Page 36 - NAMAH-Oct-2019

Namah Vol. 27, Issue 3, 15th October 2019

In another instance, this scribe was called to decomposing. The Mother explained how this
give his opinion about the impending death was possible due to the “spirit of the form”
of a bedridden elderly lady as her care- (known as Dhananjay-vayu in the Indian
givers were unable to deal with her extreme tradition). It is the spirit of the form that was
irritability. The scribe found that behind her operational when the body was preserved
external personality, she had a sweet and in a certain way by ancient Egyptians. The
sensitive presence and she had not given Mother explained, “... in the physical form is
up her will to survive. He felt that her soul- found the ‘spirit of the form’ and this spirit of
essence was very much present and explained the form persists for a certain time even when
to her relatives that they should not expect outwardly the person is pronounced dead.
her to die according to their convenience. In And as long as the spirit of the form persists,
fact, shortly afterwards her husband, who the body is not destroyed (3).” In ordinary
was ambulatory, died but she survived much life, this occult technique is not available but
longer than expected. persists as the psychological phenomenon of
mummification in bereavement.
b. There should be no hurry to perform the
last rites of the deceased. If the cremation or Remembrance without mourning
burial is done too early, the subtle consciousness
may not have totally disengaged from the It is difficult to understand that one can have
body and may appear as apparitions or a better remembrance when one does not
disembodied vital residues that may be mourn, as C.S. Lewis, the celebrated author
misinterpreted as hallucinations during discovered after his wife’s untimely demise.
the stage of bereavement. Indeed if such He was at first fearful of forgetting her but later
apparitions appear, it is best to remain calm had a different experience: “Something quite
and detached and pray for the security of the unexpected has happened. It came this morning
soul of the departed. This scribe is reminded early. For various reasons, not in themselves at
of his colleague, a psychiatrist who died all mysterious, my heart was lighter than what
prematurely and quite unexpectedly of a it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I
heart attack. His wife, totally unprepared had suppose I am recovering physically from a good
no idea of important official documents that deal of mere exhaustion…and after ten days
would be needed to avert financial crisis. She of low-hung grey skies and motionless warm
felt the presence of her deceased husband dampness, the sun was shining and there was
who, within a few days, explained to her a light breeze. And suddenly at the very moment
where to find the official papers. As the when, so far, I mourned her least, I remembered her
Mother has explained, the deceased can get best.Indeed it was something (almost) better
reconstituted in the subtle realm and interact than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable
with the living. impression….It was as if the lifting of the sorrow
removed a barrier (4).”
c. The fact that the body can survive by
habit explains why in extreme cases, like To someone whose friend had died, The
the body of St. Francis Xavier’s or certain Mother explained, “But you must overcome
Tibetan lamas, the body has remained without this sorrow and look within, look above, for it

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