The Science of Meditation (part 3). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

The Science of Health or Ayurveda (the Sanskrit term “ayur” means life, force, health) studies in a detailed manner the Nature of Human Being and his relationship with a full range of energies. Ayurveda extends the interaction overview of body, psyche and consciousness from an intra-individual level into an inter-individual one. Hence, behavior and single actions are considered not only as a result of one’s own apparatus, but as an interaction with other bodies, psyches and consciousness. This point is very important, making us able to reconduct to this phenomenon many of present conflicts, both on an individual and collective level. As a matter of fact, conflicts that cannot  be solved inwardly are extrojected onto people around us, no matter if close or distant. The connection between different elements of the Created cannot be reduced exclusively to relationships, but permeates the entire Universe: just think about Bell’s Theorem, that enunciates the correlation between two particles entering into contact, sharing same experience, synchronizing and endure in resonant state also when separated or one of them is modified; this variation is instantly extended to the other particle in no time.

There is nothing in the Universe that is separate from everything else. Everything is connected and as we can identify micro-networks and neural circuits, it is possible to identify much larger macro-networks beyond any one single individual. In the Veda, in the Gita, in the Upanishad, in the Yogasutra and other scripts of the Indo-Vedic Tradition, it is possible to find these principles clearly described with an incredible specificity of language and in general the vision of man as a creature composed of different subtle bodies or layers, going from the more gross to the more subtle and that are not limited just to the material and psychic elements. From the above scheme it is possible to notice that the material body is just the most external layer of the human being; this grossly visible layer is called “annamaya kosha”. Annamaya means food energy, since the physical body is nourished by food. At more subtle level it is possible to identify the energy called prana, that each human being has and that is individualized and specific for every living being: this level is defined “pranayama kosha”. The physical body does not have an own energy, it would not even stand without the vital energy that provides force for it, that makes it able to move and makes it so precious: all this is possible thanks to the energetic layer composed of “prana”. For example, Acupuncture practice is based on this energetic support. Actually, if the energy provided to the body is not fluidly distributed some energy blocks may occur. 

At a deeper and more subtle level after “pranayama kosha”, there is the mental layer, “manomaya kosha”, hence the energy layer depends upon the mind. Pranayama kosha is directly dependent upon mind, upon our mental state, thus it is not possible to develop ecologic energies to sustain our body without having first reeducated our mind. 

This message is given by the Rishi, the Spiritual Masters belonging to the Indo-Vedic Tradition, and it is a fundamental teaching to be immediately considered, as Krishna explains in the Bhagavad-gita: the mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy, it could be the way of healing or cause of death, disease, paralysis. The mind has priority in health research, even before the physical body, since the body depends on it. In this scenario we can write out Juvenal’s statement: “mens sana in corpore sano”. In general, body and mind are so interdependent and interactive that any failure would be transmitted immediately each other, therefore they have to be treated simultaneously.

For this reason Patanjali indicates as basic step in the path of Spiritual Self- Realization, codified in the Yoga Sutras, some ethics fundamentals (yama and niyama) for the harmonization of the psycho-physical health. The support of the mental layer is the intellective layer “vijnanamaya kosha”. On a level of psychic dimension the intellect is constituted by deep convictions, which represent conscious or unconscious conditioning for people who base their lives on them. These deep convictions, stored by the intellect, sustain the mental structure. 

“Ananda” means inexhaustible happiness, bliss. It cannot be compared to the pleasure of the senses, that does not even represent the shade of such happiness. Euphoria, excitement, orgasm, they all have a beginning and an ending, therefore sages consider them illusory result of the human life. When the creature is completely satisfied in himself, he does not have any other aspiration. The one who experiences “ananda” feels a sense of community with all creatures, he wishes to be a friend to everyone and actually he becomes benevolent to all living beings. In fact, conflicts are signs of dissatisfaction and suffering. Ananda is essential to stay in healthy, a popular Neapolitan proverb says: “To a cheerful heart, God will provide”. Hence, the intellective layer is sustained by a layer of bliss or constitutive happiness, “anandamaya kosha”, essential for the physical well-being. Actually, interior gratification assures harmonization and balance of all physical, energetic and psychic structures, whilst a depressed mood or negative emotions, as explained by Prof. Genovesi previously, affect badly the immune system and suppress it throug hormonal desynchronization. 

Ananda pertains to atman: the real source of energy has a spiritual nature, it is neither physical nor psychic energy, but a spiritual enery; besides ananda, atman is characterized by eternity, sat, and consciousness, cit. 

We are spiritual entities, we are atman and it is impossible for us to lose features like sat, cit, ananada, whatever happens, since they are intrinsic and inseparable from what we objectively and intimately are, although they may be more or less clouded by ignorance, neglected or atrophied. Through an introspective path, one undergoes a reservoir of unconscious experiences, almost unknown, but he or she has to interact daily with. These unconscious experiences can be individual or in common with other creatures and represent an integrant part of the universe as a whole. This last case was coined as “Collective Unconscious” by Carl Gustav Jung.

