Psychological Death and the Adventure of the Soul

Psychological Death and the Adventure of the Soul

“Reality wore the face of a great negation.”

“All is impermanent! Decay is inherent in all that is composed.” —The Buddha

“Nothing changes with the disappearance of the body. You have separated from a sheath; the one who knows is unchanging.” —Jean Klein

“These bodies of the embodied soul come to an end, but the soul itself is eternal. (…) It is not born, it does not die, and having once existed, it will never cease to be. It is unborn, ancient, everlasting; it is not slain when the body is slain. Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so the embodied being discards old bodies and takes on new ones. Death is certain for the born, and rebirth is certain for the dead.” —The Bhagavad Gita

“By the power of the qualities proper to its nature, the embodied being takes on many forms, gross and subtle.” —Shvetāshvatara Upanishad

“How necessary it is to die each day, to die each minute to all things and to the moment that has just passed! Without death, there is no renewal; without death, there is no creation.” —J. Krishnamurti

« All here is a mystery of contraries:

Darkness a magic of self-hidden Light,

Suffering some secret rapture’s tragic mask

And death an instrument of perpetual life.

Although Death walks beside us on Life’s road,

A dim bystander at the body’s start

And a last judgment on man’s futile works,

Other is the riddle of its ambiguous face:

Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride

The soul must take to cross from birth to birth,

A grey defeat pregnant with victory,

A whip to lash us towards our deathless state. »

—Savitri, Book Ten -Canto One,  Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo and Mother bring a new note to the eternal philosophy: by attaining the supramental consciousness—the consciousness of the Supreme revealed in its original divine form—they challenge death itself, that impenetrable mask which holds life in its grip.

Before we delve into this defiance of the cosmic laws of nature that Sri Aurobindo and Mother dared to undertake — the transformation of death and the creation of a new body in a new matter—I propose to first explore a complementary thesis: that the true wisdom of life lies in dying to ourselves, to our false self, the ego, what we would call psychological death.

Once the ego has been transcended, life and death take on a new meaning. They are no longer seen as separate and opposed, but as a dynamic and creative process essential to the evolution of consciousness in renewed bodily forms—an expression of the Self in an infinity of being.

Indeed, if physical death did not bring an end to the ego—whose only notion of immortality is the endless repetition of the same—life would stagnate in the mire of desire, pleasure, and dissatisfaction.

By psychologically dying to ourselves before our actual physical death, we are reborn into the infinity of being, where dying and living become inseparable, making us available to the eternal present. Instead of perceiving death as an obstacle to life, it becomes a lever that elevates us into the fullness of being.

It is certain that when consciousness is centered around the ego death remains a terrifying and forever insoluble enigma. If we have not been confronted to sickness or old age the most our ego can do—like the proverbial ostrich—is to ignore death as much as possible, and pretend it does not exist.
Yet, rather than being the ostrich, it is essential to have a holistic perception of life and death as a unified field for it opens up the vista of our unlimited potential and true nature.

Facing death, the ego’s debates are powerless; argumenting for or against reincarnation does nothing to soften the unwavering macabre smile of death. Only spiritual realization transcending our mental and vital consciousness, can free us from our fear and allow us to see death as it truly is.

J. Krishnamurti invites death into the present, for, according to him, he who invites death into life discovers that they are inseparably linked and together the secret of authentic living is revealed. To simultaneously live and die is to be reborn in child-like innocence.  Supreme wisdom teaches us to die to ourselves from moment to moment, for our surface self is nothing more than a heap of past residue forever reacting to the ever-new, ineffable present.

What is it within us that blocks this fullness of being, where life and death are no longer separate but experienced as the infinite richness of the eternal present in perpetual renewal?  Is it not the ego, which in order to exist needs to possess? The ego does not live; it only exists in continuity, enslaved in acquiring material or spiritual objects, using them as crutches to walk the great Unknown.

In the face of death, is there a solution? For the ego, there can be none for it is itself an illusion created by thought. It must itself lift the veil of ignorance that separates it from the real. In truth, it is a matter of dying to what is false within us—the image of ourselves that conceals our authentic being. With self-knowledge the ego subsides as is no longer victim of its illusions, consciousness is freed from the ego, now reality can spontaneously manifest itself in all its glory.

This is what Krishnamurti means by psychological death, which must be distinguished from physical death, the latter no longer being a problem once the “me” and the “mine” no longer occupy our consciousness.

The existential question that death confronts us with is whether we are ready to face the illusion of this “I” and to dismantle the defense mechanisms that sustain it. In other words, to voluntarily accept dying to our ‘me’, in full understanding of our contextual personality and hence becoming vulnerable to life.

Nonethless, our ‘me’ although in itself it does not truly exist it invades and takes possession of our consciousness. Furthermore, it has no inherent intrinsic existence beyond our thought, its creator.

