Life after Death!

Many a times this query comes to our mind – is there a life after death?

Let me narrate a few experiences of  mine .  The first one goes back to Dec 1987 – Jan 1988 when my Mother was undergoing treatment in Isabella hospital following a surgery to remove gall bladder stones.    She was operated on 17^th December 1987.

When I reached Chennai on 25^th December and reached Satchi Chithi’s place in Alwarpet, I was told that I should rush to Isabella hospital, as my mother health had deteriorated .  It transpired that she had accumulated chest congestion during the post operative week and on 24^th December Morning – her heavy coughing made the surgery stichings to give way and her entire small intestine had come out.  Ironically, Dr. MGR had passed away that morning in Chennai and the entire city was in a chaotic state.  Isabella hospital had a scant strength of Doctors and nurses due to Christmas.  Sreedher had managed to bring Dr. Rajendran in a Police van and an emergency second surgery was done to push the intestine in and restitch the opening.  During this operation, her heart stopped beating – it was revived at the operation table and when she was brought to the room – once again her heart stopped and doctors made all efforts to revive the heart.  Heart started beating but my mother was unconscious.  I decided to stay by her side at the hospital , while Sreedher reluctantly left to go back to Delhi. For the next 7 days she remained unconscious.  On 1^st Jan 1988, she opened her eyes and started taking liquids orally.  I wished her happy new year.  She later on recovered well  and got discharged after a month.  

When she was recovering at in Anu’s house in Alwarpet  – I was by her side and narrated the post surgery  complications to her.  Then  I asked her  - what was her experience when she suffered massive heart attack. What I write below is what she told me at that time.  She experienced the following:  She felt herself (a figure identical to herself)separating from her body, watching her body lying on the hospital bed from the ceiling of the room for a while. Thereafter, she saw herself travelling at a speed faster than even light into an endless tunnel.  On both sides of the tunnel, she saw images of all events that she had passed through till that date in reverse order as a continuous film of her own life running backwards.  Suddenly this supersonic flight stopped.  At double the speed, she saw herself returning back into the body at the hospital bed – this time the tunnel screens replaying the life events in the right order.I was dumbstruck – but she narrated this non-challantly.  Is this an indication of ‘soul’s travel into universe and a proof of soul being different from Body, Mind and intellect?

My second experience was in Srirangam, in my younger brother house – where we had gathered to perform the 13day ceremonies following my Father’s demise.  It was 9^th day after my father’s death.  The entire family was sleeping in the first floor hall – next to each other.  I suddenly had a dream early morning say 3 AM or so.   A figure resembling my father  was sitting on the parapet wall in the open terrace adjoining the room where we were sleeping.  I asked him as to what he wanted.  He ( the figure) stated that he wanted to see the entire family together and hence he came.  I woke up . Interestingly, when I returned to Mumbai after these ceremonies and resumed office duties, my boss at that time, Mr. Viswanathan , offered condolences.  The next question from him surprised me – He said – Chandrasekar, do you believe in life after death?  

My third experience was a very recent one. After a very hectic day full of meetings, I was sleeping in my house in Mumbai.  I had a dream in which I saw my Chittappa  Venkatachalam looking at me and commending the way the meetings were conducted.  I replied that I had learnt this from him – when I had seen him conduct meetings in Gopalapuram House Mortgage Bank in the late 1960s.  He smiled and then again vanished.

There could be many medical explanations to what was experienced by my mother, the other two could be discarded as dreams of a disturbed or overworked brain.     In Advaita philosophy, we talk of immortal Soul (atman) , which is beyond and separate from Body, Mind, and  Intellect. If we believe in immortal Soul, then there must be a life for the Soul.

Har Har Mahadev!

sekar

Seven Hills, Seven Seas

In my child hood days, I have listened to stories which talked of some treasure lying far away with a King promising his princess in marriage for anyone who retrieves that treasure.  A young and ambitious person goes on an adventure to retrieve the treasure.  Normally you identify yourself with that young person as the story unfolds.  This person with his trusted aides has to cross Seven seas and seven hills to get to the treasure.  He fights different demons, snakes and animals all of whom he encounters on his way.

