Death and birth

[ramanaduli]

Dear sirs,

Is birth and death our destiny. Man wants to take birth in rich man's house. and during his life time he works very
hard to come up in his life. But anybody is preparing for his death. Can any spiritual man design his death. Bheesha like jnanai designed their destiny. What about an ordinary bhaktas. They say man who dies with God's name in his lips and
die on Ekadasi so he would have Dwadasi daganam may go to God's feet. How we can prepare for this end?
While living itself we could have deathless death by vichara marga. God's grace should be there.



Ramanaduli

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Ramanaduli,

Yes, Jnanis like Bhishma decided their date of leaving the body,
for the commencement of Uttararayna.  But dying on Ekadasi
day and getting cremated on Dwadasi day, could be an extension
of these ideas, perpetrated by Vaishnavites.  Chanting God's
name, while dying, is the idea of having a noble thought at the
time of death, so that the mind and pranana would go with that
thought for a better state.  Chanting God's name will not come to
one suddenly, at the time of death, unless he is chanting the names
at all times in his life.

Arunachala Siva. 

[S.Subramanian]

We have not decided our birth.  How can we decide our death?  Maharshi has said that sleep is a small death and death is a long sleep.  Birth and death are beyond our control.  What we can do is to withdraw the mind completely  into our self.

[Subramanian.R]

Dear S. Subramanian,

For Brahma Jnanis, who have killed their egos and with the minds,
that state of self realization, is the death.  They live further if they
want or not.  The death of the body, where the mind and ego still
lives, is the real death.  But this death gives further births, or a period
in heavan or hell, with further births.  If the mind and the ego are
vanquished, that is the 'real death' and Brahma Jnanis do not bother
about body death at all.

Arunachala Siva.