“I am not the owner of my consciousness,” Krishnamurti rightly tells us, “It is not individual, but universal.” [1]

Death of our fabricated self, created by thought, is what actually scares us, otherwise we don’t exist in the becoming of time. Moreover, Krishnamurti implies that this “I” is not real; it has only a conventional value tied to our social interactions. And to discover the deeper reality of existence, we must die from this fictitious identity with all its attachments, possessiveness, and ideologies—not from consciousness itself, which by its very nature is universal and belongs to no one.

Once we have died to our “me,” we discover true life without death, freed from the fantasies of the ego, we are reunited with the creative flow of the living reality.

As we have learnt, the only remedy against the fear of death is to awaken to the deeper truths of existence, an impossibility while the ego clings to life and lusts for objects. To become free from the fear of death it is essential to detach oneself from worldly things, from our affectivity and unfulfilled desires that feed our surface life. In this way, before actually dying, we learn to live in another dimension of being—one that is not egocentric but open to the eternal values, such as love freed from all attachment.

This state enables us to better endure physical suffering and brings equanimity towards our own body, which we psychologically learn to relinquish and perceive as a mere vehicle. By emptying our mind of personal thoughts, our vital being of desires, and our body of appetites, our consciousness is freed from the ego’s grip. This purification of being is essential to help us cross the frontiers beyond the known; moreover, letting go of our persona delivers us from the anguish of the fear of the unknown.

When we are close to someone who is dying, we must avoid projecting our own self-pity or fear onto them. Instead, with a serene inner peace, we should help the dying person rise into that higher, purer, universal consciousness that lies latent in everyone and everything and is the essence of every being.

This preparation can only occur when the mind is still allowing the inner spiritual nature to emerge naturally, without the barriers of conditioning and preconceived ideas. Thus, serenity and tenderness freed from emotionalism and sentimentality, allow a smooth passage to the other world, they courageously help us to face this great unknown, death, which each of us is one day destined to encounter.

Psychological death is a prelude to this adventure of the soul into the spheres of the unknown, even before we die to our own body. We learn to fully embrace the all the cycles of nature with equality, devoid of any attachment, even to our body, thus leaving the soul untouched: Purusha is freed from Prakriti—the soul is freed from nature even while living under its conditions.

The sooner we die to this psychological isolation in which our ego has imprisoned us, the sooner we will discover our timeless origin. Just as day follows night, we are reborn into a new day unburdened by the yesterdays of psychological memory.

The spiritual experience of Vedanta shows us that the body, the ego, and the world exist only within our consciousness—or rather within Consciousness, as Krishnamurti pointed out, it does not belong to anyone. The world is nothing more than a play of atoms transformed into images by our cerebral cortex and reflected in consciousness.

It is through a process of disidentification from the various bodies—mental, vital, and physical—that we reach the ultimate experience of pure and infinite consciousness. Within this spiritual vision of existence, both death and life are part of the phenomenal illusion generated by nature (maya, Prakriti). Once this illusion is dispelled through discernment, what remains is the eternal reality of the Self (Purusha), which neither dies nor is born.

With the truths of Vedanta—whose culmination is the liberation of the Self (the sole existant) from identification to Nature,— Sri Aurobindo adds the truths of Tantra, of the Divine Shakti, the Consciousness-Force (Chit-Shakti) of nature. This synthesis gives a new dynamism to Being in the various worlds or planes of existence that it manifests through Nature, whose foundation lies in the play of Infinite Consciousness within a diminished network of itself. This limitation enables a unique perception and relational interaction, conditioned by the specific circumstances imposed within the physical, vital, and mental modes of being.

In the stage of our evolving world, our Earth would thus be the result of an involutionary descent of the Supreme Consciousness into matter, wherein it concealed itself in order to impregnate forms to serve as dwellings. In this way, the One seems to have become an infinite multitude of atoms where it appears as divided.

This marks the beginning of a long evolution through millennia, starting from the dust of atoms, to the return of the Many towards the One, taking on the infinitely varied forms of a stone, an ant, a flower, a bird, a man, a woman.

Under the gaze and backdrop of the immutable Eternal Being the essential challenge lies in the relationship between the mutability of temporal forms—necessary for a progressive evolution of consciousness— and the immutability of the timeless self. The mutable and the immutable are two inseparable, eternal aspects of the Supreme and ultimate reality, which transcends them both. This confirms the infinite being of the Absolute—both in Silence and in action.

The truth of impermanence, as taught in Buddhism, is no longer viewed in a negative light but, on the contrary, as a miracle of the ongoing recreation of forms—forms that are nothing more than changing expressions of the immutable Self. It is here that the ego must learn to let go and surrender itself to the creative becoming of Being.

