Death ~

As already said, the two ordinary forms of death are the positive through the brain,
and the negative through the heart. This is death through the susumna. In this all the
tatwas are potential. Death may also take place through the other nadis. In this case
there must always be the prevalence of one or more tatwas.
The prana goes towards different regions after death, according to the paths through
which it passes out of the body. Thus:
(1) The negative susumna takes it to the moon; (2) the positive susumna takes it to the
sun; (3) the agni of the other nadi takes it to the hill known as Raurava (fire); (4)
the apas of the other nadi takes it to the hill known as Ambarisha, and so on,
the akasa, the vayu, and the prithivi take it to Andhatanusra, Kalasutra, and Maha
kala (See Yoga Sutra, pada 111, Aphorism 26, commentary).
The negative path is the most general one that the prana takes. This path takes it to the
moon (the chandraloka) because the moon is the lord of the negative system, and the
negative currents, and the negative susumna the heart, which therefore is a
continuation of the lunar prana. The prana that has the general negative color cannot
move but along this path, and it is transferred naturally to the reservoirs, the centers of
the negative prana. Those men in whom the two hours lunar current is passing more
or less regularly take this path.
The prana that has lost the intensity of its terrestrial color energizes lunar matter
according to its own strength, and thus establishes for itself there a sort of passive life.
Here the mind is in a state of dream. The tatwic impressions of gathered up forces
pass before it in the same way as they pass before it in our earthly dreams. The only
difference is that in that state there is not the superimposed force of indigestion to
render the tatwic impressions so strong and sudden as to be terrible. That dreamy state
is characterized by extreme calmness. Whatever our mind has in it of the interesting
experiences of this world, whatever we have thought, heard, seen or enjoyed, the
sense of satisfaction and enjoyment, the bliss and playfulness of the apas and
the prithivi tatwa, the languid sense of love of the agni, the agreeable forgetfulness of
the akasa, all make their appearance one after the other in perfect calm. The painful
impressions make no appearance, because the painful arises when any impression
forces itself upon the mind that is out of harmony with its surroundings. In this state
the mind lives in Chandraloka, as will be better understood when I come to speak of
the tatwic causes of dreams.

Ages roll on in this state, when the mind has, according to the same general laws that
obtain for prana, worn out the impressions of a former life. The intense tatwic colors
that the ceaseless activity of prana had called into existence now fade away, until at
last the mind comes upon a chronic level with the prana. Both of them have now lost
the tinge of a former life. It may be said of prana that it has a new appearance, and of
the mind that it has a new consciousness. When they are both in this state, both very
weak, the accumulated tatwic effects of prana begin to show themselves with the
return of the stars to the same positions. These draw us back from the lunar to the
terrestrial prana. At this stage, the mind has no individuality worth taking account of,
so that it is drawn by prana to wherever its affinities carry it. It comes and joins with
those solar rays that bear a similar color, with all those mighty potentialities that show
themselves in the future man remaining quite latent. It passes with the rays of the sun
according to the ordinary laws of vegetation into grain that bears similar colors. Each
grain has a separate individuality, which accounts for its separate individuality from
others of its brothers, and in many there may be human potentialities giving it an
individuality of its own. The grain or grains produce the virile semen, which assumes
the shape of human beings in the wombs of women. This is rebirth.
Similarly do human individualities come back from the five states that are known as
hells. These are the states of posthumous existence fixed for those men who enjoy to
an excessive and violent degree the various impressions of each of the tatwas. As the
tatwic intensity, which disturbs the balance and therefore causes pain, wears off in
time, the individual prana passes off to the lunar sphere, and thence undergoes the
same states that have been described above.
Along the positive path through the brahmarandhra pass those prana that pass
beyond the general effects of Time, and therefore do not return to the earth under
ordinary laws. It is Time that brings back prana from the moon, when he is even the
most general, and the least strong tatwic condition comes into play with the return of
identical astral positions; but the sun being the keeper of Time himself, and the
strongest factor in the determination of his tatwic condition, it would be impossible
for solar Time to affect solar prana. Therefore, only that prana travels towards the sun
in which there is almost no preponderance of any tatwic color. This is the state of
the prana of Yogin alone. By the constant practice of the eight branches of Yoga, the
prana is purified of any very strongly personifying colors, and since it is evident that
on such a prana Time can have no effect, under ordinary circumstances, they pass off
to the sun. These prana have no distinct personifying colors; all of them that go to the
sun have almost the same general tinge. But their minds are different. They can be
distinguished from each other according to the particular branch of science that they
have cultivated, or according to the particular and varying methods of mental
improvement that they have followed on earth. In this state the mind is not dependent,
as in the moon, upon the impressions of prana. Constant practice of Yoga has

rendered it an independent worker, depending only upon the soul, and molding
the prana to its own shapes, and giving it its own colors. This is a kind of Moksha.
Although the sun is the most potent lord of life, and the tatwic condition of prana now
has no effect upon the prana that has passed to the sun, the planetary currents still
have some slight effect upon it, and there are times when this effect is very strong, so
that the earthly conditions in which they have previously lived are called back again to
their minds. A desire to do the same sort of good they did the world in their previous
life takes possession of them, and impelled by this desire they sometimes come back
to earth. Snakaracharya has noticed in his commentary of the Brahmasutra that
Apantaramah, a Vedic rishi, thus appeared on earth as Krishna-dwaipayana, about the
end of the Dwapara and the beginning of the Kaliyuga.