One of the most beautiful Hindu proverbs is about adversity. It goes like this: “There isn’t a tree in the world that the wind hasn’t shaken.” It’s such a beautiful metaphor that reminds you that no one can escape adversity. It’s completely unavoidable.

Bad times are like a wind that shakes the branches and tests their stability. What really stands out in this message is the fact that it doesn’t matter what kind of life you live, you’ll always be vulnerable to its attacks. But you shouldn’t see them as strange or unusual, because adversity is just part of life.

The topic of internal peace is one of the most common topics in Hindu proverbs. All its religions and philosophies talk a lot about this balanced state where you become calm, and come to a place of peace with yourself and the world.

That’s why there’s a Hindu proverb that goes: “A peaceful heart sees a celebration in any village.” What it means is that it all starts from within. If your spirit is peaceful, you’ll look at the outside world with a positive perspective. In the same way, internal wars will make you see everything much darker.

Here’s what one Hindu proverb says about reading: “It is always good for the ignorant to read books. It is even better when they retain what they have read. It is better still when they have understood it. But it is best when they do all those things, and put their hands  to work.”

This time the message is about giving an equal importance to learning and taking action based on your knowledge. It sets up a scale that starts with reading. Then it moves on to internalizing what you’ve read. And it finally ends with taking action based on what you now know.

Most of these philosophies line up in a similar place. They all talk about solidarity and brotherliness as the supreme values. These are the values that make us into one race dealing with the same hardships, with the same destiny.

That’s why there’s one Hindu proverbs that goes: “Trees refuse no one their shade, not even the woodcutter.” It’s a poetic way of saying that this task of helping people even includes the people who’ve hurt you.

There aren’t many easy pathways to happiness. But there’s no doubt that one path is to do noble things for other people. There’s a Hindu proverb that has this same message. It says: “True happiness consists of making other people happy.”

Other people’s happiness always play a part in personal happiness. It’s much easier to feel good about life and the world when the people around you are happy. No one who wants to harm other people can ever really achieve it, either.

Everything in life is linked together. Things happen because there’s something that leads them to happen. But most of us tend to see all these different parts of life as isolated incidents. There are so many times when we don’t notice that we’re just reaping what we’re sowing.

There’s also a Hindu proverb that makes a reference to this. “The good you did yesterday will bring you happiness when you wake.” This is about the idea that being good to other people will bring you personal happiness.

The personal and universal aren’t exclusive concepts. They’re always deeply linked. They have a mutual influence on each other, and you can’t pull them apart. That’s why there are always so many personal elements in universal things. Of course, personal things are also their own universe.

That’s exactly what one Hindu proverb says. “God too hides himself in the ocean within a drop of water.” You shouldn’t take the word “God” literally in this quote. What it’s really talking about is a “higher power,” not a specific god.

In the end, all these Hindu proverbs have two things in common: beauty and depth. Hindu culture also shows itself off in a ton of different ways, as you can see in these fascinating statements that can help magnify your spirit.

Death is the most fateful experience of each of our lives. But no Hindu really fears death, nor does he look forward to it. Death for the Hindu is merely transition, simultaneously an end and a new beginning. Over two thousand years ago Saint Tiruvalluvar wrote that "Death is like falling asleep, and birth is like awakening from that sleep." In one of the ancient languages of our religion, the physical body had a name which literally meant "that which is always dropping off." When key truths are understood and accepted about the nature of the soul and the cycles of birth, life, dying, death, afterlife and rebirth, all sense of foreboding and fear of death perish. Here we explore those realities.

For Hindus, death is nobly referred to as mahaprasthana, the "great journey." When the lessons of this life have been learned and karmas reach a point of intensity, the soul leaves the physical body, which then returns its elements to the earth. The awareness, will, memory and intelligence which we think of as ourselves continue to exist in the soul body. Death is a most natural experience, not to be feared. It is a quick transition from the physical world to the astral plane, like walking through a door, leaving one room and entering another. Knowing this, we approach death as a sadhana, as a spiritual opportunity, bringing a level of detachment which is difficult to achieve in the tumult of life and an urgency to strive more than ever in our search for the Divine Self. At death we drop off the physical body and continue evolving in the inner worlds in our subtle bodies, until we again enter into birth. We are not the body in which we live but the immortal soul which inhabits many bodies in its evolutionary journey.

