Hello, my friends, how are you?
Today I begin a new series with you
and the series is called the meaning of death. The meaning of death
before I start,
I'd like to
say a few words of introduction
In the wisdom tradition that I come from, there are
four phases of life or four Oshima's as they're called Hashem
Hamas and Ashram is a place
that you rest
and
or
that you can call home,
Ashram actually means home
where you rest.
So the first hashem is the 1st 25 years of life, which is education.
So I can safely say
been there and done that.
The second action is being a householder, taking care of your family,
but also driving ambition and you know fame and fortune.
So I can say I've been there done that as well.
The third Ashram is
so the second action is 25 years to 50 years.
The third action is 50 years to 75 years
and that is the time that an individual gives back to the world
with gratitude.
And the fourth Ashram, which begins at 75 years, ideally up to 100 years,
is self realization.
Finally figuring out the mystery of your
existence and preparing for the final curtain
when the eyes closed for the last time
and we call that
the mystery of death.
So actually I'm going to call the series the mystery of death.
And just as an aside,
I meditate before I sleep every day
in the morning, I meditate for a more joyful, energetic body, loving,
compassionate heart, clear mind and lightness of being.
But at night I meditate on the mystery of my own death.
And
lots of revelations come.
But what I'm going to share with you is personal revelations,
but also what we have learned from the mystery schools of
the world,
particularly
Eastern mystery schools.
But they called mystery schools because they go into the mystery of existence
through contemplation, inquiry,
deep meditation and ultimately getting at the source of all
experience and the source of what we call all existence.
Not only your existence,
but my existence and the existence of everything that we call perceived reality.
So with that introduction,
I'm going to start again using my notes a little bit to share with you.
But I will only continue this series if you feel that you're benefiting from it.
If for any reason which is anxiety or whatever, then I will not
pursue. So I need your feedback.
Let's call the series the mystery of death,
the mystery of death. And
and let's bring in
when people ask if the soul lives on after death,
the answer is yes.
But then we must define the soul.
The soul is that little speck
of consciousness
which is connected to
unbounded ocean of consciousness. But
as
Rumi has said, you're not just a drop in the ocean. You're also the ocean in the drop.
So
the drop reflects the ocean,
however it reflects the ocean from a particular perspective.
So our awareness which is unbounded, eternal timeless irreducible, fundamental
without cause
what else? Um space less timeless dimension, lys formless
and infinite.
That speck of
identity
in the vast ocean of consciousness
unbounded,
has a
certain amount of individuality
as a result of identifying with certain experiences in life.
So that
is what we are going to call the soul.
Okay, the soul is
your
holographic, or say the hollow movement of the ocean of consciousness
that gives rise to you as an individual. So in this framework
of
understanding
consciousness is fundamental
consciousness that in which all experience occurs,
all experience is known and out of which all experience is
made. Rupert Spira
shared that definition with me many years ago,
but we can say consciousness is that which makes experience possible.
That just let's go with that. Okay,
so that consciousness modifies itself
as it manifests
and it first modifies it as what we call mind.
Mind is where we experience feelings, emotions
we feel.
Then it further modifies itself as intellect.
Intellect is where we analyze,
make choices
and also discern,
you know what is good, what is bad,
What is heart, What is called etcetera?
And then it modifies itself into what we call our ego identity. Our ego identity
is our self image as a result of the soul modifying itself
into mind and intellect. That ego identity when it moves through
something called prana, which is vital energy
manifests as the experience of the physical body, but the physical body
is
is not material. The physical body is a perceptual activity in awareness,
individual perceptual activity and awareness,
it's uh
actually made of sensations, images, feelings and thoughts.
So we can also say that consciousness or soul modifies as mind intellect ego
and then prana
vital energy and then the experience of the body, which appears material.
But that's a useful construct. It's an activity and it's a perceptual activity
that starts as a fertilized ova. Um, and then as I go to embryo, baby, toddler,
young adult,
teenager, young, adult, mature adult, old adult all the way to dusty death.
So that's what we call the physical body and that physical body corresponds
is correlated with the experience of what we call the physical world.
But there's no physical world either
Material World. It's a useful construct
for a perceptual activity that correlates
with the perceptual activity that we call the body.
Okay, so the mind is the cognitive experience of the soul and body and world,
other perceptual experience of the soul.
So now, back to my notes, when people ask if the soul lives on after death,
the answer is yes.
When people ask if the personality lives on on after death,
the answer is that personality
does not even live
Live on while we are alive,
our personality is always changing.
We are not the same person. We were 5, 10 or 15 years ago
it would be a sorry state. If you were, if your personality was frozen,
that would be
not a good thing.
You know, just like if your body didn't develop,
that wouldn't be a good thing either.
I mean if somebody doesn't develop into teenage experience then you worry
and if personality doesn't develop then also that's the problem.
So our personal personalities are constantly evolving, transforming, growing.
If the question is, does the individual
survive death, the answer is,
what is an individual, what is an individual?
And so if we go deeply into this, this question,
we realize in reality there's no such thing as a physical individual.
What we call me, the individual is different from day to day from week to week,
from year to year.
The question would be, which individual are you talking about?
So let's say you die and you go to heaven or whatever,
then who lands up there and who experiences
life there,
The old individual who perhaps was bordering on senility or had Alzheimer's or
the young person who was in love and full of romance and desire,
or the young child who is full of innocence and wonder,
what are you talking about when you say into Israel,
which one would you survive as
after death? If you survived?
The individual is constantly undergoing change.
So what survives is a soul which is beyond individual personalities in the sense
that there is continued transformation of what we call the individual
during life after death?
Let's take a metaphor,
the caterpillar dies to become a Chrysalis and
begins a long slumber with its own energies.
Then the Chrysalis dies to become a butterfly,
which is very different level of existence.
So is the caterpillar, the same individual as the Chrysalis and the butterfly.
It's the same creature that has become something else
and yet every cell in its body is different.
Every energy in its body is different.
Every expression of energy in its body is different.
Everything it experiences
is different,
everything
is a change of form and a change of activity.
There's a change of the expression of energy within
the form and then there's a change in the form
that there's only transformation. Nothing really dies.
The water
drop becomes vapor which becomes a cloud or a rainbow,
which falls as rain to become water deep in the ground, transforming into a spring,
which then becomes a stream, a river, a waterfall and finally back to the ocean.
In each state, it's the same drop of water with a different expression.
There's a constant transformation in nature
and a constant transformation
in that which we call our being or our soul.
Therefore, the idea that we are a set personality fixed in space and time
is an illusion.
It's a mirage. Everything is changing,
but nothing ever dies
as we go through these these insights and revelations.
I will also do some meditations if you
want to justify what I'm saying within experience.
So that's it for today I'm traveling, but I'll be I'll be doing this every day.
But I need your feedback to say if I should
continue or not,
have a wonderful day,
thank you.