Readings on Death

Bhagavad Gita 

The body has death, but not the soul. The body sleeps, the soul flies. The soul-stirring words on death and the soul in a chapter of the Gita, help us recollect. "Even as man discards old clothes for the new ones, so the dweller in the body, the soul, leaving aside the worn-out bodies, enters into new bodies. The soul migrates from body to body. Weapons cannot cleave it, nor fire consume it, nor water drench it, nor wind dry it." This is the soul and this is what is meant by the existence of the soul. 

From the B’hai writings, 

translated from the Persian:

In the time of sleep, this body is as though dead; it does not see nor hear; it does not feel; it has no consciousness, no perception – that is to say, the powers of man have become inactive, but the spirit lives and subsists.  Nay, its penetration is increased, its flight is higher, and its intelligence is greater.  To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage and the spirit is like the bird.  We see that without the cage this bird flies in the world of sleep; therefore if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist. Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased. In truth, from hell it reaches a paradise of delights because for the thankful birds there is no paradise greater than freedom from the cage.  

Peace My Heart

By Rabindranath Tagore

(Bengali poet)

Peace my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet,

Let it not be death but completeness

Let love melt into memory and pain into songs

Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest

Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night,

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence

I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

Brihadaranayaka Upanishad

Yagnavalkya speaks:

As a man passes from dream to wakefulness, so does he pass at death from this life to the next. 

When a man is about to die, the subtle body mounted by the intelligent Self, groans – as a heavily laden cart groans under its burden.  When his body becomes thin through old age or disease, the dying man separates himself from his limbs, even as a mango or a fig or a banyan fruit separates itself from its stalk, and by the same way that he came, he hastens to his new abode, and there assumes another body in which to begin a new life.

When his body grows weak and he becomes apparently unconscious, the dying man gathers his senses about him and completely withdrawing their powers  descends into his heart.   

No more does he see form or colour without.

He neither sees, nor smells, nor tastes.  He does not speak, he does not hear.   

He does not think, he does not know.   

For all the organs, detaching themselves from his physical body unite with his subtle body.  

 Then the point of his heart, where the nerves join, is lighted by the light of the Self, and by that light he departs through the eye, or through the gate of the skull, or through some other aperture of the body.   

When he thus departs, life departs and when life departs, all the functions of the vital principle depart.   

The Self remains conscious, and conscious, the dying man goes to his abode.  

 The deeds of this life, and the impressions they leave behind follow him.

As a leech, having reached the end of a blade of grass, takes hold of another blade and draws itself to it, so the Self, having left this body behind it unconscious, takes hold of another body and draws himself to it. As a goldsmith, taking an old gold ornament, moulds it into another, newer and more beautiful, so the Self, having given up the body and left it unconscious, takes on a newer and better form, wither that of the fathers, or that of the celestial singers, or that of the gods, or that of other beings, heavenly or earthly.

  

When I die...

 

RUMI, ghazal number 911,

translated May 18, 1992,

by Nader Khalili.

When I die

when my coffin is being taken out

you must never think i am missing this world.

don't shed any tears, don't lament or feel sorry

I'm not falling into a monster's abyss.

when you see my corpse is being carried

don't cry for my leaving, I'm not leaving.

I'm arriving at eternal love.

When you leave me in the grave

don't say goodbye, remember a grave is only a curtain

for the paradise behind.

You'll only see me descending into a grave

now watch me rise,

 how can there be an end

when the sun sets or the moon goes down?

it looks like the end, it seems like a sunset

but in reality it is a dawn.

when the grave locks you up, that is when your soul is freed.

Have you ever seen a seed fallen to earth not rise with a new life?

why should you doubt the rise of a seed named human?

have you ever seen a bucket lowered into a well

coming back empty?

why lament for a soul when it can come back

like Joseph from the well?

When for the last time you close your mouth

your words and soul will belong to the world of

no place no time.

 from John 14:27

My peace I give to you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. 

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

- from the Healing Letters of Myrtle Fillmore

It is a sorrow to have a loved one go through the experience of death.  But we show a greater love for our dear one by refusing to hang on to the sorrow and by turning our undivided attention to learning how better to live by the divine law, and how to help others to avoid the experience of death….The only way by which we shall ever be eternally united with our loved ones is to come into the Jesus Christ consciousness of life…

…If your mother had gone away on a vacation and you knew she was in loving hands, you would not be grieved or worried, would you?  Well, now, that is just what has taken place.  She is resting from the suffering and the problems…….She is in the presence of God, just as you are; and the best way to show your love for her is to let go all human longing and all sense of loss, so that this soul who welcomed you as a babe, and who has cared for you, may rest assured all is well with you.

II Corinthians, 4:18 

While we look not at the things which are seen,

But at the things which are not seen:

For the things that are seen are temporal;

but the things which are not seen

are eternal.

II Corinthians, 5:1

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle

were dissolved, we have a building of God,

an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

John 11: 25-26, Jesus says to Martha:

I am the resurrection, and the life:

he that believeth in me, though he were dead,

yet shall he live:

And whosoever liveth and believeth in me

shall never die.

Prayer for Fathers

For fathers, who have given us life and love, that we may show them love and affection today and all days, we pray to God, our Father. For fathers who have lost a child through death, that they may find hope, and solace in Your never ending love, we pray to you, O God, our Father. 

For fathers who have died, that God may welcome them into that peaceful place that is without ending, we pray to You, O God, our Father. 

God our Father, in your wisdom and love You made all things. Bless those fathers who have taken upon themselves, the responsibility of parenting. Bless those who have lost a spouse to death ... 

Strengthen them by your love that they may be and become
the loving, caring persons they are meant to be.
Grant this through Christ our Lord. 

Amen

Prayer for Those Who Mourn

by Vienna Cobb Anderson

Bless those who mourn, eternal God,
with the comfort of your love
that they may face each new day with hope
and the certainty that nothing can destroy
the good that has been given. May their memories become joyful,
their days enriched with friendship,
and their lives encircled by your love.
Amen. 

Wheel of Life

Mary Kathleen Speegle Schmitt,author of

Seasons of the Feminine Divine

 

Ancient woman

You spin out creation

On the Wheel of Life

And our beginning and end

Feel the rough skin of your hands,

When the sun fails,

And the moon goes dark,

Gather your children

From the ends of the earth;

That, redeemed by your compassion,

All humanity may enter the home

That you have prepared for us;

Lady of the Four winds

Uniter of Heaven and Earth

One Who Brings Us Home.