The Science of Meditation (part 2). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the most well-known and loved scripts shared among different Schools of Thought in the Indian Continent, says that Knowledge means to distinguish the field (body) from the knower of the field (Self). To detach oneself from the body does not mean to refuse or despise it, in this wise there would not be real detachment since, as Heraclitus said, what attracts will disgust and vice versa.

In order to overcome the opposites of attraction and disgust, in Sanskrit called raga and dvesha, it is necessary to balance the opposites, to find the conjunction and to harmonize them. In this research of balance and harmonization, yoga, points out the importance of mediation. The term yoga derives from the Sanskrit root yuj, literally meaning “to unify, to connect”. As a matter of fact, yoga is the science for the Reintegration of the individual self with the Supreme Self, of infinitesimal consciousness with the Cosmic Consciousness. In the Bhagavad-Gita are described different types of yoga and Patanjali, in his famous treatise on Yogasutra that is one of the first and most relevant Schools of Mankind Psychology, describes eight phases to develop the Yogic Discipline (ashtanga yoga) where meditation is placed just as penultimate phase. Before entering a meditative state, the aspirant yogi has to purify his mind and heart by abstaining from activities that are against the spiritual evolution, yama, and engaging himself in favorable ones , niyama. Then, one has to become an expert in postures, asana, that enable to perceive the body as little as possible and afterward to learn the art of breathing, pranayama. By turning inside himself and detaching sense-organs from objects, pratyahara, trying to concentrate on his attentional resources towards an unique direction, dharana, the yogi predisposes himself to the very meditation, dyhana, where the flow of attention is not anymore called away by exterior interferences and thanks to which he will reach a stage of complete interior absorption, defined samadhi. The Pre-samadhi stages are necessary to resolve conflicts between the different psychic structures and functions, through the harmonization of personality and before aspiring to the complete absorption of the meditative seed, bija, all the more so the Self. The approach to meditation must be gradual, since first it is necessary to develop a certain knowledge arising from awareness of small realnesses, without the presumption from time to time to have conquered Reality and Truth thinking to be definitely illuminated. What happens by meditating is a continuous and progressive realization of Reality, that reveals itself slowly until it is clear, evident, bright and natural, so natural that it would be impossible to conceive it differently.

For example, the awareness of being different than the body can arise suddenly, as in the case of diagnosis of terminal illness, of irreversible and degenerative pathology, boosting the patient not to concentrate just on the physical structure that is subject to such a devastation, but on himself. From this perspective, as explained through different MCE works for several Italian Hospitals and Health Care Institutions, death must not be seen as a physical event, something concrete, but more as an abstract concept, since there is not concrete end of something, but the transformation in something else. On the other hand, the aim of disidentification may be progressively reached through an introspective process that enables to understand that the body is our external means, we must not identify ourselves in it, but consider it precious, useful and dear to us serving to future experiences and acquaintances. The human body and personality do not represent exhaustly the entirety of the person, but are simple aspects. The eminent divine part of us considers these aspects, as in general the human dimension, like reduction and constraint, a sort of prison.

Nevertheless, in Plato’s Metaphor the soul cage must not be considered obsessively as an oppression, since it is evolved material structure equal to the elevation degree of the consciousness housed in it. Therefore, everyone inhabits a certain body and consequently takes with it determined pathologies or a healthy state.

The Science of Meditation (part 1). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

20th December 2008,

Naples, Castello Angioino

First of all, I’d like to draw the attention on some cosmogonical aspects, in order to facilitate the comprehension of Men context. The Modern Man does not know anymore where he comes from, where he is going, above all he does not know who he is, being fully identified with an external and transitory identity. His decontextualization is one of the most serious problems afflicting today’s society and cannot be simply solved through erudition. The search of oneself is the substrate of meditation and it is confirmed by the great Indovedic tradition works as Samhita, Upanishad, Itihasa and Purana, that can lead a very interesting dialogue with modern Western Tradition. Among numerous authors and Thought Masters which have drawn resources, cues and concepts from the very extensive Vedic culture for their doctrines and theories, we should mention Carl Gustav Jung and his “individuation process”. To individuate oneself means to get acquainted with one’s deepest nature, instead of restricting oneself just on the superficial and fallacious level of sensory perception. The signs and information reaching our consciousness from the external environment, through our sense organs and next elaboration at cortical level, are just a fraction of reality, even less than 10% as indicated by Prof. Genovesi during his speech. Knowledge of reality through the senses is a null result, as well as our capability to understand, since it is conditioned and subject to sensory perception. Hence, not only senses (indriya) are misleading, but also the perceptive information fields related to the mind (manas), being based on sensory perception.

The tendency (vasana) of the mind to depend on sensory information brings to a preconceived, rigid and generally structure perception of the world, that when not integrated and enriched is useless to define the individual identity.

