a famous doctor, you may be anything, but unless you know something about your own self, you have done precious little. Why? Because, after all, you have to leave the body. All your intellectual attainments and all your outer possessions cannot help you towards self-knowledge, which alone shall make easy the passage from this world to the beyond.

This is the desideratum of all religions. Kabir tells us that this is the only True Devotion, the only True Religion that you may know how to die while living. And this you will learn at the feet of some Living Master Who is a practical adept in the line. He will be able to give you a first-hand experience of how to go beyond the body consciousness – how to die while living. Once He gives you some experience, you can develop that from day to day by regular practice, with proper guidance and help which shall be readily given.

This is the most important subject, and unfortunately we have ignored it too long.

Seek ye, therefore, first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.

All these things to which we are devoting the major portion of our daily lives will be added, when we seek first of all our own selves.

After all, we have to leave the body. When? Nobody knows. No time is fixed that we know. The sooner we solve the mystery of life, the better, because who knows when the time may come for us to leave the body? Each one of us has to leave the body. That is no bugbear, I assure you. Certainly, it is a change but is no calamity. I assure you it is only for the better, if we know how to leave the body.

These are the things we read in the religious books, all our life, but we have not cared about them because we have had no knowledge of their Inner Meanings so far. Our social religions teach us only to observe certain rituals, certain ceremonies, the daily recitation of hymns, offering prayers, and adopting particular modes of life. These are the elementary steps, no doubt. We cannot ignore them. But these are only meant to pave the way to Spirituality, and not spirituality in its true sense.

What then is spirituality? To know oneself – who you are, what you are. Are you this five or six-foot high physical frame of flesh and bones or something else? Certainly you are not the body nor the senses nor the vital airs, all of which constitute the outer man. You are the indweller of the body. You possess the senses and the vital airs as aids in your physical existence. The time does come when you have to leave the body, and all the rest. You must know the Inner Man that you are. Until you know the Inner Man, you are lost.

That is why it has always been stressed:

Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man keeps my sayings, he shall never die,

and 

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

How can we destroy the all-powerful death? By knowing how to leave the body while alive, at will; this is what all the Masters stress.

What is death? It is simply leaving the body. If you know how to rise above body consciousness, naturally the sting of death is gone, all fear of death is vanished.

The Holy Books of the Sikhs say:

If you are afraid of death, just go to the feet of some Master. He will tell you how to die while living. He will give you an experience of death in life.

Everybody wants to live on. Guru Amar Das, the third Master of the Sikhs, tells us: 

Everybody is afraid of hearing the name of death. Why? First, we do not know how to die. Secondly, we do not know after death where to go. And third, we do not know ourselves that we have to leave the body. These are three things which awe us, and cause us to dread dying.