The divine being is thought of in different ways, conceived in the minds of people in different ways. Some people think that it is a man, a man who lives in the sky. Some people think God is a specific….associated with an element: the god of thunder, the god of lightening. Some people feel that the divine is an impersonal conscious awareness, incapable of any emotion, thought -- just being. So, in the minds of human beings, divinity is conceived of in different ways. And for some people the belief comes that the divine is only a concept, a belief in the mind of human beings and that the world is simply a random expression of some sort of physical process and that human beings created God in their minds.
So the range of beliefs and ideas about the concept of god are very wide and different. You look at the different cultures of people, you will see that different groups of people, different cultures, different areas of the world have developed a collective idea of what is termed god or the divine being or the great spirit -- the infinite one. Even science has a god, the god of science. That god is quite impersonal and is the process of physical expression. So every religion, every culture, every people of the world develop some kind of understanding of the concept of god or an equivalent concept -- some vast process experience existence greater than themselves. Some attribute great mystical and supernatural powers to that divine entity. Some attribute human qualities to that divine entity. Some conceive of that divine entity as entirely impersonal, and some of a creation of the mind. So in this range there are different experiences. The existence of anything in this world is known through practical experience that comes either through the five senses or through an intuitional experience of non-ordinary consciousness. This experience of the sublime has a direct association for different individuals throughout history. And for others it is a belief founded on the ideas and experience of people known or respected or historical figures. When people lived in clans and tribes they needed to experience some type of guidance to survive in the great vastness of nature with giant predators and many dangers and weather that could destroy them.
They needed to know how to find food, how to survive and procreate and for that they turned to the great clan mothers, women who had mystical experience as well as great ability to procreate. It was that mystical experience of those clan mothers that became over time the shamans of different tribes. The ones who communed with the divine in some way and from that and also from the direct experience of the people, of different people, came a collective understanding of great spirit, of divinity -- of cosmic presence and the guidance and compassion and intervention of the divine in the life of all beings. People conceive of divinity, conceive of reality differently. And in these different cultural formations, the numinous, the transcendent becomes understood differently. Different shapes, different attributes, different qualities are given, but within that diversity, there is a unity to human experience of the numinous. Across different cultures, across different ideas comes the concept of benevolence, compassion -- a deep loving presence. Also the idea of a strict and angry god arises in different cultures. For people both love nature and fear of annihilation, they love life and they fear death.
So the hand of the divine is seen as both, benevolent and fearsome, awe-inspiring because it brings life and takes life. The love of life and the fear of death are the natural bondages of physical existence. When conscious awareness becomes associated with physical existence in a physical body, there is a natural inherent desire to live, to continue and an inherent fear of annihilation, of not continuing. This is natural. It comes from the body; the body wants to live. It comes into the mind. When people feel they are their body and they see nothing larger about themselves, they have no concept and intuitive sense of a greater self. So, they’re afraid and even if they should have this concept, still the body generates fear. It knows it will die and it will. It will cease to be the substance of the body. It will disintegrate and turn into something else when it is abandoned by consciousness. Even they know at the time of death, there is a weight change, something changes. You can see a living person and you can see when they die; there is some life that goes out of the face, out of the form, something leaves. That is spirit.
It even changes the physical appearance, alters the physical body. It becomes just a physical object without substance. Bodies fear to be disengaged from spirit. Spirits become so merged in body, they do not know they leave when the body goes. The body’s needs become the whole of experience and the body’s fears take over the mind. The solution to this lies in the development of disassociation from the body, the ability to say “though I have a body, I am the witnessing awareness which experiences the body senses and sensations. When those senses close down, when those sensations cease to operate, I will still exist.” And when there is a little separation of that I from the body, there is the realization that there are other senses, subtler senses that perceive the sixth sense, sometimes called intuitive non-ordinary experience.
There is awareness and perception beyond the body. And when a little separation comes from the body, many of the attachments that are in the life begin to fade. For people who are deeply connected to other people, for people who are immersed in embodiment -- who have given little thought to their spiritual side and have little identity with that -- the thought of physical passing can be very difficult because of their attachment to people or experiences of life in the body and their lack of cultivation of spiritual awareness. So these two factors cause great attachment. Everyone experiences this attachment, but for some it is stronger than for others. That is why in ancient times the four stages of life were recommended were described and different activities recommended for each stage. For the youth, there is growth into the world, excitement to discover the world around them. For the young man or young woman, there is a vitality of life, there is the struggle to know themselves and to find their dharma, their expression in the world. And for those of solid adulthood, it is a time for active expression living life to its fullest, shining in the world.