Our individual soul is the immortal and spiritual body of light that animates life and reincarnates again and again until all necessary karmas are created and resolved and its essential unity with God is fully realized. Our soul is God's emanational creation, the source of all our higher functions, including knowledge, will and love. Our soul is neither male nor female. It is that which never dies, even when its four outer sheaths change form and perish as they naturally do. The soul body has a form just as the astral body has a form, but it is more refined and is of a more permanent nature. It is this body which reincarnates, creating around itself new physical and astral bodies, life after life after life. This process matures and develops the body of the soul. The body of the soul is pure light, made of quantums. It is indestructible. It cannot be hurt or damaged in any way. It is a pure being, created by God, maturing its way to Him in final merger. The body of the soul is constant radiance. Its mind is superconsciousness, containing all intelligence, and is constantly aware, does not sleep and is expanding awareness as the soul body matures. The body of the soul lives in the eternity of the moment, simultaneously conscious of past and future as a one cycle. The true nature, everlasting secure personal identity, is realizing oneself as the soul body. This is truly finding our roots, our source, our indestructible, ever-maturing soul.

In Sanskrit, the bodies of our being are called kosa, which means "sheath, vessel, container or layer." They are the sheaths through which the soul functions simultaneously in the various planes of existence. The kosas, in order of increasing subtlety, are as follows: --annamaya kosa: "Sheath composed of food." The physical body, coarsest of sheaths. --pranamaya kosa: "sheath composed of prana (vital force)." Also known as the etheric or health body, it coexists within the physical body as its source of life, breath and vitality, and is its connection with the astral body. --manomaya kosa: "Mind-formed sheath." The lower astral body. The instinctive-intellectual sheath of ordinary thought, desire and emotion. --vijnanamaya kosa: "Sheath of cognition." The mental or cognitive-intuitive sheath. It is the vehicle of higher thought, understanding, knowing, direct cognition, wisdom, intuition and creativity. --anandamaya kosa: "Body of bliss." The intuitive-superconscious sheath, the ultimate foundation of all life, intelligence and higher faculties. Anandamaya kosa is not a sheath in the same sense as the outer kosas. It is the soul itself.

The term "astral body" names the subtle, nonphysical body in which the soul functions in the astral plane. The astral body includes the pranamaya kosa, the manomaya kosa and the vijnanamaya kosa.

As the physical forces wane, all the gross and subtle energy goes into the mental and emotional astral body. If the person was prepared for death, sudden or otherwise, his mental and emotional astral body would have already been well schooled in readiness. Sudden death to such a soul is a boon and a blessing. At death, the soul slowly becomes totally aware in its astral/mental bodies, and it predominantly lives through those bodies in the astral dimension. The soul functions with complete continuity in its astral/mental bodies. It is with these sensitive vehicles that we experience dream or "astral" worlds during sleep every night.

When the physical body dies, this automatically severs the subtle silver cord that connects the astral and physical bodies. This cord is an astral-pranic thread that connects the astral body through the navel to the physical body. It is a little like an umbilical cord. During out-of-the-body experiences, this silver cord is often seen as a cord of light connecting the physical, astral and spiritual bodies. When the cord is cut at the death of the physical body, the process of reincarnation and rebirth begins. The Vedas say, "When a person comes to weakness, be it through old age or disease, he frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, a fig or a berry releases itself from its stalk."

It is painful to the astral body to have the physical body cut or disturbed seriously within seventy-two hours after death. The soul can see and feel this, and it detains him from going on. As soon as you tamper with his physical body, he gets attached, becomes aware that he has two bodies, and this becomes a problem. Ideally when you die, your physical body goes up in flames, and immediately you know it's gone. You now know that the astral body is your body, and you can effortlessly release the physical body. But if you keep the old body around, then you keep the person around, and he is aware that he has two bodies. He becomes earthbound, tied into the Pretaloka, and confused.

The Sanskrit, loka, means "world, habitat, realm or plane of existence." Hinduism describes three primary lokas, as follows. --Bhuloka: "Earth world." The world perceived through the five senses, also called the gross plane, as it is the most dense of the worlds. --Antarloka: "Inner or in-between world." Known in English as the subtle or astral plane, the intermediate dimension between the physical and causal worlds, where souls in their astral bodies sojourn between incarnations and when they sleep. --Karanaloka: "World of God," and of the Gods and highly evolved souls, existing deep within the Antarloka at a higher level of vibration. It is a world of superconsciousness and extremely refined energy, the quantum level of the universe.

