My friend's Grand Father died on 1st September 2008. He was ill for last few months. On his last day he said that he is not going to survive, probably because off frustration of being, or because of pain or whatever - I do not know. He cried a lot, saying that, he wanted to see the marriage of his grand children, my friend is one of the candidates. He died on the same day. He was 84/85 Yrs old.
Three months later, one fine morning my freind's 2nd grand father(above 75Yrs) told his family people that this is going to be his last day. During the day, he met all of his family people, took food from the elder grand-daughter-in-law, had water from his son, went to see his farms etc. In evening he took food and went to sleep. Around 9PM, one of his grand-children found him dead.
oops!!! how did he(second GF) know that he was going to die?
My friend told me that there is a very famous pundit in their locality, he did recite Garud Purana after his first GF's death, for some nights. The priest told him that few months before the time of final death, a person starts to see all of his life's happenings, backwards, like a film. He said that all these things and a lot about life and death are written in Garuda-Purana?
The priest, on the basis of his calculations depending on the time of his death, was also able to tell that there is a dosha of 3 paav(paav is a weight unit in India that equals to 250Gms) because of some unfulfilled desires. Now, his family could assess that he wanted to eat some kind of sweet, which was denied because of medical restrictions. Second, he wanted to see the marriage of his grand children(two). Third desire they could not think about. Probably there were two desires for two marriages?
Now, what I can relate all this to some other philosophies dealing with life and death. According to one, next birth or whether there is going to be re-birth or not depends upon the final state of chitta(sub-conscious mind), at the time of death. This final state decides that whether there will be any rebirth or not, if it will be then what kind of birth it will be.
Now, how to get to the state where there is no thought at the time of death OR at least there is no ill though? Karma theory can be helpful here, keep doing your deeds with full detachment. if there is not any kind of attachment then there is not going to be any kind of though at the final moment. But, how this detachment theory was itself invented, by some means, it was a knowledge that was inferred by some kind of experiences.
There are some thoughts(sanskaars) which come up very strongly at the time of death. Those one, which have a great impact over your consciousness, like some deep love, some deep hatred. The key here is to get rid of these deeply rooted thoughts while you are very much alive, very much conscious. So, no ill or whatever kind of though decides your fate, randomly, at the time of death. How this can be done, a little bit hard but this can be done by 'very determined' & 'right kind' of meditation.
to the concept of detachment, if there is not any kind of attachment then there is not going to be
In short, there is a huge difference in the way the two GF's died. One died crying and another died calmly. There 'must' be the after effect, of the way, one dies. In fact, life is all about how one dies. The whole process is the playground/classromm where one keeps preparing for the final examination - the death. Understand that we are here to learn some thing, not to get attached with the pen/pencil/books/thoughs/theories etc.
So, let us prepare for the way we die. What is the best way of dying - being in truth and remain unshakable. How can that be achieved - by meditation only :) OR apply the karma theory in it's 100% purity, if you can.
We have been kept coming here, we have been kept dying......let us break the circle....
For my own knowledge, I would like to know what kind(if any) of dosha does the priest calculate for his second grand father's death, as he died calmly and consciously. Does it mean that he died desire-less? If yes, then how?
(I did take my friend's permission before using his words and family matters)