But then come the elder years and these may start at different times, for different people, but those are years when it is recommended that there be contemplation of the divine, a little detachment from day to day expression. You will notice that most people in their eighties and nineties have much less interest in achieving something. Whereas, when they were younger men and younger women achievement may have been a very important part of their life, but as they age the desire to make their mark on the world, to accomplish something or to acquire things goes down. And you will notice what goes up is an attachment to relationships, to the love they share with people they are most fond of, their loved ones in life. And then their deep association with spirituality comes through readings; through thought they begin to become aware that there is some part of them that does not live in the body, that it is something more than that. And as life goes on and the person comes near to death, you will often observe in people in those last few days before they leave, they will even be talking to the god or to the relatives who have gone before them.
And those who are on the other side of the veil will be guiding them, making them comfortable, assisting them to make the transition and it may be a guru, it may be a divine saintly person or it may be the ancestors -- the loved ones gone before who come to take the person across the veil, to make the transition comfortable and to bring them into freedom from the physical body. It is a fact that when the body actually disengages, most feel a great sense of joy, a sense of light and the first experiences to move towards that light. And for some the great sleep comes, until again they awaken in a small body helpless, taken care of by the mother and they start forgetting. And it goes on, drawn always to that which their heart is most attached, they return to continue where they left of in a new form in a new body, drawn to those who they have loved. And they will either come back -- if those they have loved are young -- they may even come in the same life, in a different form. Or, they may join together in a different time in a different place, drawn again and again to each other by the bonds of love.
So it should be known to those who are near the end that they do not lose their loved ones and the loved ones who have gone before will be waiting for them to take them across and should they have an association with a spiritual master a saint or prophet, that great one will also guide them. This is a benevolent universe, you are never alone or helpless; there is a guiding force. Human beings, as I have said, conceive of that guiding force in many ways: some, most impersonal, some very personal, but that guiding force continues to guide, to create, to love. For love is the underlying force of this guiding principle: call it love, call it ananda, bliss. It is a kind of glue that holds the universe together, brings everyone close to each other, brings all the universe into a unity. So in the process of creation, in the play of being, the universe is spun into existence.
The five elements created and all of life born, and then the yearning of life to return plays out. There is always this pull from the cosmic nucleus, bringing all the living beings closer and closer and closer. All creation is always pulled towards it’s cosmic source and in this creative process do you think that creativity in the cosmic realm is limited to the physical universe? There is a subtle universe, stratums and stratums dimensions and dimensions. It is a multi-verse, existing in multiple stratums and there are veils between them. And when the spirit leaves the physical form it leaves the veil that keeps it bound in physical perceptions and moves to a more expansive perceptual field met by loved ones. Guided, a being is brought beyond the veil into greater light, greater love and should there be an ability to stay awake, there is the ability to exist in that realm.
And if not, the awareness simply falls into a type of sleep, into a physical form that is suitable -- draws it again into the physical realm and the physical senses. So fear is natural in death because the body fears to go, but as much to the degree that the spirit begins to see itself separate from the body that fear begins to diminish and love begins to take over -- for it is all a process of love. Even the body is not simply discarded waste, it is simply the physical universe taking form and then transmuting to a different form that is the nature of the physical universe. It is in a trans-process of continual transmutation from one form to another to another that the energy and substance of the physical universe is always forming and unforming, forming and unforming, but not just unforming, transmuting into different forms.
That is the nature of this physical realm, this lokah, Bhurloka. But spirit is something of another realm. It is not transmute, rather it simply changes in expression, moving to a subtler dimensional field in which it either rests or awakens to even subtler perception and that perceptual field is dominated by great light, great love. There is only one self, one truth, one being. Seen with the eyes of the deepest spiritual dimension, the truth can be known; and awareness, consciousness experience, truth experience, love then is brought to this physical realm into the hearts; in the remembrances, in the mind it remains. So for those who fear, knowledge calms fear. Love calms fear. Love is a great force always greater than fear. So if you want to comfort those afraid to cross, bring them knowledge help them to know that the love in their hearts and the self, they are will not die and they will never be separated from their loved ones. The divine being embodies in all beings; love is one and indivisible. All right? Namaskar