Death and Dissolution: The Role of a Master
“If one is approaching death because of a broken body, either because of injury or disease or whatever else, such a person we can help him to die in better awareness so that he has a little enhanced life elsewhere.”
—Sadhguru
Sadhguru answers a series of question on whether someone can be dissolved at the moment of death, even if they were not at the point of liberation.
Q: Can you do anything at the moment of death to help someone who has not completely reached the point of liberation?
Sadhguru: If someone has run their full course of prarabdha karma – which is not true for most people – we can help him die consciously rather than in an unconscious state because there is a conducive atmosphere. Dissolution is possible and he is liberated. When they die of disease before the prarabdha is complete, it is not going to work. All we can do is help him to die with awareness. Then he will have a little enhanced life somewhere else.
When someone has run the full course of prarabdha, now everything is over. He is in a certain space where there is a karmic break. There are many people who may have lived as utter fools, but the final few days, suddenly there is a new sense of wisdom and awareness within them, because their karma allotment has finished. Just the minor things are left and the next quota of karma has not come in yet, so that is a blessed period.
Even for a person who lived an ignorant life, you will see that suddenly he knows, “In the next three days I will die.” Aged people, who are perfectly healthy, they will just know. We can dissolve such people very easily because they have come to that blessed state where there is no karmic bondage. There is a stock somewhere else, but here, there is a little space of no karma. No karma means no individuality. There is no substance for the individual process to happen. It has come to a point where you are almost like dissolving, because the next quota has not been released yet. The current quota is over and in that space, dissolution is very simple. If one has not reached that space, if one is approaching death because of a broken body, either because of injury or disease or whatever else, such a person we can help him to die in better awareness so that he has a little enhanced life elsewhere.
Q: So Sadhguru, every time someone is born he just gets a pack of karma to work out in this lifetime?
Sadhguru: The warehouse is there. One truckload has been taken out to be worked out now. The warehouse is always sitting there in your head. What we are doing with Samyama is, you are not going into the prarabdha. You are going into the sanchita aspect of your karma. You are opening up the warehouse. That’s the reason why, when a person walks the spiritual path, if they don’t handle the situation properly they will suffer much more than someone else because they are bringing up large volumes of it. Others are just handling what is allotted to them. You are trying to take up the whole portion – you want to get your Ph.D. today – so you are not going step-by-step. That is the reason why so much discipline was always brought into yogic practices, so that when things overwhelm you, you are able to handle that situation. Otherwise, if you open up things for which you are not ready, karma can just smother you completely.
Q: In many cases you have said to your disciples, “I can only show you the path. I cannot liberate you.” Does that mean you will not dissolve their karma?
Sadhguru: I am not talking about death when I talk to you about these things. I am talking about your present life so that you can live this life fruitfully. Do not wait for me to pull the plug, living a stupid life until then. I am teaching you practices and asking you to take your life into your hands so that you live gracefully and sensibly. Take care of your own life, work towards realization so that you live an elevated life here.
Those who have given themselves totally to me, even for a single moment, they do not have to worry about their liberation. Liberation is assured. To live gracefully or not, that is not assured. That is something that you have to earn. There is no other way.
The reason why sadhana is done is that life is not 100% in your hands. Many people may not run their full prarabdha, either because of injury, accident, disease or for any reason. Most people die in hospitals today because they are not running their full prarabdha. How many people die every day, without any ill health, just out of old age? It is a small percentage.
Sadhana is done so that you create a certain sense of awareness, and you are hastening the process of the dissolution of karma so that your prarabdha gets finished faster and faster. If you dissolve some aspects of your prarabdha – generally you are working towards the mental and emotional dimensions of your prarabdha – you can live in a blessed state for a longer period of your life. If you dissolve them, your physical prarabdha is still there, so you continue to live, but without the struggles of the mind and the emotions. That is a blessed state. When physical prarabdha is over, the body will drop itself. The possibility of liberation is so much higher.
