PDF Summary:Death; An Inside Story, by Sadhguru
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Someday, you’re going to die. This is an obvious, unavoidable fact of life—yet almost everyone in modern society has implicitly agreed to ignore it. According to spiritual teacher Sadhguru, this reluctance to acknowledge death leads to enormous and unnecessary suffering. He argues that if you form a peaceful relationship to your own death, you’ll be empowered to live a more balanced, joyful life. More than that, it’ll help you prepare for your death—and what comes afterward.
In this guide, we’ll explain Sadhguru’s vision of the universe, including the nature of the human spirit and the afterlife. We’ll also detail some of the spiritual practices he suggests to soften and overcome death-related fears. In our commentary, we’ll compare Sadhguru’s spiritual ideas to those of major Eastern religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, to build a bigger picture of what people believe about death. Additionally, we’ll draw on psychological research that offers a more secular perspective on Sadhguru’s ideas.
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Tip #3: Experience Disembodied Awareness
Lastly, Sadhguru states that you can conquer your fear of death through a certain kind of spiritual experience: disembodied awareness. He explains that you’re afraid of losing your body and mind because the only kind of life you’ve experienced has been through these parts of yourself. If you can experience a little of what it’s like to exist outside of your body and mind, seeing through the universe’s eyes, you won’t be afraid to die. Certain advanced spiritual practices train your ability to control the various life energies inside of you, giving you access to these kinds of experiences on demand.
Kriya Yoga: Energetic Training
In his other writings, Sadhguru more clearly defines the spiritual practices that will help you achieve disembodied awareness on demand. These energy-focused practices are called kriya yoga, and following them is a holistic lifestyle. As Sadhguru explains in his book Inner Engineering, kriya yoga practitioners train themselves to revere the world around them and consecrate areas of high energy in their homes. They may also regularly fast for periods of 24 hours.
Kriya yoga differs from jnana yoga, which involves sharpening the rational mind; bhakti yoga, which involves intense emotional devotion; and karma yoga, which involves losing yourself in action. Each of these paths is a valid way to achieve enlightenment and conquer the fear of death. Kriya yoga is unique in that it gives you greater power over the energy that makes up reality while you’re still alive. However, it requires more dedication to a disciplined lifestyle than other types of yoga.
How to Prepare for Death
So far, we’ve established that overcoming your fear of death and acknowledging its inevitability will significantly improve your life. Sadhguru notes that increasing your awareness of death has another equally important purpose: motivating you to prepare for it.
We’ll start this section by explaining which part of death you need to prepare for and why. Then, we’ll offer several tips you can follow to increase your odds of dying well.
Why Prepare for Death?
Sadhguru asserts that your state of mind at the moment of death has an enormous influence on your afterlife experience.
When you die, most of the karma that makes up your worldly self is destroyed (as we’ve discussed). However, according to Sadhguru, the karma that creates your illusory self while you’re alive is powerful enough to influence the part of you made of life energy that persists after you die. Thus, after death, most people are still convinced that they're a separate entity rather than one with everything.
Sadhguru explains that dead people not only lose their bodies— they also lose the ability of the rational mind to discriminate between what’s desirable and undesirable. Thus, they can no longer make decisions to control or change their lived experience. Instead, the only things they experience are uncontrolled impulses. Specifically, whatever interior experience they had at the moment of death will continue for as long as they remain disembodied. Dead people will feel this internal experience to an extremely intense degree, since they lack the control to rein in their impulses.
This is why preparing for the moment of your death is so important, explains Sadhguru. If you successfully maintain awareness and equanimity while you lose your body, you’ll have a heavenly experience after death; if you panic and try to cling to what you’re losing, you’ll have a hellish experience after death.
(Shortform note: For some, the idea that the moment of your death will have such a big impact on your entire afterlife is terrifying. Some spiritual experts warn that placing too much pressure on the moment of your death will cause you to panic when you die—an undesirable state of mind. To counteract this, remember that the key to dying well is to surrender and accept whatever happens. Such equanimity will ensure a positive afterlife, no matter what your specific death looks like.)
How Reincarnation Works
Sadhguru states that unlike Western views of heaven and hell, karmic afterlife experiences don’t last forever. Eventually, the dead person finds and inhabits a body that’s about to be born. They sense what various lives have to offer, then choose—on instincts established by karma—the one they think will give them what they desire most. This is how reincarnation works: Enduring karmic patterns push a “self" of conscious life energy from body to body.