The issue about the nature of personal identity is crucial for meditation. Indovedic psychology identifies human being in its entirety: as well as the universe involves three interacting worlds, being constituted from earth, in-between dimensions and heaven, the incarnated human being has a triple nature: physical, psychic and spiritual. The solid, earthy and physical constitution is the material body that includes a complex structure – the most complex structure known today – called nervous system, but also an apparatus that is more subtle, although of material nature, not definable neither graphically nor spatially, not even temporally: the psychic structure. In the end, there is the inmost nature of man, the first cause of life, his essence and real identity: the spiritual one. According to Vedic wisdom every human being is ontologically “atman”, a spiritual and eternal sparkle. To simplify even further, we can say that man’s identity is split into two different aspects: one is related to the psycho-physical conditions that the individual historically experienced during his different life’s cycles, that is called historical self or false ego, the sum of the psychic contents, defined in sanskrit as “ahamkara”. The other one is real, eternal and immutable, beyond time and space and is the spiritual nature. The basic faculty to reach the meditative dimension is attentiveness, that is not controlled by the nervous system, contrary to what is stated by the extreme positivism embraced by the modern western psychology, but in the first instance is promoted by “atman”, the unifying center that holds and gives an unique and unrepeatable characterization to the personality. The spiritual self makes use just of the physiological and biological part of the so called “human being” and feeds and moves his energies. All the Indian classic tradition schools (sampradaya), all the great Masters lines of disciplic succession, who practiced the Vedic teachings in their daily life, recognize that atman is the fundamental principle.

Class about Markandeay Rishi on Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati's anniversary. By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

This part of the Shrimad Bhagavatam could be defined: “The allegory of death”. Whatever Markandeya rishi witnesses in the macrocosm, I believe it is not different from all that each of us will witness at the moment of dissolution, of the microcosm of our body because, as it is explained in the Upanishad, macrocosm and microcosm are one the reflection of the other.

At the time of death, we will be carried away like a floating leaf into space and, in a second, under the influence of a powerful driving force, we will be projected out of the body.

Only through a spiritual realization we will be reminded of our origin, by understanding what is happening and acting in a sensible manner.

Markandeya rishi’s tale is the story of a realized soul who through the passage beyond death meets the Lord. In the ocean of universal devastation, the Lord appears to him as a toddler who floats on a leaf and sucks his big toe in tenderness, whilst the light that emanates from his body entirely disperses darkness.

Markandeya protects Him in his heart with deep devotion.

Today is His Holy Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati's anniversary. I remember one of Shrila Prabhupada’s lessons held in this occasion in order to glorify his Master for the great work made to value the Vaishnava image and that one of an authentic Brahmin. During this lesson Shrila Prabhupada narrates the story taken from the Shrimad Bhagavatam. Naradamuni meets the sons of a Brahmin, of a king and of a butcher. Each of them asks him in turn: “Tell me what my future will be like. Is it better for me to live or to die?”. Narada answers to the Brahmin’s son: “Living or dying does not matter to you because you are practising spiritual activities and you will do the same after death”. Narada’s answer to the prince is: “It is better for you to live because you have made so many sins, therefore having ceased the pleasures of this life, you will have to suffer a great deal in your next life”. What is the answer to the butcher’s son? Narada says: “Living or dying is the same for you. You are suffering in this life and likewise you will suffer after death".

Love and Freedom: Betrayal, Rancour and Forgiveness. By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

Turin, May 21st 2011

Everyone is in search of freedom and love, but very often our actions imprison us instead of making us free, and we suffer instead of loving.

Love and freedom are the signs of triumph that shows we make realizations by listening and following the voice that we hear from within: the voice of consciousness. The same voice resounds in the prisons, in the hospitals, in the innocent children’s hearts and in the life of tired elderly people and it reminds us of the real purpose of life: to evolve in order to become aware of our divine nature and learn to love.

Without freedom, without love, without forgiveness and compassion, the human being is no more than a spiritual dwarf: he may walk but certainly he does not fly, he may stutter or speak, but certainly his heart does not sing because he does not know the joy of the people who live in harmony within themselves, with the others, with the whole world.

Power intimidates people, whereas compassion generates love. By forgiving the person finds the divine power and relieves oneself from attachments, resentments and feelings of guilt, anger and revenge. The one who forgives is able to love and enjoys love of the others.

DEATH. A stage of life (part 2/2). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

In the Fedone, Platone makes Socrate say, in one of his last phrases: “The time has come that I must go; every one of us continues with his or her program: I go off to die, you all go on to live, but no one knows who will be better off, only God knows”. And Tagore wrote: “Birth and death are two parts of life, just like to walk you must lift a foot and then lay it down”.

Birth and death are two dots in a circle that the sages of the Veda call samsara, the repeated cycle of birth and death, since, like the Bhagavad gita teaches, all that is born will die and all that dies will be reborn.

Birth and death are like awakening and going to sleep: we are here before we awake and we are here again after we have fallen asleep. The similitude between dream and death is very close.

