Questioner (Shekar Kapur): What happens to that energy once the body is gone?
Is there individuality after the end of the body?
Do I exist as “I”?
Do I have a soul?
Is there reincarnation?
Or is it just my ego that is saying, actually, even when I let my body go, there is an “I” that still exists.
But if that “I” then forms part of the larger universe, (Sadhguru Laughs) then it has no identity.
It’s a question, and I can’t answer it to people, so would you answer it for me,
so I can tell people that I’m quite wise now?
Sadhguru: (Laughs).
See, it’s very clear.
If you close your eyes and sit... Right now you’re looking at me.
If you close your eyes, you cannot see me, but you are still there, isn't it?
So, right now, is it you who is looking at me, or is it your eyes which are looking at me?
So, it’s you who is looking at me. Shekar Kapur: Yeah.
Sadhguru: Through the window of your eyes, you’re looking at me.
If you close the window… Shekar Kapur: Yeah?
Sadhguru: …do you still exist?
Questioner (Shekar Kapur): I still exist.
Sadhguru: So, you are clearly saying you are much more than the body, isn't it?
Shekar Kapur: Yes.
Sadhguru: And you also know, very clearly, that this body you slowly accumulated.
Questioner (Shekar Kapur): Yes.
Sadhguru: Or in other words, what you call as “my body” is just a bit of loan,
that you have taken from Mother Earth, just a piece of the planet.
She’s pretty generous (Both Laugh).
Shekar Kapur: I know it’s very generous.
Sadhguru: She’s pretty generous with the loan, but when the time comes she wants to collect it atom by atom.
See, now, I hold this pebble in my hand.
Questioner (Shekar Kapur): Yeah.
Sadhguru: Initially, I say, “This is my pebble. I’m not willing to give it to you.”
After some time, I start thinking this is me.
Now when the time comes, that anyway this pebble is going to be taken from me, I’m being terrorized.
Because, I am being taken away.
You’re not being taken away.
Only the food that you gathered, the piece of planet that you gathered in the form of this body,
the planet is asking it back.
If only you were aware this is only something I’ve accumulated, not intellectually,
every moment if you’re constantly aware that I am not this body,
this is just mine alright, this is just a gathering.
I’ve accumulated this, I’ll use it and when it’s necessary I’ll drop it.
If this awareness was there all the time in your life, death would be just change of clothes, isn't it?
It's actually more simple than that (Laughs).
So, what happens after? “Okay, I paid back the loan.”
The question is only willingly or unwillingly, but whichever way, the loan gets taken.
Your body, as you know it, physical body, has to go to the Earth because it belongs to the Earth.
But there is a subtler body which is like a scaffolding.
Only because the subtle body is there as a scaffolding, you can build this gross body.
You eat a banana, it becomes body, you eat a piece of bread, it becomes body, you eat a brinjal,
it becomes body, because there is a subtler scaffolding.
This body that you see, the physical body, is only gathering around the subtler body.
So, when this body falls, the subtle body,
which is generally referred to as etheric body or whatever else, is still on.
It still has some information.
But the important difference is when you had a physical body and a conscious mind,
you had a discriminatory capability.
So, once the body falls down, along with your thinking mind,
logical mind and a discriminatory aspect of the mind is fallen, there is no more discrimination.
You only happen by tendencies.
So, still, there are certain tendencies.
Why so much care in every culture, particularly in this culture that at the moment of death,
if a man is dying no matter what your relationship with him, you try to utter the god’s name,
or you try to create the right kind of atmosphere for him, even if he’s your enemy, you say,
“Ram naam satya hai…” (Referring to Hindi language – God is truth) (Laughs) whatever, you know, tch,
whatever simple things have been taught to the people but something to create awareness,
and pleasantness around him, because you want him to leave well.
Because at the moment of leaving, in case he’s in a certain mode, whatever the mode is,
let’s say, he’s in fear mode right now.
Now once he loses the discriminatory mind, now there’s no control over the fear.
Many times fear arises in your life.
Because of your discriminatory mind, you’ll say, “That’s okay, but that, it’s not like this.”
You’ll reason and try to get out of it.
If there is no discriminatory mind, it just snowballs into paranoia.
Paranoia not like as living human beings know, paranoia which grows into a million, billion folds,
because there’s complete absence of discriminatory mind.
But suppose you create pleasantness at that moment of death,
now this pleasantness also multiplies into a million fold over, because there is no discriminatory mind.
Whether its sweetness or bitterness, pleasantness or unpleasantness,
all of this can take on a big proportion if only there is no discriminatory mind.
So, even when people are living, very little of their discriminatory mind they’re using.
Mostly they’re functioning by tendency, which is unfortunate.
But once you have shed the body, there is no other way, you will only go by tendency,
unless you've reached a certain level of awareness,
where you can carry a certain dimension of awareness with you.
Otherwise, whatever is your quality will snowball into something very big.
If it snowballs into unpleasantness, we say he’s in hell.
If it snowballs into pleasantness, we say he’s in heaven.
So, heaven and hell are not geographical places.
It is a state that somebody gets into.
Shekar Kapur: And then reincarnation.
Sadhguru: You want to come back now (Laughs). Shekar Kapur: Of course.
Sadhguru: So, if there is substantial amount of information still stored, which is the karma,
the karmic substance is still strong, then once… suppose you left out of feebleness of energy,
that is, you became old, energies became feeble and it rested for some time.
So, this kind of life energies just rests for some time without too much activity.
But suppose the energies did not become feeble, but you broke the body by accident or suicide,
or somebody shot you in the head or you…
somebody broke your heart, whichever way (Laughs), you broke the body and you left.
Energies were still intense.
Now, this will take a long time for it to become feeble without the body and the mind.
If you had a regular body and the discriminatory mind,
let us say, you would have worked out your karma in the next ten years and made the energies feeble.
But now that you don’t have a body, these ten years may telescope into a thousand years.
So, this is the reason, always they told you,
“you should never die of suicide, you never should be murdered, accidental death is bad”
because now, your limbo situation is long… very, very long because you have no discriminatory mind.
We don’t know which way you will roll and the chances of finding another womb are very little.
Because you’re in a certain level of intensity, you cannot find.
So, unless you come to the right level of intensity, you are not suitable to take on a new body.
So, if you’ve died of old age, energies became feeble, you just… everything is fine with your body,
you went to bed and you never woke up.
Such a person may get back into another womb within forty-eight hours.
But a person who died by breaking his body, either by accident or otherwise, this person may take
- we don’t know how long
- depending upon what level of intensity and how much of the information is still there un-worked out.
We are going into areas, which needs much more elaboration if it needs to be properly understood.
Speaking just like this is not good.
That’s why we always joke about it and skip.
We never talk about it because it will lead to all kinds of imaginations.
Questioner (Shekar Kapur): Yeah. Sadhguru: Unhealthy imagination.
Shekar Kapur: Lead me to believe in spirits and ghosts. Sadhguru: Yeah (Laughs).
Sadhguru: …which is not needed.
Because then people start, every dark corner they see, they’ll start seeing things.