(Shortform note: Sadhguru is less specific in his description of karmic afterlife experiences than other Eastern experts. Many branches of Hinduism and Buddhism teach about a plurality of “heaven realms” and “hell realms.” Hindus believe in seven heavens and seven hells, each characterized by its inhabitants’ level of ignorance or enlightenment. Buddhists believe in 31 realms of existence—25 heavens and six hells. Some of these six hells, or the “realms of desire,” are extremely different from the Western idea of hell. For instance, the world we’re living in now is one of the six hell realms of desire, as is the “Deva realm,” where godlike beings live in luxury but must eventually suffer the pain of death.)
A Deeper Look Into the Bardo
When recounting what happens to people after they die, Sadhguru is describing what Buddhists call the bardo—the intermediate stage between death and rebirth. This vision of the bardo was originally recorded in the Bardo Thodol, also known as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. People discovered and spread this book in 14th-century Tibet, but it’s said to have been written by a Buddhist mystic about 600 years earlier.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes the bardo as a slightly more complex process than what Sadhguru describes here. It states that the bardo proceeds in three stages: First, dead people encounter the “clear light.” This is a bright, uniform force that dissolves all attachments. In this stage, dead people have the chance to identify with the clear light and recognize that they’re encountering their true nature. However, most people fail to do this, instead responding with fear and confusion.
People who fail to unite with the clear light then enter the second stage of the bardo, where they encounter strange beings. These entities appear to be angel- or demon-like creatures, but the Bardo Thodol asserts that they’re just projections of the dead individual’s mind. This is one way that the karma from your life shapes your afterlife experience, as Sadhguru claims—your karmic tendencies determine how these deities look and behave.
Because these deities are just aspects of the self, there’s no reason to be afraid of them. However, most people are still fearful and confused, prompting the third stage of the bardo. The dead person seeks refuge in what appear to be soft lights but turn out to be bodies about to be born.
Sadhguru asserts that your karma will push you toward the life you desire most. The Bardo Thodol colorfully illustrates this process: The dead person witnesses a multitude of different couples having sex and chooses which couple they want to have as parents (or, if they lack awareness, they try to join in on the sexual act and accidentally get reincarnated instead). In the end, the dead person enters a new body and continues the cycle of death and rebirth.
How to Die Well
Sadhguru asserts that because most people in modern society ignore the fact that they’re going to die, they neglect to internally prepare for their death. They spend their lives accumulating physical things—money, a family, professional success—and end up panicking when they realize that they’re about to lose it all. This panicked, clinging state is exactly what you want to avoid in the moment of your death, as it’ll lead to an unpleasant afterlife and a similarly ignorant next incarnation.
(Shortform note: In Being Mortal, surgeon Atul Gawande contends that the unwillingness to prepare for death is a uniquely modern problem. For almost all of human history, no one could escape the constant threat of death, whether it was from disease, war, or dangerous labor. Now that many people don’t need to worry about dying on any given day, it becomes much easier to put it out of their minds. Thus, people embrace an unhealthy future-oriented mindset, accumulating more and more physical things and neglecting what’s valuable in the present: loving relationships and simple pleasures. This doesn’t just hurt you in the afterlife, as Sadhguru says—according to Gawande, it makes the days leading up to your death feel much more meaningless.)
Given that clinging leads to a difficult afterlife, Sadhguru contends that your ultimate goal should be to die without any attachment or desire for anything another physical life could give you. If you do this successfully, you won’t be reincarnated at all. The karmic influences pushing you around will have vanished, leaving you as a body of pure consciousness energy. There will be no more “you” left to identify with a separate self—instead, you’ll be at one with the universe, a seamless whole. This is a divinely euphoric experience. According to Sadhguru, every being craves the end of their individual self even if they don’t consciously realize it.
The Paradoxical Buddhist View of Nirvana
Like Sadhguru, Buddhists see the dissolution of the illusory self as the escape from suffering. They share his view that people can achieve this dissolution through nonattachment and that this is the ultimate goal of all people. Their word for the transcendent experience that Sadhguru describes here is nirvana, which literally means “extinction” and is derived from the term for blowing out a flame.