The fear of death, besides the terror generated from the unknown, from the journey to an unknown destination, is primarily constituted from the fact that we must leave the objective world, the body, our dearest people, the social position, the prestige, the richness, the pleasure of food, of sex and various possessions. Yet, doesn’t the same happen during our dreams? In the dream doesn’t the subject abandon its physical body? Doesn’t he abandon the social prestige? He abandons a large quantity of things for which he has often developed a morbid attachment. The realization of the self permanence in a different dimension from the one of the wake state of consciousness, is something to be reinforced when we have the resources to make an investment of knowledge, to resolve the problem of death in life.

Death, as the Veda teache, is a passage towards another dimension, passage through which we renew our lives’ projects; it is not the end, but the beginning of a successive existential cycle. It is like exiting from a theatre scene and entering into another; the actor does not disappear, he is gone only to the observer’s eyes; the same is for the living being at the death moment: the protagonist does not disappear, but simply goes elsewhere. The Gita compares the body to a dress; death is like undressing from old clothes and wearing new ones.

Our prejudices, the social schemes, the way of facing certain phenomena and certain passages of life, are to be reconsidered at the renovated light of intelligence. The image of the self is not what the mirror shows. Death can lose its dramatic power if we come to a new vision of reality, by acknowledging and experiencing ourselves beyond the multiple masks of ego.

The fear of being annulled, zeroed, terminated, is the product of a certain culture, a prejudice, a negative dogma that generates tormenting thoughts, swinging between remorse and irony. Many make irony on death trying to exorcise their fear, but the right approach to the phenomenon must be honest, serious, through an in-depth study, not only intellectual, but experimental.

The subjective world and the objective world, the psychical introverted and extroverted functions and the needs of all the living being should be harmonized. It is by harmonizing these functions that we can grow up, that we can illuminate our personality. Life is a continuum, birth and death correspond to the appearing and disappearing of a physical body, and the same is for the appearing and disappearing of thoughts, illusions, wishes, opinions. If emotionally detached we put ourselves in the position of observers, we can see that the psychical contents float in our conscience as objects on the surface of a river, and therefore we can manage them at our best. What slips off our control, instead, is all that we identify ourselves with and obviously what we ignore.

The fear of death is caused by the identification with our body. Who identifies himself/herself with the body they are wearing will experiment, as years go by, growing fear and terror of death.

What wins death is love, together with consciousness. Love is the strongest feeling, it outlives death, because living means to give and receive love. To love in its widest meaning is to love life itself, therefore all that is living: all creatures. This should set our way of life, of eating, of relating with others. The more we love life and we understand its nature, the less we will fear death.

DEATH. A stage of life (part 1/2) By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

No matter what our descendant roots are, noble or of humble origin, rich or poor, old or young, illuminated or not, we are all destined to die. We know that it is inevitable, but we deceive ourselves by thinking that others will die before us, that we will be the last to go. Death always seams far away. Isn’t it a misleading way of thinking? Isn’t it an illusion, a dream? This makes us negligent and we shouldn’t believe it. We should be courageous and prepare ourselves, because sooner or later death will knock at our door. (Yamamoto Tsunetomo, samurai monk of ending 1600)

Death is most likely the most complex, painful and captivating phenomenon with which man has always had to deal with; generally it irrupts very strongly in the story of an individual, of a family unit and society reality, often leaving behind desperation, emptiness, and mental derangement.

Intelligent people of every era, though living in health, have come across this problem with genuine spirit of research, looking for the comprehension of the events that obligatorily move to a different level from the one merely pertinent to the sensorial perception.

The thought of death is located deep in the human soul and strongly affects the entire course of life and the character, mostly operating at a deep conscience level.

The objective of this analysis is the reinterpretation of the phenomenon, reinterpretation that takes the abandoning of those preconceptions structured in our mind since the green age, and connected to apparent realities and to the destructive image that the idea of death carries with itself.

To face this arcane and dramatic argument in the over-rational perspective, lightly expressed and surely unusual for the western culture, we need to take an “inner journey” , to the roots of our deepest and concealed experiences. The rational mind can capture and encode the physical reality, but not all the reality is reconductible to this level. How can the rational function explain in a full and satisfactory way the “intra-psychic” dynamics? How can it answer the existential questions on the imperceptible nature of oneself and explain the mystery of life? In front of death or of a disconcerting medical report even the most solid rationality will vacillate showing all its limits.

The sages of the Veda, mind and life scientists who belong to a millenary tradition, indicate how the human being complexity must be studied in its entire bio-psychic-spiritual reality. The classic Indian works explain that barriers between the physical, psychic-energetic and spiritual-metaphysic do not exist; the same human life is a combination of these three interactive dimensions of reality. Man does not only have a physical body but also a psychic body, which represents one of the fundamental bases for the development of the personality. But physical and psychic do not complete the picture of a human being: the physical body and the mental structure are two tools utilized from the purusha, the spiritual self, the subject that perceives, thinks and acts using in fact the body and the mind. Only those that are fully conscious of their self can influence deeply and with determination their physical and psychic bodies, activating inner resources that allows the rediscovering of the auto-healing path. What unifies the physical world and the psychical world, that makes them interactive and gives them a meaning is the self, the vital spark, the witness, the one that sees, that hears, that understands; all the rest are tools.