During the years 2001-2005 when I was posted in London, I had the opportunity to listen to an Indian Scholar, Philosopher and Guide – Shri Parthasarathy.  He is famous for his philosophical and Bhagvat Gita discourses and application of philosophy to management.  In one of his talks, he talked of ways to maintain harmonious relationships with all those people whom you come across in your life span.  His main theme was accept the people as they are and do not impose your expectations of behavior on them.  

When I introspected on this thought, I found a postulate (axiom) in the child hood story theme of Seven hills, Seven seas.  Let us look at the following diagram which represents this axiom.

As a person grows and continues his life journey, he encounters situations and gathers experience. He gets a family, he lives along with his relatives, he has a neighborhood, and he associates himself with certain groups of people and so on. We can represent these relationships in circles (vattam in Tamil) and as one’s circle and contacts enlarge: the enlarged personal and social circles in concentric circles, we get the following seven circles.  Now let us go back to our story of Seven Hills, Seven seas.  Each person, in his life cycle, can attempt to remain in his own selfish world or can attempt to cross Seven Hills, Seven seas.  As the person starts identifying his relatives, neighbours, village / locality, as his own, he starts loving them as his own.  For example, people who lived in Tambaram or studied in MCC would immediately relate to each other and mention proudly the achievements of any one in the related group to others.  How many of us have not related our MCC relationship when, Indira Nooyi became Pepsi CEO?

Extending this concept further, as a person relates himself with a broader group, his own world enlarges.  When he starts himself identifying all living beings (Homeo-sapiens or others), he has reached the Seventh Hill or Seventh Sea.  Now Viswaroopam of Lord Krishna when he showed the entire world in his mouth or when he showed entire universe to Arjuna in the battle field can be understood well.  Your soul (atman) is a part of Paramatma!

Coming to harmonious relationships which will help you pass one lower circle to the higher –a person is in the first circle and another in the third circle meet, the person in the higher circle has to acknowledge and accept that that the other person is in the first circle.  Accept the people as they are.  Therefore their behavior would be constrained by the boundaries of the circle.  When a person crosses over to higher circle, his horizon enlarges, vision is higher and his relationship canvas is larger.  He is large hearted and hence his behavior towards all is love towards all and malice towards none.   . As he reaches the last circle and aims to cross even the last barrier, he becomes a Mahatma or a Mahadev – one who attains the Godly qualities of loving and caring everyone – without exception.  

Har Har Mahadev!

sekar

Shiva - the Mahadev!

I do not call my self a highly spiritual person - but do hold strong views on Hindu spirituality thoughts. I worship all forms of gods, but is internally aware of the Advaita concept of god in one self. Having said this, I need to admit my bias towards Shiva - a formless yet the God who is Mahadev! I realised my bias towards worshiping Shiva only in the my early 50.  Ever since, I have been seeking comfort when I visit any Shiva temple.

Since then I have been looking forward to thoughts and ideas that propagate the virtues of Lord Shiva.   I have read the Shiva Triology by Amish Trivedi  which grew my passion for Shiva.

Two recent ideas attracted me. In one of the Tamil classical dance serials in Jaya TV - entitled 'thakathimitha' last week, a famous Bharatanatyam dancer - I tried to recall her name but in vain - presented Lord Nataraja in an interesting fashion.  She drew two triangles one upside intersecting the other in normal form to form a star - Shatkonam.  then she captured the classical nataraja dance posture within the the triangles and then drew a circle around the triangles.  Then she went on to explain how this figure explains the five elements of nature - Fire, Air, Earth, Water and sky.  She also  stated that one needs to be grounded in reality - like Lord Shiva even while dancing with joy and fervour.