This phrase highlights the paradoxical nature of Buddhist philosophy. As we mentioned earlier, Buddhists believe in śūnyatā—absolute emptiness—and reject the idea that there’s an essential universal oneness. To them, salvation is the cessation of consciousness, not the expansion of consciousness throughout the universe. However, the way Buddhists describe the experience of nirvana sounds very similar to the euphoric cosmic oneness Sadhguru describes. Ancient Buddhist texts describe nirvana as an awareness that’s featureless, blissful, and permanent.
This is paradoxical. How can you have awareness without consciousness? Some Buddhist experts argue that this truth is exclusively transcendental and impossible to grasp with the rational mind.
What can you do to increase your odds of dying well and achieving this unification with the universe? Sadhguru offers the following advice.
Tip #1: Practice Mindfulness Throughout Your Life
First, cultivate the habit of mindfulness at all times. Sadhguru explains that when you’re mindful of the nature of life and your immediate experience, you’ll realize that there’s nothing more you need. Once you make this state of mind a habit, you’ll have no trouble maintaining it through death, no matter how and when you die. Thus, you’ll break the cycle of reincarnation.
(Shortform note: Mindfulness isn’t just useful as preparation for death—many experts contend that it has great practical value in daily life. In 10% Happier, Dan Harris asserts that the greatest benefit of his mindfulness meditation practice is how it strengthens his ability to intentionally respond, rather than emotionally react, to any situation. Increased awareness of your emotional state will remove its power to control your behavior, allowing you to choose to act in ways that improve a given situation rather than make things worse.)
According to Sadhguru, one way to practice mindfulness is to intentionally focus on the experience of hunger. Just before you’re about to prepare or eat a meal, sit and wait for a short time. Pay attention to the experience of hunger and notice that although food is something that your physical body needs, it’s not something that your consciousness—your true self—needs. This will help you become aware that your body isn’t really part of you. The ego-reducing effect of this experience is why fasting is such a common tradition in many world religions.
(Shortform note: Although Sadhguru asserts that so many religions value fasting because it reveals the split between consciousness and body, adherents of those religions describe a wide range of other reasons for their practice. For instance, Muslims fast for a month, from sunrise to sunset, to help them empathize with those in poverty and to cultivate an attitude of pious discipline. Experts note that fasting also helps Muslims strengthen interpersonal bonds within their communities. Thus, if you’re fasting to practice mindfulness, as Sadhguru recommends, consider encouraging a group of like-minded peers to fast with you.)
Tip #2: Spend Your Final Years in Nature
Second, in the last years leading up to your death, live in a space with as few barriers as possible between your body and the rest of the natural world, like an open-air cabin. Sadhguru states that close contact with nature helps you experience how fragile your physical body is outside of the protected human world. This experience will remind you that your body is temporary and not a part of your true self.
(Shortform note: If spending time in nature helps you identify with the universe beyond your individual self, could other pursuits that remind you of your mortality also bring spiritual benefits? Research indicates that they can: People who do life-threatening extreme sports report transcendental experiences that closely overlap with the experience of being awed by nature, including the feeling of stepping outside of your personal identity. Although it’s certainly less likely that you’d pursue extreme sports in your final years, such athletes in the last few decades of their lives are becoming more common. Consider 80-year-old Dan Little, who ran seven marathons in seven days across all seven continents—including Antarctica.)
Sadhguru discourages the choice to die in a hospital. Many terminally ill patients use medical technology to prolong their lives for as long as possible. However, stretching your life past its natural expiration date will only preserve the body, not the mind, making a mindful death more difficult. Sadhguru is clear that you shouldn’t avoid hospitals and modern medicine if you’re sick and need to recover. But if the doctors declare that it’s likely you’re going to die, prolonging your life further may do more harm than good.
(Shortform note: While most medical experts don’t explicitly advocate for mindfulness at the moment of death, some agree with Sadhguru that hospitals generally intervene too much for their terminally ill patients. Many doctors hesitate to discuss the possibility of preparing for death with their patients, fearing that patients will react badly. Consequently, many patients fail to realize how low their chances for survival are and agree to aggressive treatment until the end. Although transitioning from aggressive treatment to palliative care may seem like giving up, it has several benefits: Research shows that it results in lower rates of depression and greater quality of life among patients.)
Tip #3: Surrender Your Individuality as You Die
In your attempt to break the cycle of reincarnation, Sadhguru recommends surrendering as much of your individuality as you can at the time of your death. Specifically, make sure that there are no photographs or other items that remind you of your worldly life in the place you’ve chosen to die.