We need to underline that every living being is eternal, therefore the living entity does not have a beginning (anadi) or an end (ananta). The Veda knowledge teaches that we do not die with the body but at the moment of the spiritual journey out of the body we are moved elsewhere aboard of the psychic structure. From this perspective we can transcend the mistaken contraposition of the binomial life-death, rediscovering the living being’s dimension in which death, being a life phase, is not in opposition with life, but with birth. Similarly, the “asleep” state of consciousness, the one without dreams, is not in opposition with the “wake” state of consciousness. If we made life coincide exclusively with the wake experience, then we can say that sleep has nothing to do with life, but we know very well that it is not true at all. Without sleep there could not be the wake state: during sleep the neurons healthily interact, all the cells easily surrender their wasted products and regenerate.

Segments of Life: Looking at Death Under Another Prospective

By Matsya Avatara Dasa

Nowadays the great innovations of medical and scientific science can maintain patients alive, even those that in the past were given no hope to survive. These innovations can prolong the patient’s existence artificially even knowing that they will never regain acceptable health and life conditions. This situation is commonly called over-medication. The definition of cerebral death, since the end of the sixties has allowed for the development of transplant surgery. Before that time, the extraction of organs from a patient with a heartbeat was deemed a felony. Among this scientific and social debate there are ever more crucial questions. Up to which point is it right to keep alive a body that is worn out and unable to grant a minimum of dignity to the psycho-physical entity called person? What is the line that marks the decisive boundary between the unavoidable medical assistance and the over-medication?

The recent story of Eluana Englaro and other similar stories such as those of Piergiorgio Welby and Terry Schiavo, made the whole world think by highlighting the urgency of a serious thinking.

The incomparable value of freedom and of the sacredness and dignity of life and respect to all creatures should be a common patrimony in every social body regardless of its scientific or individual religious orientation. This should be true not only toward human beings but also toward every living being. Life must be protected in each of its manifestation. In the complex human, social and scientific context, it is becoming ever more important and urgent to offer information and teaching on the process of dying and also on the post-mortem phenomena in accordance to medical-scientific prospective but also in accordance to spiritual, humanistic and existential prospective. It should be done by sensibly operating with sincerity so that each person can build, without intrusion or cultural prejudices a clear vision of his will and give and explicit and clear indication through a biological testament and other useful instruments that society indicates and uses for this purpose. We can have better opportunities to self-determine our present and our future if we open ourselves to a deeper comprehension of the death phenomena by taking a distance from various taboos and from the many things removed by the collective imagination that usually hamper a mature elaboration. In fact, only by growing in consciousness we can grow in responsibility and freedom.

For this purpose who is writing has been personally taking care of those so called “incurable” patients and of those medical personnel involved with the taking care and assistance of these patients. He does this by offering instruments of reflection based on the sociological, psychological, philosophical and spiritual Hindu-Vedic tradition. This tradition can significantly extend our perception and conception of the individual and of the death event. We can understand how to extend our perception, through a continuous string of considerations intimately connected among each other and we can also find them in the text: Psychology of the cycle of life – Experience beyond birth and death” (edizioni Centro Studi Bhaktivedante www.c-s-b.org). Let’s not only wonder what to do with the organs of a body that has reached the end of this life. Let’s also think of the future of that person that lived in it and that in accordance with the Hindu-Vedic prospective will continue his existence even after he has left that physical body. How can we help that person still imprisoned in that suit that is now worn-out? How can we stimulate him to prepare himself to abandon it? How can we orient the evolutionary journey that will begin after his clinical death is confirmed?

The answer to these questions is important not only for those that work in the medical field but also for every individual. Welcome, assistance and accompanying are three key concepts in this area.

The meaning of welcoming is meeting the other person, opening not only our arms but also our heart and our mind. The meaning of assisting is intervening with sensitiveness by becoming emphatic and listening to the modalities and the needs of others. The meaning of accompanying is being by the side of a person, without preceding him, but staying almost behind him, being a humble and affectionate person and stimulate him to proceed. Accompanying means staying sensibly alongside and helping him to reach his destination by providing warmth, goodness, empathy, compassion and mercy.

The Hindu-Vedic tradition doesn’t use psychotherapeutic techniques, but offers teachings toward the development of a cosmic vision of life, man and the world that doesn’t concentrate on the resolution of psychological discomfort but on the elevation of a global consciousness. This allows those who apply it to re-discover the entirety of their nature on the bio-physical-spiritual level and express all of their most noble potentialities and aspirations by facing even death in an inner-peace state.