The second article which appeared today in Economic Times.  I give selected extracts from this article:

Quote:

Every major Indian band has a song that celebrates him, qualifying him as a bonafide rock hero. And why not? He was into hallucinogens and danced the universe to its destruction (ahead of its subsequent rebirth), dreadlocks and all.

Then there’s the snake draped around the neck. He’s the subject of a hip new popular TV serial, besides being the basis for the central figure in a best-selling series of books. He’s like, seriously cool.

......

The Mahabharata is a spectacle, to be enjoyed in full, but it’s hard to focus on individual characters and stories. The Ramayana offers a single focus, but Lord Ram is too perfect and divine for people to identify with directly — and even his apparent flaws, like the abandonment of Sita, don’t make him a sympathetic character.

Krishna’s stories are personal and likeable, but there is a basic divergence between two very different Krishnas, the lover of the Geeta-Govinda and the shrewd strategist of the Mahabharata, that complicates the narratives.

By contrast, Shiva’s story offers simple parallels to people’s lives.

“His conflict with Daksha is classic son-in-law versus father-in-law, the sort of story that TV tells all the time,” says Pattanaik. All gods in Indian mythology have families, but Shiva is one of the few whose family story is so central to his legends: conflicts with his wife, problems with his sons, the basic themes are familiar, even if the central character has supernatural powers and wears a snake around his neck. “He is the alpha male who is on your side,” he says. “He allowed us to make a mythological serial in a different way,” Pattanaik adds.

Writer Amish Tripathi’s works build on this outsider appeal of Shiva. He has written the hugely best-selling Shiva trilogy of novels, which offer an imaginative retelling of Indian mythology centering on a Shiva-like character, a Tibetan tribal warrior who becomes both saviour and destroyer of the ancient civilisation of Meluha, a possible stand-in for the Indus Valley Civilisation. Tripathi explains that there are two types of heroic archetypes — those who build and maintain society and those who live outside society, but come in to rescue it at times of peril.

Shiva is the second kind of hero. Tripathi is careful to emphasise that all gods and choices of those who worship them should be respected, but the youth connect with the heroic outsider is easy to understand. Being young is all about questioning and even attacking social norms as you figure out your place in society and “Shivji is the god of rebels,” he says.

“He is the god with matted hair, the god who takes drugs, he is the god who is a brilliant dancer and musician.

He is said to have invented the rudra-veena.”

These physical symbols count, and it is not surprising that Shiva shows up on so many tattoos.

It isn’t all rebellion though. Tripathi points out that Shiva embodies many modern virtues. Unlike other gods who are shown in more traditionally patriarchal terms, Shiva treats his wife as an equal. “Many traditional images show them seated side by side, on the same level,” says Tripathi. “And Shivji will have his children on his lap.” He also points out that Shiva doesn’t differentiate among his devotees, who include both devas and asuras, like Ravana: “There is a saying that ‘Shivji apne bhakton ka bhakt hai’,” and this humility emerges as another attractive aspect today.

Unquote

In other words, Shiva embodies modern virtues and can connect with any one - belonging to older generation or with the current one.  To me any one who adopts the qualities of Lord Shiva and that of his beloved son Lord Ganesha, would be on a sure road to become Mahadev!

Har Har Mahadev

Sivoham! Sivoham! 

Sekar

My first blog! Capturing thoughts, ideas or musings for posterity.

 Dear all

For a while, I have been contemplating capturing my fleeting ideas or my musings in some form or other for posterity.  While I was toying with the idea of writing them down, when my daughter mentioned day before yester day that she created a blog of her own using gmail account, I instantly thought that this is the way - I can effectively do what I wanted to do.

So here is my first test blog.  My thoughts and musings would be captures in my musings@blogspot.com.

As and when I get time or become contemplative, I intend to put down the thoughts, ideas or views through this format.

Any one viewing this - is free to comment on the thoughts,etc.,

Best regards

Sekar