(Shortform note: Some terminally ill people have greatly reduced their anxiety and depression in the time leading up to their death by temporarily transcending their individuality through psychedelics. In contrast to Sadhguru’s method of transcendence, these patients intentionally place photos and other personal items in the room while they take psychedelics, believing that such objects will prompt introspection and keep them grounded. This makes sense if their goal is to temporarily let go of the ego and then return to their lives, rather than permanently transcend the ego and achieve nirvana.)
Likewise, Sadhguru recommends dying alone, rather than being surrounded by loved ones. If you focus on the faces of your closest friends and family while you’re dying, it’ll strengthen the attachments to your illusory self that you’re trying to break. You’ll be recalling emotional memories you have about these people rather than maintaining equanimous mindfulness.
(Shortform note: Although Sadhguru encourages separation from family at the time of your death, he notes elsewhere that you don’t need to give up your family while you’re alive to become enlightened. Although some might assume that the solitary life of a monk is necessary if you seriously want to achieve enlightenment, Sadhguru contends the opposite: Working on your internal life is enough to set you on the path to enlightenment, no matter your external living situation.)
How to Overcome Grief
We’ve covered how to overcome the fear of death and how to work toward a better afterlife by preparing for death. We’ll conclude with practical advice for people who are still alive but have been impacted by death: how to overcome painful feelings of grief after someone close to you has died.
What Is Grief?
Sadhguru argues that to overcome grief, you must become aware of its true nature. He contends that grief isn’t just the automatic human response to death. Rather, when you feel the pain of grief, you’re suffering the loss of what that person added to your life. You feel as if a part of you has died; consequently, you believe that you’re fundamentally broken, missing something necessary for life.
However, Sadhguru contends that to live a perfect life, you don’t need anything or anyone—not even the love of your life. Grief makes this fact more apparent by stripping away the things you used to think you needed. For this reason, grief is a valuable opportunity for spiritual growth.
To Overcome Grief, Give More Love to Others
According to Sadhguru, when someone you love dies, you’ll find that your love for them will grow much more intense. All the little things that annoyed you about this person while they were alive will be gone. Since they can’t upset you anymore, you’ll naturally be filled with overwhelming love for the idealized version of them. Unless you do something, this love will keep you trapped in your grief and pain because you’ll be trying and failing to care for someone who no longer exists.
(Shortform note: Some experts note that idealizing a loved one who has recently passed can keep you trapped in another way: If their negative qualities continue to impact your psyche, but you’re unwilling to acknowledge those qualities out of respect for the dead, it can keep you from full self-awareness. For example, imagine you work as a lawyer because your late father pressured you into following in his footsteps. If you refuse to consider that your father, despite his good qualities, was a controlling person, you may never realize that his memory is the only reason you’re not switching to a better career.)
Sadhguru insists that to overcome grief, you need to redirect this outpouring of love toward people who are still living. Find people who need your compassion and give generously to them. Filling your life with the joy of service is the best way to move past your hopeless attachment to those who have passed. Additionally, if your loved one’s life and death inspire you to become a better person, your acts of service become a way of honoring their memory.
The End of a Romantic Relationship Can Also Provoke Grief
In an article for those who have recently been broken up with by a significant other, Mark Manson offers advice that’s surprisingly relevant to our conversation about grief. Like Sadhguru, Manson argues that when somebody leaves, you don’t really miss them—you miss what they added to your life. However, Manson gets more specific, asserting that you’re losing the meaning that they brought to your life. After you’ve invested years of effort and love into a relationship with someone, losing it leaves you without a clear idea of what, if anything, is worth living for.
To recover from this loss, you must find new sources of meaning. This is one explanation for why Sadhguru’s recommendation to focus on loving other people is such a potent cure for grief—helping other people makes your life feel meaningful again. Likewise, letting the loss you’re grieving inspire you to help others could help you retain some of the meaning of the relationship you’ve built. You turn your actions into evidence that your relationship wasn’t for nothing.
Whereas Sadhguru argues that grief forces you to confront the fact that you don’t need anything to be happy, Manson contends that we all have three specific emotional needs: status, connection, and security. When you lose someone, you need to find new relationships that help you meet these needs. For instance, you may decide to spend more time with close friends to fulfill your need for connection or start a nonprofit foundation to fulfill your need for status.
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