The Beauty of Death

This is a very personal piece that has been germinating inside me and manifested today. I offer it with much hesitation and yet an impulsion as well. Perhaps it will resonate and help in some way… It is also my assimilation.

Can the death of a loved one be a spiritual experience? Can it give you peace and joy? Yes, I have found so, experienced it.

The first time was 21 years ago, when I lost my father, who was the rock, the pillar, the mainstay of not just my family but of many extensions of the family and many associates. A dynamic, charismatic figure, loved and respected by many for his generous, loving and helpful nature; respected for his pragmatic wisdom.

It took only 8 days from the discovery of advanced cancer to his passing away – mercifully. For most of this time I was in Pondicherry as I had left Delhi before the cancer was detected. When I learnt of his hospitalization, the first impulse was to rush back. I spoke to Nirod da (Dr. Nirodbaran) and he simply asked me if there were enough people back home to take care of him. When I affirmed, he advised me to focus on the spiritual help and said that could be done better by remaining in Pondicherry.

The next few days I felt consumed with only offering my father to the Divine. Nirod da arranged for a short meditation in The Mother’s first floor room for me. When I was offered a blessing packet to take back for my father, my first response was ‘But, he is not a devotee or a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’. However, I took it.

I reached back Delhi just a day before his passing away. I was blessed to spend almost the whole of his last day with him in the hospital. I was amazed at the reverence with which he accepted the blessing packet. And the conversations we had! Never before I had had such conversations with him. He was focused on the Divine.

As I travelled back from the hospital at night, I noticed that suddenly my prayer changed from wanting his recovery, to – ‘Let Thy will be done’. The next day he passed away. As we took his body to the cremation ground, a feeling of peace settled in me, based on a certitude that he CHOSE to leave his body, as his body and his outer nature was not able to keep up with the inner spiritual aspiration. Though I experienced a deep vacuum in the heart and continued to miss him over the years, I also felt his presence in me, around me, in Sri Aurobindo’s room, very concretely and the certitude never left me.

* * *

The second time was this year – early hours of 2nd January. Last June, my mother (who had moved in with me 21 years ago) was diagnosed with a progressive terminal illness. We chose to administer palliative care at home instead of hospitalizing her. It was a very distressing process of gradually turning her room into a medical care room and to witness her increasing suffering. But, it also prepared us for what was coming.

My mother was a deeply spiritual person and a practicing Jain. Her aspiration to be one with the Divine intensified as her physical suffering increased. So well loved and respected was she by the extended family, that several came to meet her from abroad as well as from other parts of India, in her final months, to bid her farewell. After her passing, as I sat next to her body, I experienced something amazing. Every time I closed my eyes, I could only see her shooting up at a tremendous speed, a meteor-like jet of light – going up and up and up, without a break. This continued throughout the hours before we took her to the cremation ground.

As the cremation took place, I was filled with joy, so much so that I could stop smiling from ear to ear. Tremendous joy – for her. I felt convinced that her aspiration to merge into the Divine materialized. For the next few days, I felt her presence very concretely in her room. Gradually it receded. While with my father, I felt him as a part of my very physical being after his passing, not so with my mother. I miss her tremendously, but she is no more mine… she is gone – into the Light.

 

- Anuradha (The Gnostic Centre, India)

 

Comments

  1. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

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  2. Touching and Inspirational ...
    I could resonate with the journey of my father during last phase of his life which had terminal health issues but we could see his face untouched with pain giving indication of his soul's inner preparedness to leave his mortal body... Pranav srivastava

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  3. Dear Anurahdha,
    Thank you for sharing your experiences!
    My own experience of spiritual awakening was triggered when my friend died in an accident when I was in my early years of college. I had a book about spirituality that another friend had given me, and opened it randomly to a page about death that said:"death is not the end, it is a turning point". This had the greatest healing effect on me.
    So, for me death has served as an initiation into spirituality. We understand very little, as human beings, about death; at least, from a direct experiential point of view. However, death of loved ones can bring us very close to a sense of it.
    I feel that with all of my experiences and what I have learned about death and dying, I will still be unprepared for my own death as any anxiety about dying, I believe is around a sense of not having reached wholeness or completion of our life's mission.

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  4. Beautifully shared this sensitive and touching piece. Inspite of its personal note, which added to the richness of the story, this resonated deeply with those who know the experience of death of a close, loved one.

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  5. Dear Anuradha, thank you for sharing! I remember the atmosphere when I walked into your mother’s room after her passing

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  6. Thanks for putting your personal experiences to paper. I'm sure it was not easy. I lost my dad to COVID, and it shook up everyone who knew him. My family does feel his presence around us, especially the kids. In the days after he passed away, I felt that he spoke to me, saying "thankfully I am relieved of the horrible struggle with the disease. I will watch my grand children through your eyes".

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  7. Thank you all for your feedback, comments and sharing. Death is something that has touched us all in one way or another. The question - what happens to the soul after one dies - is answered variously in different philosophies and cultures. Through these two experiences, somehow I felt that perhaps there is no one answer... perhaps for each soul it is different depending on what it is aligned to... Even the time that passes before it takes birth again, which again is stated so differently in different philosophies, with almost absolute certainty (for instance, 3 nano-seconds in Jainism) - this too I now feel cannot be set.

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  8. Dear Anuradha, I lost my mother last September and totally resonated with your experience of releasing a loved one to continue with their onward journey with a palpable joy! It is a mix of so many contradictory emotions that find an unfathomable harmony in the being. But yes, it is supreme grace to experience our loved ones as spiritual presences ,even after and more so, after they leave their bodies.
    Anahita Sanjana

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