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Namah Death as Transformation

Traditional cultural interpretations of death and Death as a Means of Regeneration: Death,
dying are heavily informed by the dominant the Facilitator of Life
religion they are a part of. Abrahamic texts
present death as the ‘wages of sin’ and invoke The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the
fear. Popular Hindu understanding of death Mother has the transformation of ordinary
and dying appears linked to a somewhat human consciousness, as its central guiding
basic understanding of karma and rebirth, objective. “The One Eternal in transient”,
and can hold space for much confusion. The declares Sri Aurobindo in his commentary on
Integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Katha Upanissad, poetically alluding to the
the Mother is the first clear exposition of dynamic flow of consciousness called life, in
the purpose of death and its evolutionary which myriad forms emerge and dissolve. The
value, to guide us in modern times. With its abstract One expressed concrete in Matter, is
focus on a collective transformation of Matter subjectively experienced as the diversity of
represented in human consciousness, Integral objects, beings, images, feelings and thoughts
Yoga offers a clear vision the purpose and of everyday living. For the flow to remain true
evolutionary value of death. to its character, what has arisen must dissolve
and so new forms can emerge. By design
This article seeks to present two core ideas from therefore, birth and death are juxtaposed in
the philosophical vision of Sri Aurobindo and this cosmic dance. Death is the mechanism
the Mother, and the reflect alignment in the of disintegration and dissolution of what is
findings emergent in palliative research “born”, it i.e. arises as a form in the flow of
literature over the last five decades. The consciousness.
aim of this article is act as a crucible for “God comes out from one form of things
our own exploration on the evolutionary only to enter into another (5)”, and death is
value and the purpose of death in the light the facilitator. Death is the mechanism that
of the above. facilitates the flow of consciousness as life.

Indeed, birth and growth uninhibited by the
process of decay and disintegration, is a core
causal factor of malignant bio-physiology.
In the absence of the innate balance brought
about by disintegration and death, life cannot
bear expression to its nature as a flow of forms
through time and space. In other words, life
is enabled by death. Death enables the flow
of life with its constant diverse and multiple
forms, finding itself in its rapturous flow. Sri
Aurobindo poetically extols life as, “Existence
that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being
and plunged into numberless trillions of forms
so that it might find itself innumerably (6).”

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