Subdivisions of the Antarloka are: --Devaloka: "Place of radiant beings." The higher astral plane, or mental plane, the realm of "angels." --Pretaloka: "World of the departed." The realm of earth-bound souls, or ghosts. It is an astral duplicate of the physical world and closest to it. --Narakaloka: Abode of darkness. The lower worlds, realm of "demons." Equivalent to the Western term "hell," a gross region of the Antarloka. A congested, distressful area where beings suffer the consequences of their own misdeeds in previous lives. Described as a place of torment, pain, darkness, confusion and disease. Narakaloka is not a place where souls reside forever. Hinduism has no eternal hell.

Where the soul goes in the astral plane at sleep or death is dependent upon his earthly pursuits and the quality of his mind. If the soul body itself is evolved, it will occupy the astral/mental bodies in the Devaloka. If somebody dies in the states of anger and fear, he goes into the lower worlds of those states of consciousness. And in that realm there would be hundreds of thousands of people in that same state of consciousness. The thoughts at death are the next samskaras of the astral body. Even if you have the thought, "When you're dead you're dead," your astral body might just float over your physical body and be "dead." A lot of people who are about to die do not believe in life after death, so they remain hovering over their physical body when it is lifeless. Astral-plane helpers have to come and "wake them up" and tell them that their physical body is dead and explain that they are all right and are alive in their astral body. It is often not easy getting them readjusted.

At death you leave through a nerve ganglia of consciousness, a chakra. Each one is a window, and at death it becomes a portal, a doorway. The tunnel of light that is experienced by so many people at the point of death is the portal they are going through, the window, the chakra. Passing through the tunnel is leaving this world and going into another. So, it is the state of mind at death that gets you into one loka or another. At the moment of death, you have the opportunity to stabilize yourself in the highest chakra you have experienced in this life. The dying should always remember that the place where one will reincarnate is the place that he is thinking about prior to death. So, choose your desires wisely. The last thoughts just before death are the most powerful thoughts in creating the next life. Secret questionings and doubt of Hindu belief, and associations with other belief systems will automatically place him among like-minded people whose beliefs are alien to Hinduism. A nominal Hindu on Earth could be a selfish materialist in the astral world. The Hindu also knows that death must come naturally, in its own course, and that suicide only accelerates the intensity of one's karma, placing one in a lengthy earth-bound limbo state in the astral plane, bringing a series of immediate lesser births and requiring several lives for the soul to return to the exact evolutionary point that existed at the moment of suicide, at which time the still-existing karmic entanglements must again be faced and resolved.

Everyone is prepared to die, and whether it happens suddenly or slowly, intuitively each individual knows exactly what he is experiencing and about to experience. You don't need any counseling. It is a blessing to know when you are going to die, because then you can prepare for it, make a decision whether you are going to be reborn, do intense sadhanas, make preparations. When one knows he is going to depart the physical body, he should not hesitate to tell his relatives he is going to die, and that is a wonderful blessing for them, as they can prepare for his great departure. In turn, family and friends should release him, be happy. Don't cry; you will make him unhappy. The sadness at death comes from Western attitudes. Western thought has to be reversed. He should consciously go over his wealth, his properties, be the executor of his own will, taking care of everybody, not leaving these things to others to deal with after his passing. After everything is settled, all personal possessions disposed of, then he begins meditation and awaits the fruitful hour, trying to exit through the highest chakra of the attainment of this life.

The ideal is to leave through the top of the head, through the door of Brahman, to get into the highest heaven and not have to come back. The dying person should, at the time of transition, concentrate awareness at the top of his head and willfully draw up into it all the energies from the left and right legs and arms, one after another, then the energy within the entire torso, and all the energies within the spine, from the muladhara chakra, up into the third eye and crown chakras. With all the energies gathered at the top of his head, he will leave through the highest chakra he experienced this lifetime. This would put him in a great place in the inner world.

Prolonging the life of the individual body must be done by the individual himself. Medical assistance is needed to cauterize wounds and provide the numerous helpful things that are available, but to prolong life in the debilitated physical body past the point that the natural will of the person has sustained is to incarcerate, to jail, to place that person in prison. Ayurvedic medicine seeks to keep a person healthy and strong, but not to interfere with the process of death.

Our soul never dies; only the physical body dies. We are not the physical body, mind or emotions. We are the immortal soul, atman. We neither fear death nor look forward to it, but revere it as a most exalted experience. Life, death and the afterlife are all part of our path to perfect oneness with God. People wonder whether death is a painful process, such as in the case of cancer victims. Cancer, which produces a lot of pain, is a process of life which results in death, but death itself is not painful. Death itself is blissful. Death is like a meditation, a samadhi. That's why it is called maha (great) samadhi. A Hindu is prepared from childhood for that mahasamadhi. Remember, pain is not part of the process of death. That is the process of life, which results in death. Death takes place in a short period, but is a foreboding affair to those who have never meditated. But dying is not such a dramatic experience really. Every night you "die" and leave your physical body. It is very similar.

