Brahmanubhuti – Talk 19
(Death Experience)
https://youtu.be/qIs0t8GhE8o
Let us contemplate on one more experience, death.
Are death and Brahmanubhava similar? When you are alive, there is a body, and experience through the body, experience of the world and there is sense of duality. There is a feeling that I am embodied, I am within the body, for the Self. Obviously, in death, body is dropped which means there is a liberation, freedom. Can this be a state of liberation? Can this be a state of Mukti? Can this be a Brahmanubhava?
Sri Shankara, doesn’t agree with this. First of all, he doesn’t agree or accept or agree with the fact that, if you have a body, Self is embodied. The body is in the Self, it is not the other way. Self is not embodied within the body. But, that is a common experience in people. That is because of the ignorance of the mind. The mind is superimposing the body on the Self and Self on the body. Because of this, there is a illusion that Atma is imprisoned within the body. Atma is not imprisoned within the body.
(Atma is not inside body)
For example, I am sitting in this room. There is space in the room and without space I cannot be there. Within me also there is space. Within me and without me there is space. But the space is not trapped within me. Because my body cannot limit the space, my body cannot cut the space. The Self, Atma, Consciousness is subtler than the space. So, no body can bind it. There is no way the body can imprison Atma. But the mind creates a condition as if the Atma is imprisoned in the body. That is why people say ‘Atma is in me’, as if the body is me and Atma is inside me. In reality, body is in Atma. Nothing can limit or bind Atma.
So, from Atma’s point of view, having a body or not having a body doesn’t make difference with reference to its bondage. But of course, for the mind it makes difference. When jivatma changes from one body to another, the ignorance doesn’t go and hence even after death, the ignorance doesn’t go. Do not confuse death with liberation. People think that after death somebody gets liberated, which is not true. The liberation has to happen, by removal of ignorance, when you are alive. Not after death.
Pranams.