We lost our mother at 12.27 noon last Monday 28 November 2022. She was 95. She complained of stomach pain and was quickly brought to the hospital on Saturday night. Tests were done and she was given antibiotics and medicine to relieve the pain. The night before she passed away she told each of us standing around her bed that she wanted to sleep. I knew that she had meant falling asleep and never waking up.
From an article on https://www.britannica.com/science/human-body/Basic-form-and-development, we learn that "In vitro experiments indicate that the body’s cells are programmed to undergo a finite number of divisions, after which time they lose their reproductive capacity. Thus, the potential longevity of the human body—about 100 years—seems to be encoded within the very cells of the body."
The Yogis tell us that we come with a certain number of breaths that we exhale during the course of our lives engaging in various activities. Once it is exhausted and the breath that is expelled never returns death befalls. The Yogis though knew the secret to extend their breath - by just sitting still hence prolonging their lifespan. Swami Satprakashananda in his book "Meditation - Its Process, Practice, and Culmination, published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, says "Through this very life, by regulating this mortal life he can reach the immortal.”
My mother prayed till her last days. She was thankful for her limbs, often speaking to her hands and feet, thanking them. She was thankful for life itself. She was a strong lady. Thus I used to send others who had lost their spirit to battle their illness, pain, and suffering to her. She would raise their spirits with her presence and talk. She would always bless us "God Bless You My Child/Son/Daughter". She never spoke about her pain if ever she had it. She had no further desires having exhausted all. She even saved for the cost of the funeral rites not wanting to trouble her children. Hence though we were sad that she would not be around us in physical form, we sent her off happily. As my wife said, "It was a celebration of LIFE."
She wanted to be cremated. But as the only two crematoriums nearby were unable to accommodate another death, the funeral care provider suggested that we cremate her at a funeral pyre the traditional way using logs. We saw it as equal to being cremated at Kasi.
Though the Siddhas had told us that the Sivapuranam was to be read/sung to uplift the Atma while alive and not after death befalls us and fire and earth consume us, why did they allow the song to go on? Then it dawned on me that the former was a message specific to those on his path. As for the general public who never knew what the Sivapuranam was or never read/sang it here was an opportunity for them to know and perhaps follow the song at funeral parlors. But as all things lose their true meanings and intentions over time, a fellow student stopped my daughter from listening to the Sivapuranam in her hostel room telling her that it was to be played only at funeral houses. She picked up from her mother who forbids playing the song in their homes. People think it is a song to be recited only during funeral rites. This reminds me of how Agathiyar changed our perspective too sometime back in 2016. As Agathiyar in the form of the bronze statue at AVM, Tavayogi and Mataji were making their rounds to the homes of devotees who invited them over for puja one of the host began to sing poet Vairamuthu's "Jenmam Niraintathu" that has been popularized at funerals. A shock came over our faces as here we were gathered for a Siddha Puja. Later that weekend Agathiyar coming in Tavayogi's Jeevanadi reading praised her for the song!
Lord Shiva came with Agathiyar and graced my mother's funeral upon singing the Sivapuranam. I was surprised that they arrived at a funeral house but later realized the reason. As we know during the many moments in communication with them that they only saw the Atma or soul and never the physical body, they had come to pay their last respect to the physical body that was an abode of the Atma. A day before Agathiyar came at the wards and informed us that another birth was waiting for her.
Srinatha Raghavan posted the following enlightening conversation on Fb some time back,
In Banares, I happened to meet a young Aghori, or a Tantrik, on the ghats of Manikarnika. As I was just staring into the pyre of death, He came and sat beside me and struck up a seamless conversation.
He: Death is as temporary as Life?
Me: Yes.
He: Do you know why Death (Yama) & Time (Kala) are so feared?
Me: No.
He: Because they are least understood?
Me: True. How to understand Death?
He: By experiencing it, even when alive.
Me: And how do we do that?
He: Under the guidance of a Guru, you can experience Death.
Me: What is Death?
He: There is nothing called Death?
Me: What?
He: Death as we know it, is just physical cessation of the Body and its functions.
Me: Yes.
He: But what made the Body once tick, the spark of life, lives on, and just like a drop of Water that has turned into Vapour, it goes back to become one with the whole.
Me: Interesting.
He: What is more interesting is what happens after that?
Me: What would that be?
He: It's the way the whole game once again when the droplet separates itself from the whole to become an individual again.
Me: That's true.
He: Thus the play of life and death continues, till the drop has finally lived its share of desires to assume a form and lives happily as a part of the formless whole.
Then giving me some Bhasma and a Rudraksha, as a parting gift, He said, "May this Bhasma ever remind you of the impermanence of life and death and the Rudraksha of the latent Divinity that lay hidden within you, which is nothing less than Shivahood?"
From www.lionsroar.com we read that "In Buddhism generally, death isn’t death - it’s a staging area for further life."
Death is another doorway to another journey says Agathiyar. If I had thought that Agathiyar was educating me on death just some weeks ago, I understood that he was preparing me for the moment. One who faces death boldly is indeed a Siddha he says.
"மரணம் ஒன்றும் அல்ல. மற்றொரு பயணத்தின் கதவு. மரணபயம் வேண்டாம். எவன் ஒருவன் மரணத்தை அன்போடு வரவேற்கின்றானோ அவன் சித்தன் ஆகின்றான்."