Why does death exist? Who or what dies? How can we prepare ourselves? What does dying consists of? How can we assist a terminally ill person? How can we interact with his family and with medical personnel? By asking ourselves these questions we can reach surprising intuitions, sometimes they make us feel beyond the changing flow of this shining and deceiving world (Veda define it maya which means illusory).

The first question to ask ourselves is: when the objective cure-doctor-medication is no longer reachable, what can we do to take care of the person? Can we transform a traumatic even such as death into an evolutionary experience? The answer is Yes!

The phenomena of death is usually lived as the end of everything, dissolution, disappearance, with tonalities that go from resigned to dramatic all the way to desperate. However, according to the Hindu-Vedic philosophical-spiritual tradition death doesn’t exist as an entity, but only as a concept or a moment of transaction from a segment of life to another. Through a consciousness journey, every human being can learn to “live” it by perceiving that his identity is different from the one of the body and discovering in front of him a new phase of his eternal existence to be projected constructively.

Bhagavad-Gita (II.20) says: “The living being is not born, nor will die. He is eternal. He doesn’t die when the body is destroyed. Tagore writes: we walk when we lift our foot just as much as when we put it down. Like daybreak prepares the new day that will later reaches the sunset, the sunset, through the night, will lead to a new daybreak. Life goes on incessantly and if we understand its evolutionary sense and finally its arcane transcendental meaning, we can overcome even the greatest fear, the fear of death and realize the immortality of our essence, and give a new hope to the deep aspirations of every living being toward authentic freedom and happiness, beyond the limits of space and time.

Readings

Renate Greinert, Cerebral Death and Donation of the Organs, the doubts and inquires of a mother that has donated her son’s organs. Macro Editions 2009.

Psychology of the Life Cycle

How to live a traumatic event as an opportunity

for growth and evolution (from the preface of Psychology of the Life Cycle book)

By Matsyavatara Dasa

The three key words in psychological help to terminal patients and their family members are: Welcoming, Assisting, Accompanying.

Welcoming means to make oneself available to the person, by opening one’s arms as well as one’s heart and mind.

Assisting means to operate gently, remaining always open to empathy, listening to the needs and the mentality of the person.

Accompanying means to walk by the person’s side rather than in front, sometimes even walking behind in humility and love, to encourage his or her progress. Accompanying is to gently coax the person towards his destination, with kindness and warmth, empathy, compassion and generosity.

In this book we will not discuss the case of patients who can recover to a state of physical health. We will rather focus on the assistance to patients in their terminal stage, from the perspective of the Bhakti-Vedanta psychology¹ that is certainly extremely valuable for the Western world, too. Our approach is holistic, free from the defect of fragmentation between medicine, psychology and spirituality.

I have been studying psychology for over 30 years, achieving specializations and exploring various Schools of thought, with particular attention to the classical Indian civilization, that created a very advanced Science of health (Ayurveda) and an important School of psychology (Upanishads, Vedanta, Bhagavad gita, Yogasutra and Puranas), very likely the first in the history of mankind.

This civilization, considered by many as the original culture of the world, is based on the Vedas, the most ancient texts known to mankind, universally appreciated and recognized by many as an authoritative source of physical and metaphysical knowledge, unifying the sciences of matter and spirit. This ancient knowledge, several thousands of years old, has been preserved, transmitted and renewed in time through the exegetic work of the various traditional Schools, and today it is highly respected in the West, too, amid a growing academic and scientific interest. It expresses a mature vision, characterized by advanced discoveries in the various fields such as medicine, philosophy, psychology, sociology, astronomy, mathematics, etc. It also offers surprisingly modern information and therapies that integrate the most cutting edge discoveries of contemporary science.

The Bhakti-Vedanta tradition offers information and methods that heal the individual on a global level, in all his/her anthropological aspects: physical, psychological and spiritual, substantially and effectively helping the development and the harmonious integration of personality, the tuning of the subconscious elements with the ego and the self. It offers an integrated, profitable and totally satisfying connection between sentiments and thoughts, intuition and reason, deep subconscious issues and operative rationality, up to the concrete and global experience of the visualization of the higher levels of reality (the self consciousness).

We will study the issue of terminal disease by considering not only the physical instrument (the body) but especially the psychological instrument, and the emotional blockages, guilt complexes and depressive states that often afflict those who are facing such an important step. We will also study the spiritual aspect not in an abstract, but with applications in the immanent reality of the individual.

Thus we will approach the person on an integrated way, in a wide and global perspective, including the rituals of physical and spiritual preparation to the transition, and the psychological needs of the patient to prepare for the “journey” of the soul after death.

The phenomena of birth and death have been analyzed by some great minds of the ancient and modern Western civilization:

“So-called birth is merely an old thing that takes a new form and clothing... The soul is always the same, only the form is lost”.

Ovid

"The doctrine of metempsychosis is neither absurd nor useless... Being born twice is not more astounding than only once".

