At the time of death – Part 2
Curing oneself
Can the realized Soul cure himself of the sufferings of the body? Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi clearly reject this idea when mooted to them by their disciples and devotees. For them, if the body is destined to suffer it should undergo the sufferings and clear such a debt now and here.
End time Premonition
Many a one gets an idea of the time of their moment of death. I have heard of many who knew astrology predicting their end time. Many a saint and siddha also had known their moment of ‘death’, departure or the time of shedding ‘this body’. My father Sri K A Aiyakutty Iyer too knew his end time and thus spoke to my brother and sister. More than that he spoke [three days before his death] to my other brother who was settled in Rishikesh [as a kind of ascetic] in Divine Life Society and commanded him to come down immediately to be with his father in his last moment! Edgar Cayce, an American Psychic, could foresee the 1963 shoot-out of John F Kennedy! He could ‘see’ the end moment years before! It is his prediction which lived to become true though he himself had passed away much before 1945. Jane Dixon, another American Psychic too had predicted this. Sri Muthuswamy Dikshitar, one of the three greats in Carnatic Music, knew this moment. He was the honored, revered and respected ‘great’ in the Ettayapuram Zamin [a small time kingdom]. One day the royal elephant started making unusual sound. The King was disturbed and found it to be nuisance. He ordered his men to bring the elephant to senses but to no avail. He sought the advice of Sri Muthuswamy Dikshitar who told him that elephant is making such a sound as it had sensed ‘his moment of departure’! With everyone’s presence around him including the King, Dikshitar shed the body! Paul Brunton’s book ‘A Search in Secret India’ he mentions about a yogi who travelled with him on his way to Calcutta [now Kolkatta] from Nagpur. Paul Brunton was travelling in a car to Calcutta to meet a saint. As they reached a small village in the evening hours, the yogi got down. Here during his one-to-one meeting the yogi informs Paul Brunton that the saint whom he plans to meet at Calcutta died when they were travelling from Nagpur! Paul Brunton was astonished, bewildered and perplexed as to how the hell the yogi has come to learn of this while he was travelling with him? I have my own tale, a different experience to tell on this. My mother-in-law Syamalam was admitted in the BMS hospital at Mysore and was there for about ten days. She was to be discharged the next day. The previous day even as I was sitting in my office [which is my present work place too] Syamalam’s face appears on the wall right in front of me [where I have now hanged a picture of Lord Ganapathy] and tells me that ‘she is departing soon’! Exactly at this time I received a call from hospital that Syamalam is deteriorating. I rushed to the hospital and found her struggling for breath. However I found that she herself knew nothing of her end! In another two hours or so she had passed away! Who or what is it that conveyed the message of death? Obviously and undoubtedly I believe it to be the Soul of Syamalam which came to me!
Dogs and cows too
Dogs can sense the presence of death coming and the presence of Lord Yama and his servants coming to take the lives and give alarm. Cows in the house can sense in the similar fashion and give alarm. The movie Talash shows about a dog sensing the ‘death coming’ around its place.
End time – What do we do?
Social obligation
Generally we, as a matter of social obligation, go to the near and dear ones of those who reached the ‘end time’ and express our emotions and solidarity. If the ‘dead’ had been close to our hearts we brood over, cry, talk over it and all. What help does this do to the ‘dying’? Do we think of that? What should we do?
Click here for next section – At the time death [end time] Part 3!
Other Sections:
Death Part 1 | Death Part 2 | Death Part 3
At the time of Death Part 1 | At the time of Death Part 2 | At the time of Death Part 3
After Death Part 1 | After Death Part 2
Ghost | Rebirth | Liberation
Author’s Note Part 1 | Author’s Note Part 2
Hava Nagila! 