The Metaphysical View of Death and Life After Death Part 1

time as possible.” (1972:494)

We can see from her statement that one of the factors that causes man to struggle against death, is the attachment to form. The identification of the Self with the physical form misleads one into thinking that the dissolution of the physical body results in the annihilation of the Self. Sri Sankaracharya, the eminent exponent of Advaita Vedanta, taught that the deluded mind with its beliefs in the reality of form causes bondage to Maya, or Cosmic Illusion. Philosophically speaking, this is the state of duality, and unless man perceives the One Reality underlying the dualistic worlds, and as his true nature, he lives in fear and in a state of slavery. What is Real cannot be destroyed, what is unreal does not exist apart from our false perception and understanding. This is avidya, or ignorance. To apprehend the true state of things is to be truly liberated from death. One’s consciousness is expanded and raised to a divine estate when Reality is known and death seen for what it really is. What Bailey does not mention is that the soul-process of “death” may be experienced in the meditative state. Mystics call this “dying while living,” and advanced mystics have reached a state where they may predetermine and trigger the time and process of their physical and mystical deaths–these are executed with divine permission. Mystical deaths offers one the opportunity to acquire the beautific vision called Marifatullah by Islamic gnostics. We will not dwell on this mystical aspect in this paper but focus more on the physical side of death and dying.

Before continuing further, let us first provide a definition of the branch of study dealing with death. The study is properly termed, “Thanatology”

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