The fear of death is a natural instinctive reflex. We encounter it sometimes daily, once a month, or at least once a year when we come face to face with the possibility of obliteration of our personality and of leaving the conscious mind. The fear of change or fear of the unknown is an ominous element in the destiny of a human being. The study and comprehension of the laws of reincarnation can alleviate this fear and bring an enlightened vision of the cosmic rhythms of life and death. It is a simple process, no more fantastic than other growth problems we experience daily. Death, like birth, has been repeated so many times that it is no mystery to the soul. The only problem comes with conflicting beliefs, which produce fear and anxiety about death. This temporary ignorance soon subsides when the failing forces of the physical body reach a certain level. At this point, the superconscious intelligence, the soul itself, is there.

Certain karmas can be resolved only in the physical world. This is due to the fact that on the refined inner planes only three or four of the higher chakras are activated; the others are dormant. For nirvikalpa samadhi, all seven chakras, as well as the three major energy currents, have to be functioning to sustain enough kundalini force to burst through to the Self. At the right time, the soul is reborn into a flesh body that will best fulfill its karmic pattern. In this process, the current astral body--which is a duplicate of the last physical form--is sloughed off as a lifeless shell that in due course disintegrates, and a new astral body develops as the new physical body grows. This entering into another body is called reincarnation, "re-occupying the flesh." Generally, the soul, at the time of conception, chooses the body he will inhabit but does not actually enter the womb until the infant body takes life and begins to move and kick.

During our numerous Earth lives, a remarkable variety of life patterns is experienced. We exist as male and female, often switching back and forth from life to life as the nature becomes more harmonized into a person exhibiting both feminine nurturing and masculine intrepidness. Therefore, the Hindu knows that the belief in a single life on Earth, followed by eternal joy or pain is utterly wrong and causes great anxiety, confusion and fear. Hindus know that all souls reincarnate, take one body and then another, evolving through experience over long periods of time. Like the caterpillar's metamorphosis into the butterfly, death doesn't end our existence but frees us to pursue an even greater development. Reincarnation ceases when dharma has been well performed, earthly karma is resolved, God is fully realized and moksha, liberation, is attained.

PANCHABHUTA Or Five Elements. 

Our whole cosmic quest of the world and beyond starts from the point of panchabhuta (five elements) which then manifests in an enjoining manner to form the life force and then, later, those five elements disintegrates to ensue a celestical traverse at the Paramanu (atom) level.

Wind is gaseous,

Fire is furious,

Sky is the zenith,

Earth is solid,

Water is colourless,

However, we will first try to understand these five elements which are Earth or Prithvi; Water or Jal ; Fire or Agni; Air or Vayu and then Ether or Akasha. Each of these Five elements has its own character and celestial elements which we will gauge in the following lines.

Earth(Prithvi): One can touch earth and smell it too ! However, there are two types of earth one is Eternal or (nitya) which are in the form of atom (Paramanu).The other type is perishable (anitya) which exists in the form of Karya or Work at animate and inanimate levels. Symbolically speaking our body, sense organs are the earth which as a whole get the shape of Jiva or life but those are perishable. But elements or atoms are eternal as after death may we bury, or burn the body, all the atoms get disintegrated to come back to its original eternal form. So our body and its Karya or Work are perishable as the mountain or rock forms but the atom remains which are eternal.

Water or Jal is the second element which again has two characters as in the Earth i.e. eternal in the shape of atom and Karya (Work) be it as river, pond or sea are perishable. As from sea or river water evaporates to be in the sky as cloud then again in the shape of rain it comes down on earth. So the eternal atom is only changing its karya or shape of work and what we see is the perishable form.From the sense organ perspective we can touch it to feel and taste it as well.

The thrid element is Air or Vayu.Again it has two levels as earth and water i.e.eternal atom and perishable Karya. One can feel air, as we breath in or out.We feel the storm or strong breeze which are temporary but air at atomic level remains around us eternally. In the Purana there is a mention of 49 types of Maruts or winds. Seven are important namely

1. Pravaha

2. Avaha;

3. Udvaha

4. Samvaha;

5. Vivaha;

6. Parvaha and

7. Paravaha.

The wind which takes the water from the ocean is called Udvaha.

Fire or Agni is the fourth element of Indian Panchabhuta. Again it has eternal and perishable elements as we have seen above. The essential character of Fire is to generate heat.According to Hindu Mythology, Agni is one of the Eight guardians who guards our universe and is known as Asta- dik-palakas (Asta-eight, dik--Zone,Palaka-Guardian). The Fire is posited in the South East of the Universe.

