WHAT IS IT LIKE TO DIE?
Article that addresses the question What is it like to die? In this section we look at how highly evolved spiritual people and holy men have approached the act of dying. We also consider what it is like to die for the physical and spiritual bodies. For more information about the question What is it like to Die? read Craig Hamilton-Parker's best-selling books about the Spirit World and developing your powers to become a medium.
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How Gurus Die
What is it like to die?
 When death comes, we discard the first sheath--the physical body. The body of light then exits via one of the chakras.
The chakras are like doorways. When we were preparing to be born, we entered the body of the baby form that our mother was growing. According to my spirit guide, who talks to my group during trance, this happens at the time of the quickening. Your spirit entered via one of the chakra points. Which chakra you chose to enter by depended upon how spiritually evolved you were. If your soul state was still on the animalistic level, or this is an early incarnation for you, you would enter through one of the lower chakras. If, however, you had spent many past lives in the quest for spirituality, you would enter through one of the higher chakras. This entry determines your motivations and life goals. Fortunately every person also has the opportunity in life to develop their spirituality. When this happens, the prana rises gradually to the higher chakras.
At death, the body of light leaves through the highest chakra to which it can attain. In India, the eyes of a corpse are checked to see if they are looking upward towards the head. If so, it means that the departing spirit has exited via the crown center at the top of the head. When this happens, it is said that the spirit has attained enlightenment and immediately enters the highest heavenly state.
THE HINDU TAKE ON WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DIE
According to the Hindu yogic teachings of the Prashna Upanishad, the chakra through which the spirit leaves the body determines the course of its journey after death. The prana life force moves up the central subtle nerve channel in the spine and carries the spirit to its appropriate chakra doorway.
The spirit of person who has spent his or her life in the pursuit of God consciousness passes out of the body through the crown chakra (known as the brahmarandhra or vidriti). Exiting the body through this chakra is said to be extremely hard to accomplish, as the slightest hint of earthly desires will block the doorway. Departure through this chakra has been likened to trying to pass a thread through a very fine needle. It will jam if even one fiber of desire is sticking out.
HOW DO GURUS APPROACH DEATH?
 Even the great gurus can flinch at the thought of death. Paramahansa Yogananda was one of the first great Hindu teachers to visit the west and he founded in 1920 the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles. His own guru was Sri Yukteswar. On approaching his eighty-first birthday, Sri Yukteswar made the announcement that he would soon die. Suddenly, this great guru looked viably upset, but he soon regained his composure and remained in a blissful state throughout his death passage. Yogananda said: “For a few moments, he trembled like a frightened child.” Yogananda then quoted the words of another great guru: “Attachment to bodily resistance, springing up on its own nature, is present in slight degree even in the great saints.”
WHAT IT IS LIKE FOR A GURU TO DIE
 Three months later, Yogananda was staying at the Regent Hotel in Bombay. At three o’clock in the afternoon of June 19, 1936, the spirit of Sri Yukteswar appeared in Yogananda’s room. Yogananda’s spontaneous reaction was to embrace his old guru. To his amazement he was hugging a real body. “Yes this is a real flesh-and-blood body,” explained Sri Yukteswar, “though I see it as ethereal, to your sight it is physical. From the cosmic atoms I created an entirely new body… I am in truth resurrected--not on earth but on the astral planet. It’s inhabitants are better able than earthly humanity to meet my lofty standards. There you and your exalted loved ones shall someday come to be with me.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE IN THE HEAVENLY WORLDS
His guru then told Yogananda all about the heavenly worlds and gives us a few clues about what enlightened souls do when they are dead. “As prophets are sent on Earth to help men work out their physical karma, so I have been directed by God to serve on an astral planet as a savior. It is called Hiranyaloka or ‘Illuminated Astral Planet.’ There I am aiding advanced beings to rid themselves of astral karma and thus attain liberation from astral rebirths. The dwellers of Hiranyaloka are highly developed spiritually; all of them had acquired, in their last earth-incarnation, the meditation-given power of consciously leaving their physical bodies at death.”
SEE ALSO: WHAT IS DEATH LIKE?
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