Interesting Reading

Ask Kriyananda

By Goswami Kriyananda

From website: http://www.yogachicago.com/may06/kriyananda.shtml

Q: Dear Goswami, I read your article about death, dying and rebirth in the last issue and found it very interesting. My question is, “How do you know what you see on the other side is true and real?”

Back in the late 30’s, when my consciousness first entered the inner planes (the astral), I asked the same question: Was my mind just experiencing interesting hallucinations or was there a deeper truth? My doubts stemmed from the Western religious beliefs that one could not enter the afterlife until one had died. I almost stopped my exploration of inner space. However, I realized that these deeper states of consciousness were quite organized, orderly and had a special pattern to them. I continued the exploration and came to the realization that our thoughts and beliefs are forces that limit what we can perceive and what we can do. Thus, with renewed yoga practice, my mind became tranquil and able to enter into deeper space where I gained added insights.
It soon became clear that heavy emotions were forces that blocked deeper and clearer awareness. Once again, through yoga, I was able to soften and remove these emotional states, and my mind was able to expand to higher realms and gather subtler information from and about the afterlife. Thus, I became convinced that humans were able to enter the afterlife and collect verifiable data, which was “real and true,” to use your words. To put it another way, I am convinced that I am now awake; however, at any moment it is possible that I will wake up and realize that I was dreaming. Until that happens, I will assume I’m awake and move forward. In mysticism, there is no difference between the awakened state and the sleep state or between the earth life and the so-called afterlife.
My mind understood that if these states of consciousness were in the astral world, then the future would also be there. For example, if I were to go into the astral and find the thought-streams of the (potential) future of someone, then I would have specific facts as to his or her future. I tried this with a number of people and determined specific experiences that these people would most likely have in this incarnation. Years later that which I had seen and recorded manifested. This verification boosted my certainty in the ability for humans to gain awareness of the astral world as well as a non-physical world. (I used the term “potential” future because, mystically speaking, to know that future gives one the power to change the future.)
Later on, I encountered disembodied souls who told me about their children and what was going to happen to their children. Years later, these events manifested exactly the way the parents said they would. This evidence absolutely confirmed the afterlife’s existence and its link to human earth life and earth life to the afterlife. It was those experiences that removed any remaining doubt that humans were able to see into the afterlife.
Yoga points out that every action leaves an imprint of a subconscious habit or mood (called samskaras) on the subtle astral mind. These imprints gather together to form vasanas, which are latent, subliminal traits and tendencies left behind when desire has been exercised. Sooner or later these vasanas manifest as a given event known as a karma action or a karma event. The mind is like a field and all actions--physical, verbal or mental--sow seeds in that field. Positive actions sow seeds of future positivity; negative actions sow seeds of future negativity. These seeds remain dormant until the circumstances necessary for their ripening manifest. Some seeds manifest in this lifetime, other seeds manifest in future incarnations.
The karmic seeds that ripen as our physical body dies are significant because they tend to determine the type of rebirth we will have on the astral as well as in future incarnations on the earth plane. Our state of mind at the time of the death of our physical body determines which specific karmic seeds will ripen. The state of mind at this time is revealed, symbolically and actually, by our state of mind when we go to sleep at night and when we first awaken in the morning. Restlessness, nightmares, confusion and forgetfulness arise from a non-peaceful mind. Thus, the small death (sleeping state) reveals the expected events of the big sleep. This is one reason yoga emphasizes the cultivation of contentment and peacefulness.
If the mind is peaceful at the time of the death of the physical body, there will be an accelerated maturing of positive karmic seeds, thus positive experiences will manifest in the astral and during rebirth. If the mind is emotional at that time, there will be an accelerated maturing of negative karmic seeds, thus negative experiences will manifest in the astral and during rebirth on earth. The correlation of falling asleep with the death of the physical body is not accidental, nor is it symbolical. It is actual because the process of sleep, dreaming and waking are microcosmic reproductions of the macrocosmic pattern of the death, dying and rebirth process of the physical body.
As one falls asleep, the life energy (prana) withdraws itself from the physical body and brain and momentarily transfers itself to the astral body and mind. While asleep, the person resembles a person who is dead. When one begins to awaken from the sleep state, the life energy recedes from the astral body, moves back into the physical body and becomes re-vivified. (Keep in mind that the direction of the flow of the life force moves from the subtle to the dense, from the inner world to the outer world, from higher worlds to the lower worlds.) In this process, the person passes through the levels of the astral state, including the dream levels, and automatically returns back into the physical body. Automatically the memory and mental control are restored to the brain and physical body. When this happens the memory of the dream world vanishes.