Voltaire (1694-1778)

“Not the flesh is real – it is the soul that is real. The flesh is but ashes. The soul is the flame.”

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

“The actions in previous lifetimes give the direction to the present lifetime.”

“The dreams of our present existence are the environment where we elaborate the impressions, the thoughts and sentiments of a previous lifetime...”

Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910)

“And calculating your life, you are the residue of many deaths....”

Walt Whitman (New York 1819-1892)

“I have no difficulty imagining that I have already lived through past centuries, and pondered over questions I was unable to answer. Therefore I had to be reborn because I had not been able to complete the task I had received”.

C. G. Jung (1875-1961)

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Ph. D. in medicine and specialized in psychiatry, wrote several books about her experiences with terminal patients in hospitals. As we see in some of her most intense and moving pages, death is nothing but a sublime and sweet passage, and everyone of us can experience it in that way, leaving behind all regrets for this earthly life, the fear of detachment from loved ones, and the unknown that is waiting for us Beyond.

Brian Weiss, American psychiatrist, he is famous for his accounts of the amazing stories of his patients’ previous lifetimes, reconstructed by regression therapy. He uses techniques of spiritual psychotherapy to help the healing at physical, emotional and spiritual levels.

Raymond A. Moody, jr., American philosopher, physician and psychiatrist, studied Philosophy at the Virginia University, where he graduated in 1969. After teaching Ethics, Logics and Philosophy for three years at the North Carolina University, he started to study medicine and graduated at the Georgia Medical College. In 1975 he wrote a very famous book, “Life After Life”. Before him only Elizabeth Kubler Ross had presented the topic is a similarly rigorous way, sticking to simple experience as much as possible.

In the Bhakti-Vedanta tradition each science is considered as closely interconnected with all the other disciplines in an organic project of training and therapy. In this context, it aims at a larger vision of man and the world, necessary to develop a balanced and deeply conscious life.

Our discussion will not be a mere abstract description, detached from the personal character of the expounder and of those who may be using it. Above all, we want to offer a concrete perspective on life, and the best effect will be obtained when our suggestions will be received in the spirit of broadening one’s awareness through theoretical and practical learning.

We will discuss Bhakti-Vedanta psychology with comparisons and connections to Western psychology, and propose instruments for a better awareness which can help our daily practice and as well as the cure, assistance and accompanying of terminal patients. Not only for the patients’ benefit, but also for our own benefit: amazingly, the lessons on the subject of death are extraordinarily useful for personal development at large. In our case, success is death in a state of psychological well-being.

It is rightly said that, when teaching is done seriously, with competence and love, the teacher will learn and grow as much as the student. Similarly, one who assists and accompanies a dying person will have the opportunity to live an extraordinary experience of personal growth. Indeed, we cannot understand or plan life if we have not understood death.

1 Bhakti-Vedanta psychology does not use psychotherapeutic techniques, but practices teachings and exercises for the development of a spiritual vision of man and the cosmos. It does not limit itself to the solution of psychological discomforts but aims at rising awareness, so that the individual becomes able to rediscover his original nature beyond the acquired beliefs, the artificial identities and the false behavioral patterns that restrict the potential and the noblest aspirations of the living being.

DEATH: a Stage of Life

By Matsyavatara Dasa

No matter what our descendant roots are, noble or of humble origin, rich or poor, old or young, illuminated or not, we are all destined to die. We know that it is inevitable, but we deceive ourselves by thinking that others will die before us, that we will be the last to go. Death always seams far away. Isn’t it a misleading way of thinking? Isn’t it an illusion, a dream? This makes us negligent and we shouldn’t believe it. We should be courageous and prepare ourselves, because sooner or later death will knock at our door.

(Yamamoto Tsunetomo, samurai monk of ending 1600)

Death is most likely the most complex, painful and captivating phenomenon with which man has always had to deal with; generally it irrupts very strongly in the story of an individual, of a family unit and society reality, often leaving behind desperation, emptiness, and mental derangement.

Intelligent people of every era, though living in health, have come across this problem with genuine spirit of research, looking for the comprehension of the events that obligatorily move to a different level from the one merely pertinent to the sensorial perception.

The thought of death is located deep in the human soul and strongly affects the entire course of life and the character, mostly operating at a deep conscience level.

The objective of this analysis is the reinterpretation of the phenomenon, reinterpretation that takes the abandoning of those preconceptions structured in our mind since the green age, and connected to apparent realities and to the destructive image that the idea of death carries with itself.

To face this arcane and dramatic argument in the over-rational perspective, lightly expressed and surely unusual for the western culture, we need to take an “inner journey” , to the roots of our deepest and concealed experiences. The rational mind can capture and encode the physical reality, but not all the reality is reconductible to this level. How can the rational function explain in a full and satisfactory way the “intra-psychic” dynamics? How can it answer the existential questions on the imperceptible nature of oneself and explain the mystery of life? In front of death or of a disconcerting medical report even the most solid rationality will vacillate showing all its limits.

