The Kingdom of God

V

God gave us different vestures of the body – physical, astral, causal and super-causal. We find that the macrocosm is in the microcosm, on a miniature scale in the body. At present we are identified with the physical bodies so much so that we cannot differentiate ourselves. We pass our lives in the enjoyment of the senses, never given to understand what it is to die while alive.

In our places of worship, this ought to be the most important subject to be taught, but this point is never even touched upon. We are simply told to observe certain rituals, certain rites, certain forms, this and that; and we shall be saved.

But with all this, we are still where we were. If we acquired great learning, will we retain it after death? If not, we remain as ignorant after death as when alive. Death by itself does not mean Heaven. It does not make gods of us all.

Now what should we do to conquer death? 

Guru Amar Das tells us:

Just sit at the feet of a Master-Soul by Whose favour you may learn how to transcend the body.

When you have learned to transcend the body at will, you become a Conscious Co-Worker of the Divine Plan. If you know how to die while living, if you know this much, you will have Life Everlasting.

So this is what our scriptures say – this is the way by which we can overcome death. If we know it, we are prepared for it. I know I have to leave Philadelphia, I am prepared for it, and ready to leave at any moment.

During the last war, an Indian Air Force pilot was given six hours notice to prepare himself for the front. In panic he came to me and said:

Well, please tell me how to die.

He was panic-stricken for he was not prepared for death.

My point is, if we are prepared in advance, then there is no danger. Fore-warned is fore-armed. After all, we have to leave the body one day. When death overtakes us, can we do anything at that hour? If you are prepared for death, there is no fear, no panic.

I will tell you of an instance in India in 1919. There was a friend of mine in Peshawar. At that time influenza was sweeping the country. I went to see him. He was then reading a book on Yoga. When I asked him what he was doing, he said since death was overtaking everybody, he was reading that book to find the Yoga way.

I may as well learn something about life after death and am reading a book on Yoga,

he added.

I told him:

Is it not too late now? How can you begin to dig a well when you are dying of thirst?

A week after this conversation I went to see him again. It was Sunday and the gentleman lay on his deathbed. My words had proved true. It had indeed been too late.

This is the most important thing in life, the most important subject, but we have ignored it altogether.

Seek ye first,

say the Masters and we have not even made it the last. We have simply been ignoring the great importance that all the scriptures attach to this subject.

A Saint of the East has said:

All must die at the time of death; but thou, my friend, learn to die while living.

If you are prepared in this way death may strike at any moment and you are prepared for it. Once you have traversed the Inner Planes, you know where to go after leaving the body.

Maulana Rumi says:

Look here, be not afraid of death, for death is not the end of life, and thou hast bodies more than just the physical.

We are at present working through the physical bodies and sense-organs. We feel that outer life is the only reality. If we learn to leave the physical body, work in the astral body through astral sense-organs, we will come in contact with the astral world, just as we are with the physical world. He who can transcend that way, why should he be afraid of death?

This is no miracle I am telling you about. This is a practical subject, which can be learned just as any other science. And I think this is by no means a very difficult one. Why? In other things, when you have to learn, you have to begin with some hypothesis and then work up to the solution. But this way – an adept giving you a first-hand experience of transcending physical consciousness – is direct. Who are the True Masters – Their qualifications and Their competence – and how can we distinguish the genuine from the spurious? This subject will be discussed in my next talk.