With one critical exception, the exact same procedure occurs when our physical bodies die. With the death of the physical body, the silver cord that connects the physical body to the astral body is damaged and thus we cannot re-enter the physical body through this tunnel. During the process of sleep, dreaming and waking, the silver cord existing between our astral body and the physical body is not broken. Thus we can move through the tunnel back into the physical mind-body complex. (The silver cord connects the ajna chakra (the sun center), which is colored gold and located between the eyebrows of the physical body, to the chandra chakra (the moon center), which is silver and located at the base of the skull of the astral body.)
Just as one passes through the dream state and automatically returns to the physical world when one has rested enough, and just as memory and mental functions are automatically restored when the mind is awakened, so likewise when one has “rested” enough, gathered and condensed the incarnation’s experiences and collected the guidance from the astral world, one automatically re-awakens to a new incarnation with the memory of previous earth samskaras positively modified with the new astral samskaras. When one wakes from the death of the physical body, the astral world fades away and again one perceives the physical world. Yes, the astral world fades away unless one has learned to remain awake in the sleep/dream state. Again, this is one of the chief reasons yoga emphasizes meditation and awareness of the inner states, including the dream state.
Mystics are interested in the cosmological images that manifest beyond and outside of the dream state. This brings up the concept of the vision of God in mysticism. However, let me first explain what mysticism is. The word mysticism, etymologically speaking, comes from the Greek word myein, which means closing the eyes. Thus, mysticism has the connotation of turning inward and upward, gaining a meditative state. In this process one withdraws the self from the external world, and through introversion turns and ascends higher, transcending the mind and entering into the collective consciousness and the akashic records of humanity. In yoga this process is known as Kriya-Shiva yoga.
Mysticism relates that which is transcendental to everyday human life. It is an art and a science in which one seeks the divine in life, here and now, as well as in the afterlife. It seeks to find the divine in all beings, which is possible when one realizes that life is homogenized.
In a vision, the Swiss mystic Nicholas von Flue saw God who appeared with His eyes, ears and mouth sealed with the tips of arrows. This image reflects a technique used by mystics, which is to firmly seal off the main senses with the fingers so that any manifestation or experience will be the result of an inward working of the mind and not a stimulus from the gross or subtle sense organs. In yoga this technique is called yoni mudra. The result of this inturning is a realization that all life is homogenized: as below, so above; as external, so internal.
Nicholas von Flue’s vision has a deeper revelation. It is actually God’s sense organs that are pierced and sealed, which means the ability to meditate projects and evolves from a divine, internal center (chakra) that exists in the resurrection body--the astral body or body of light. It was here that conflict arose between mysticism and religion because mystics realized that the God-symbol had manifested from their inner soul and mirrored their root of being. This symbol deviated radically from the dogmatically proclaimed fixed and static personification of God. Thus, there arose grave conflicts between mystics and the dogma of the church regarding the theology of the nature of God. Mystics do not turn to texts for divine meaning, but rather to their own personal, mystical experience of the divine by using the tools of detachment, introversion and meditation. In so doing, the mystic does not experience a theological God, but rather experiences an individual God-embodiment. It is this experience of the divine which links the mystic to his own divine roots and which gives a new, freer and higher meaning to life--and thus to his own life.
Most priests, rabbis, pastors and swamis do not have this personal experience and therefore must substitute direct, divine experience with authorized statements of a church, which are most often protected with fanatical zeal. These souls do not close their eyes, but must keep them open so as to be able to read. Thus, they are occupied with an external experience, which can never be mystical or divine.
Mysticism appears in all religions. It forms an introverted counter-pole to the extraverted members of the clergy who concern themselves with the proper and official interpretation of holy texts. The Christian mystics were silenced by being sent to the astral via the usual manner. However, a group of mystics found a way around the church’s silencing. This group was the alchemists who used deeper symbolism to convey their Teachings. One of these alchemists was Paracelsus (1493-1541), who was looking for the Deus absconditus, the hidden Divinity existing in each being. This was one of the key reasons Carl Jung was so interested and involved with alchemy.
… to be continued.
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Goswami Kriyananda is the founder and spiritual preceptor of The Temple of Kriya Yoga in Chicago and the author of several books and home study courses. (See Web site at http://www.yogakriya.org.) Please send your questions to Goswami Kriyananda, c/o The Temple of Kriya Yoga, 2414 N. Kedzie, Chicago, IL 60647.

Wonderful piece. I will keep coming back to it.