However, in Indian mythology there are mentions of various types of fires. The four important ones are fire of the earth, fire of the sky, fire of the stomach (can mean hunger and digestive power as well) and the fire we commonly use.

Then comes the last of the Panchabhuta or five elements which is sound or ether. Ether is unique as it has only one character i.e. eternal. Ether is the carrier of sound be it man made or otherwise. One can hear it. As ether is the only eternal element of the five elements it attracted the attention of various sages. The concept of Akashvani or Devine sound which is heard by sages of higher order is related to this Ether or Akasha.The primordial mantra AUM then in modern times Raam or Shyaam are to work as linkages between Jivatma(life force--atman or soul) to Paramatman or (Omnipotent of supreme soul).The concept of sound and Mantra will be discussed in the next issue. Now we should concentrate on elements, other than five mentioned above which are very important to Hindu theological perspective. Those are Time(Kala) and Space (Sthan or Dik i.e. place and direction); Soul and Mind.

Like ether Time and Space are eternal. Time or kala is common cause of all actions of all the elements and is eternal link of predetermined actions and happenings. Thus in Hindu astrologly the whole world and its course are equated with "time". The Direction or Dik are part of Space and North, South, West and East are eternal no matter the Universe undergoes whatever changes.

Then the other element is Soul which is related with the knowledge system of man as jivatman and the eternal Knowledge of God or Paramatman(omnipotent).The last of the nine main elements is the manas or Mind. Its the sense-organ or path to experience the world eternally and otherwise. These sense organs are in the shape of eternal paramanu or atom and works is combinations to derive pleasure at worldly levels. These are the brief out line of main five elements and other four primary elements. It is said that our universe was created out of the manifestation of five elements. This was described in the Devigita very elaborately.

Devigita proclaims that Shakti went about creating the world with 24 tattvas or elements. The five elements were born out of the primordial principle of unmanifested Sakti.The ether through which sound traverse was first element, which is also known as Sabda-rupa (form of sound). Second was Air or Vayu (Sparsharupa or a form which is felt) The Air or Vayu give rise to Agni so it called Vayoranih. Then sense of taste or ‘rasrupa’ the water element came. The the gandharupa or the source of smell came--the earth.

Pauranic Expert Vettam Mani said that the universe remained in embryo form or in the bijarupa. "These Panchabhutas{five elements} were first divided into two (each was divided into two). Then by a process of the combination of these ten parts different substances were born....Each half of each of these five bhutas{elements} is again subdivided into four parts. These 1/8 parts are joined to the other halves and by combining them in other fractions of the material bodies(sthulasariras of all beings are made." wrote Vettam Mani.

The cosmic body is the grand total of those material bodies discussed above. The first and pure manifestation of those five elements are the inner conscience and bodily organs like ear etc. However, the inner conscience or Antarkaranas assumes four state or forms. Once conception and doubt arise it is called Mind. But when there is no doubt arises is called Buddhi. The process of examination and re-examination of a subjects belongs to the state of intellect called citta. But with the feeling of "I" the ego or ahamkar bursts out. So we find the pure five elements gave rise to the inner conscience or Antarkarnana and then there are four states within it namely mind, buddhi, citta and ego.

Vettam Mani explained "From the coarse (rajasic) aspect of the five sense organs originate the five organs of action like word, foot, hand, excretory and the genital organ, and also the five pranas (breaths) called prana, apana, samana, udhana and vyana.

....Prana is located in the heart, apana in the anus, samana in the nabhi (navel)udana in the throat and Vyana all over the body.....(Organs of knowldege 5, of action 5, and pranas 5,and buddhi 1,mind 1, the bodly is composes of these 17 factors".

The sukshmasaria or the subtle body has two nature or Prakrati namely maya wherein the god is reflected. The other is Avidya seen by Jiva or living being who is receptable of sorrows. Through Vidya(Eternal Knowldege) and Avidya (ignorance) three forms of body emerge. Mani explained ‘He who is attached and is pround about the material body is called visva; he who attaches importance to the subtle bodly is called Taijisva, and who is aware of casual body is called Prajna.’ Likewise we see how the five elements manifested itself into 22 tattva (materials) which all go towards creation of a body. In the Devigita it is said that eighty-four lakh species of living beings have manifested from these five elements. In the next article we would take up the ether or sound elements in mantra perspective which has only single and eternal entity and dwells in Hindu theology vibrantly.