What Happens When I Die?

Whether I'm a materialist or a spiritualist or anything else, this is just one's perspective. This is not reality. Reality really of course, what is reality that is what in a way the science is also trying to discover. This is what all the great sages were also speaking after all Christ or the Buddha were not scientists in the usual sense of the word, but sometimes it absolutely amazes me how in the ancient world they had very clear understanding of many things, even external things. In fact, here, I should make another remarks, especially the third chapter of the yoga sutras, very strong emphasis that if I wish to understand something about the sun, I need to focus on something inside me or if I want to understand something about the star.

So from the ancient perspective, the tendency was that to understand the external universe, I need to focus on the internal universe because of this very strong idea. This is true in every tradition. That each one of us, the whole external cosmos is mirrored inside me or, like, from a scientific perspective, one could say each one of us is a hologram of the whole universe. So generally speaking, the scientific perspective has been to search outside. The spiritual perspective has been to search inside.

There is no reason to to ignore one or the other, but the perspective I'm trying to now emphasize here from the spiritual side, even if you say I don't believe in any of this. That's fine. Your external body will die. And if the spiritual suggestion is correct, then that element of divinity that's in you, that does not die. But on the other hand, if that spiritual element is not correct, then you don't already have that. So in a way from a purely scientific point of view, nothing when your body dies, nothing survives in any case.

From their perspective, All the so called spiritual types are just carrying on for nothing. Personally for me, it is not so easy to dismiss what the Buddha said or what Christ said or what Krishna said. In fact, as I get older and older, all the I realize often, in fact, if you read some of the really truly great scientists, like Einstein or Newton. They repeatedly say the more they know, more they realize how little they know. In fact, it might actually interest you for me to quote a remark of Newton these two are probably the greatest scientists in the history of humanity.

This is the reason I'm mentioning their names. And this is the remark of Newton. Whatever the future generations might say, as far as I am concerned, I'm like a little child at the sea shore finding one pretty pebble or another while the whole ocean of truth lies undiscovered before me. Similar remarks, of course, in a slightly more modernistic language, Newton is writing in the seventeenth century. Similar remarks of Einstein or any of the other great scientists, truly great scientists.

Would insist again and again that science cannot possibly relate with the spiritual world. But at the ordinary level, because science especially through technology leads to power and power. Just let me remind you, most of the scientists, especially from the physics world, which is ultimately much more connected with the technology than biology, etcetera. Most of them work for either industry or for military. What does that mean? So power, gain, wealth, that becomes the occupation.

So from that perspective, when this body dies, nothing survives. But from the personally, for me, it is very difficult to dismiss socrates or Laozi or the Buddha or Christ or Krishna. Let me actually this might interest you a remark of Socrates. This is in the last dialogue of Plato. Fido.

Of course, his some of his pupils are eager to find out. So one of them asks him, Socrates, where should we bury you? Socrates says, you can bury me wherever you like if you can find me. Now what does that mean? Is Socrates the body or is Socrates the spirit that has taken on the body? So this remark of Socrates is really worth considering. You can bury me anywhere you like if you can find me.

So I think the response to your question really very much depends on from which perspective one comes there. But one can believe whatever one likes to believe that reality still remains the reality. But what is reality? Do I really know it personally? I'm not entirely sure.

I could say that, but what more speaks to me I often remind people that heart is the first avenue to truth much more than the mind. You can read any of the great scientists or poets whoever describe something in words. You see the artist in general are not describing in words, so it's hard to know. But whenever they describe it, they say, first of all, they had an intuition. It's a kind of a feeling.

In fact, Pascal, a very great scientist. You know, we measure so many pressure, pressure is so many pascals. This is his remark. Heart is the first avenue to truth. Heart has a reason that reason does not know.

And so I think any great scientist and philosopher or poet would agree with this very much. That something strikes them in a quiet moment. Maybe they're walking in wilderness. I was very struck at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, for example. There are lots of woods around.

So many of these physicists would be in their office for a little while, but they're mostly then walking around in the woods. Just because in the wilderness, one is able to sometimes hear something that one is unable to think quite clearly. So there is no reason to be a great thought because whatever I then hear, especially from a scientific point of view, it ultimately has to be expressed in appropriate language, scientific language, if it is physics, in appropriate equations, etcetera. So it's not but every great scientist would agree. As I just mentioned, Einstein and Newton are hardly negligible scientists.

That what they receive is so much subtler than they can express and that the mystery deepens more and more.