The sages of the Vedas, mind and life scientists who belong to a millenary tradition, indicate how the human being complexity must be studied in its entire bio-psychic-spiritual reality. The classic Indian works explain that barriers between the physical, psychic-energetic and spiritual-metaphysic do not exist; the same human life is a combination of these three interactive dimensions of reality. Man does not only have a physical body but also a psychic body, which represents one of the fundamental bases for the development of the personality. But physical and psychic do not complete the picture of a human being: the physical body and the mental structure are two tools utilized from the purusha, the spiritual self, the subject that perceives, thinks and acts using in fact the body and the mind. Only those that are fully conscious of their self can influence deeply and with determination their physical and psychic bodies, activating inner resources that allows the rediscovering of the auto-healing path. What unifies the physical world and the psychical world, that makes them interactive and gives them a meaning is the self, the vital spark, the witness, the one that sees, that hears, that understands; all the rest are tools.

We need to underline that every living being is eternal, therefore the living entity does not have a beginning (anadi) or an end (ananta). The Veda knowledge teaches that we do not die with the body but at the moment of the spiritual journey out of the body we are moved elsewhere aboard of the psychic structure. From this perspective we can transcend the mistaken contraposition of the binomial life-death, rediscovering the living being’s dimension in which death, being a life phase, is not in opposition with life, but with birth. Similarly, the “asleep” state of consciousness, the one without dreams, is not in opposition with the “wake” state of consciousness. If we made life coincide exclusively with the wake experience, then we can say that sleep has nothing to do with life, but we know very well that it is not true at all. Without sleep there could not be the wake state: during sleep the neurons healthily interact, all the cells easily surrender their wasted products and regenerate.

In the Fedone, Platone makes Socrate say, in one of his last phrases: “The time has come that I must go; every one of us continues with his or her program: I go off to die, you all go on to live, but no one knows who will be better off, only God knows”. And Tagore wrote: “Birth and death are two parts of life, just like to walk you must lift a foot and then lay it down”.

Birth and death are two dots in a circle that the sages of the Veda s call samsara, the repeated cycle of birth and death, since, like the Bhagavadgita teaches, all that is born will die and all that dies will be reborn.

Birth and death are like awakening and going to sleep: we are here before we awake and we are here again after we have fallen asleep. The similitude between dream and death is very close.

The fear of death, besides the terror generated from the unknown, from the journey to an unknown destination, is primarily constituted from the fact that we must leave the objective world, the body, our dearest people, the social position, the prestige, the richness, the pleasure of food, of sex and various possessions. Yet, doesn’t the same happen during our dreams? In the dream doesn’t the subject abandon its physical body? Doesn’t he abandon the social prestige? He abandons a large quantity of things for which he has often developed a morbid attachment. The realization of the self permanence in a different dimension from the one of the wake state of consciousness, is something to be reinforced when we have the resources to make an investment of knowledge, to resolve the problem of death in life.

Death, as the Vedas teache, is a passage towards another dimension, passage through which we renew our lives’ projects; it is not the end, but the beginning of a successive existential cycle. It is like exiting from a theatre scene and entering into another; the actor does not disappear, he is gone only to the observer’s eyes; the same is for the living being at the death moment: the protagonist does not disappear, but simply goes elsewhere. The Gita compares the body to a dress; death is like undressing from old clothes and wearing new ones.

Our prejudices, the social schemes, the way of facing certain phenomena and certain passages of life, are to be reconsidered at the renovated light of intelligence. The image of the self is not what the mirror shows. Death can lose its dramatic power if we come to a new vision of reality, by acknowledging and experiencing ourselves beyond the multiple masks of ego.

The fear of being annulled, zeroed, terminated, is the product of a certain culture, a prejudice, a negative dogma that generates tormenting thoughts, swinging between remorse and irony. Many make irony on death trying to exorcise their fear, but the right approach to the phenomenon must be honest, serious, through an in-depth study, not only intellectual, but experimental.

The subjective world and the objective world, the psychical introverted and extroverted functions and the needs of all the living being should be harmonized. It is by harmonizing these functions that we can grow up, that we can illuminate our personality. Life is a continuum, birth and death correspond to the appearing and disappearing of a physical body, and the same is for the appearing and disappearing of thoughts, illusions, wishes, opinions. If emotionally detached we put ourselves in the position of observers, we can see that the psychical contents float in our conscience as objects on the surface of a river, and therefore we can manage them at our best. What slips off our control, instead, is all that we identify ourselves with and obviously what we ignore.

The fear of death is caused by the identification with our body. Who identifies himself/herself with the body they are wearing will experiment, as years go by, growing fear and terror of death.

What wins death is love, together with consciousness. Love is the strongest feeling, it outlives death, because living means to give and receive love. To love in its widest meaning is to love life itself, therefore all that is living: all creatures. This should set our way of life, of eating, of relating with others. The more we love life and we understand its nature, the less we will fear death.