When we are talking about guide for living where comes the talk of death? It is an unalterable fact of life. So just leave it at that and better don't think about it. This thought will come naturally to anybody. And it is commonsense also not to break one's head on unalterable things in life. This avoidance comes handy in day to day living. So people who want to stop at that can very well do like that. But our mental activity which has been geared towards finding meanings in what is surrounding us and what is happening in us and about us, will be always hitting at this mute point. Every time the avoidance should be done consciously, withdrawing from any serious enquiry. May be, there comes a time, when we change our resolve from avoidance to clarifying. At that moment we can remember that thinkers have been seriously engaging themselves for millennia to pursue this topic. One of the earliest records is our Kata Upanishad. The pursuit continues even now with thinkers but additional methods of science have made this topic more a topic of science than conjecture. There is now a whole field of Near-Death Experience studies or NDE studies or Out-of-Body Experience studies or OBE studies carried out meticulously throughout the world. The accumulated logs or videos so far got from persons who have gone through NDE or OBE experiences show some common features, which are interesting and when understood underline the great efficacy of living. It seems ironic that life is better understood by the records of death.
We were talking about 'the uninvited guest of death'. Metaphorically and philosophically this carries a different meaning. Instead of trying to avoid the subject of death, when human beings boldly begin to study and understand this phenomenon or un-phenomenon of death, we may say they are in one way 'the uninvited guests of death'. As William Shakespeare writes in one of his Sonnets:
'Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more,
So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.'
Swami Vivekananda used to define renunciation as love of death. Sanyasa is making love to death.
But in our days, in the records of NDE and OBE experiences we see a literal meaning of this phrase, 'the uninvited guests of death'. What these guests, even though they did not have any inkling about the sudden catastrophes that they underwent, have recorded unique experiences they had before coming back into life. Modern Kata Upanishad is all scientific and experimental, with all measurements of vitals and revivals. A singular message that we read across these various NDE records of various persons in various places and various times is this: 'come out of your atomic corner and reach the divine or universal corner or center, diligently work for it and make sure the fellow human beings also wake up to this innate call and enjoy life in a sublime way.'
Even the template of Namavali contains this great message. Om indicates the Universal Spirit. The ending 'namaha' indicates 'I have come out of my atomic corner'. In between is the name and form in which one wants to meditate on the Universal Spirit. So the namavali is structured like this : 'The Universal Spirit' + one's own chosen name and form of that Universal Spirit + I have come out of my atomic corner'. Namaha means not mine. So we are blossoming towards the Divine. That is the basic nature of living. Let us make our living meaningful, in tune with its basic nature. Let us not jeopardize it.
Srirangam Mohanarangan
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