Ramana The heart is the Self #8

[Guest guest]

D: But Kamal's body was dead hours before.

 

M: What you call death is really no extraordinary experience for

Kamal. Here is the story of what had happened when he was younger

still.

 

As a boy Kamal had a friend of equal age with who he used to play

games of marbles, etc. A general rule they observed between

themselves was that if one of them owed the other a game or two, the

same should be redeemed the next day. One evening they parted with a

game to the credit of Kamal. Next day, in order to claim " the return

of the game " Kamal went to the boy's home where he saw the boy laid

on the verandah, while his relatives were weeping beside him.

" What is the matter? " Kamal asked them. " He played with me last

evening and also owes me a game. " The relatives wept all the more,

saying that the boy was dead. " No. " said Kamal, " he is not dead but

merely pretends to be so, just to evade redeeming the game he owes

me, " The relatives protested, asking Kamal to see for himself that

the body was really dead, that the body was cold and stiff. " But all

this is a mere pretension of the boy, I know; so what if the body is

stiff and cold? I too can become like that. " So saying Kamal laid

himself down and in the twinkling of an eye was dead.

 

The poor relatives, who were weeping till then for the death of

their own boy, were distressed and dismayed, and now began to weep

for Kamal's death also. But up rose Kamal, declaring, " Do you see it

now? I was as you would say dead, but I am up again, alive and

kicking. This is how he wants to deceive me, but he cannot elude me

like this with his pretensions. "

 

In the end, the story goes, Kamal's inherent saintliness gave life

to the dead boy, and Kamal got back the game that was due to him.

The moral is that the death of the body is not the extinction of the

Self. Its relation to the body is not limited by birth and death,

and its place in the physical body is not circumscribed by one's

experience felt at a particular place, as for instance between the

eyebrows, due to the practice of dhyana made on that center. The

supreme state of Self-awareness is never absent; it transcends the

three states of the mind as well as life and death.

 

 

to be continued

 

The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi