Hari Aum.
Life and death are regarded as inseparable according to the yogis. What is born must die one day, and what dies must be reborn one day. This is the eternal cycle of birth and death that constitutes samsara. And, the only way out of this is to attain the spiritual state of liberation while alive on this planet.
To create a sense of detachment, a small minority of yogis (belonging mainly to the 'left hand path' of spirituality) sometimes worship God in the cremation ground. The sight of death certainly gives one a new perspective on life.
I have never gone to cremation grounds or graveyards seeking to worship God there as I have never particularly felt the need. Fortunately, by the grace of God, I have not really needed to attend these places very much during my lifetime.
I am currently spending some time abroad visiting my husband's side of the family. And, in recent days, we have visited a local graveyard on a few occasions to pay respects to a close relative on his side who passed away a couple of years ago during the Covid pandemic. It was a very odd feeling to be at the grave of someone whom I came to know quite well over a decade.
I have walked on streets that pass through graveyards in the past and, on some level, it is always a bit of a sombre experience, but it really is quite different to be at the grave of someone one has personally known for a long while.
All around us were graves of various people who seemed to have been mostly born in the past fifty to seventy years; quite a few of these were marked with the years 2020 and 2021 and I could not help but wonder whether this was in part related to the pandemic.
As a family, we spent some time placing flowers on the grave and reflecting upon the life of the relative who was buried there. There is a hole in our lives in the space that he once occupied.
While we were there, my four-year old daughter spotted a pretty toy windmill placed on a small grave. She dragged me over to show it to me and I remarked that it looked very nice. I noted the grave sadly belonged to a child who had passed away a few years ago at the age of three.
My daughter has been asking me questions about death and dying in the past couple of weeks, and pretending that some of her toys die and then getting upset. I did not really plan to have a conversation about death with her at this age, but since she seems to have discovered this subject, I have spoken to her about it a couple of times recently and tried to reassure her (though it is not an easy subject by any means).
She asked me what happens to us when we die, saying that she was really upset that we wouldn't be able to ever see or speak to people who have died ever again. I thought this was the million dollar question that we all seek the answers to as yogis but said to her that people generally go to a nice place when they die, and then they come back again. Since then, some of her toys that had died have been reborn again and she seems a bit calmer! It still is quite a sensitive topic that I try and avoid as much as possible for now as it is understandably quite upsetting for her.
As I wandered through the graveyard with my daughter, it felt appropriate to silently recite the Mahamrityunjaya mantra for the peace of the souls who had passed and their families, particularly the young child. I cannot imagine anything more heartbreaking and painful than losing a child; what must the parents have gone through, it is really too difficult to even contemplate.
As I looked at the grave of our relative, I did feel a strange sense of detachment-- in the end, this is where it all ends. All the drama of our lives, all the wealth, all the relationships, everything, one day ends either here in the grave or on a cremation pyre.
As I left with my family, I privately said to God, this world is of Your making, and this separation from people is also of Your making, so bless us all that we may all do whatever it is that You want. One really cannot say anything else.
Life is very, very short in the grand scheme of things. It is so unpredictable and ever-changing. One minute we are above-ground, and perhaps the next minute (metaphorically speaking), we may find ourselves six feet underground or perhaps burnt to cinders on a cremation pyre (this may sound a tad dramatic, but it isn't really; it is simply a fact). It really is quite a sobering thought.
We are best-off, really, while yet alive, living life in accordance with dharma, doing our duties and focusing on collecting spiritual wealth that is not left behind when we die.
Recently, when I was at a temple, a gentleman giving a talk said that the wealth that we amass while alive will all be left behind when we die, but the spiritual wealth accumulated in what he (half-jokingly, half-seriously) called the 'Lakshmi Narayana' bank will be retained and go with us. Wise words indeed.
Mother Kali is said to have many forms, and one is Smashana Kali, the Goddess of the graveyard ('smashana' means cremation ground in Sanskrit). She reminds us that we are eternal, unlike the perishable body that we must all leave one day.
I therefore thought it would be appropriate to conclude this post with a link to a prayer in praise of Her (please see below). This is the 'Kali ashtakam', or eight verses in praise of Mother Kali, composed by the great Advaita yogi, Adi Shankaracharya.
Meaning of the Kali ashtakam:
Om Sri MahaKalikayai Namah.
Om Namo Narayanaya.
Hari Aum Tat Sat.
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