In this evolutionary procession of infinite Being within matter, man is a transitional mental creature, the promise of a Supramental being in gestation of divine nature.

Until the moment of the final apotheosis in the advent of the Supramental being, life and death—which imply rebirth—form a pattern, an evolutionary strategy of the eternal formless Consciousness within temporality. It is a necessary means for a rich diversity of experiences of the infinite possibilities of the joy of being, within the conditions of finitude, of which death is the cardinal point for renewal unburdened by the past.

Ignorant of the origin of our being and our true nature, we naturally rebel against death, unaware that we are the phenomenal shadow in which the infinite being travels through the adventure of its countless universes—equally rejoicing in our wanderings and sufferings as in our joys, without being limited by or identified with them.

When the ego reaches ultimate expansion or crisis of its egoism, it finally frees itself from the standstill imposed by cosmic ignorance (avidya) and enters into the beginnings of a glorious, immortal body of the Supramental being. Only then does death lose its purpose.

In the transition from the mental being to the infinite supramental consciousness death must be conquered. In fact, nature will have to create a new body woven from the supra-luminous substance to house this new divine inhabitant. Moreover, only the supramental force is capable of this feat: it alone can bring an end to death and initiate a cellular transformation.

Death is thus a metaphysical necessity. It is the expression of non-life, barely vibrating within the imperceptible pulse of unconsciousness—the primordial dwelling where pure consciousness had chosen to hide itself in the dark obscurity of matter, the place where it begins its arduous and unending evolutionary journey.

The first victory for the human being is psychological death: dying to the fragmented life centered on the ego. Once this false identity is destroyed, the individual is reunited with universal life, where all exists in the harmony of the One.

But the dissolution of the ego into the Whole, into the Self of pure consciousness, is neither the final word nor the ultimate aim of evolution. Once the ego is transcended, the second conquest is no longer carried out in the mind, but at the very heart of matter—within the cells—so that they may be de-hypnotized from their original programming: the primal fear of death and the obsession with survival, which has mesmerized them.

This was the work undertaken by Mother, who, with the help of the supramental force descended down into the cellular level to help awaken in the very cells an aspiration for the pure light of eternity and to prepare them for the divine transformation.

The Mother’s Agenda recounts all her years of experiences and struggle with death in order to awaken cellular consciousness to immortality. It is the descent and infusion of the subtle supramental physical substance into the coarse material physical in order to transform it into pure and luminous subtle matter.

This process consists in cleansing the evolutionary layers of matter and the old forms of the various bodies—mineral, vegetal, animal—that it comprises, so that the supramental substance may shine through every atom and liberate matter from its evolutionary past.

An eternal body, formed within a new luminous substance and inhabited by the supramental being, is the promise and culmination of terrestrial evolution—where the conversion of matter into pure energy is achieved by Consciousness-Force.

Love is the alchemical key to divine transformation, culminating in bliss: sat-chit-ananda (being, consciousness-force, love and bliss)—the three aspects of the Absolute’s nature, immortalized in the earthly manifestation.

We arrive at the summit of evolution: death, unconsciousness, and matter—the three fundamental obstacles and primary expressions of the ineffable—are ultimately transmuted into the luminous, immortal substance of pure consciousness and pure light.

“Eternal Night is the Shadow of Eternal Day.” [2]

Most of us lack the courage to be, to undertake the adventure of the soul—and, consequently, the courage to die. If we lived each moment fully, if we dwelt in the joy of life, with all its pain and pleasure, death would be easier to accept.

Our current civilization, based on pleasure, fleeting sensations, possession, and security, is the expression of the ego in all its diminished forms of being. At this level of consciousness, the fear of death can only be overcome if we understand the necessity to die to our ego—and this understanding is the fundamental victory.

Our phenomenal self has passed through all the experiences from ant to human, progressively revealing ever-widening expressions of the Self’s possibilities within finitude.

Phenomenally, death is a metamorphosis of life, evolving into greater consciousness in order to reunite with the Infinite

Once psychological death is realized, we must awaken the psychic being [3]—the divine spark—which alone can carry out the cellular transformation and conquer physical death, becoming a divine fire and evolving into the magnitude of the Self.

Let us learn to see death as a key that opens our souls to the magical life of the eternal maya [4].

[1] — Krishnamurti, Cette lumière en nous, p. 83.
[2] — Sri Aurobindo, Savitri
[3] — The psychic being, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the representative of the eternal Self within the manifestation. The evolving ego within the physical, vital, and mental planes of the cosmos is an individualized development necessary to serve the future purposes of the psychic being; it dies with each new incarnation until it has achieved sufficient maturity and mastery of these planes. It is then replaced by the psychic individuality, the eternal divine spark; the physical, vital, and mental—once fully realized—become its harmonious instruments of expression. It is at that point that death becomes ready for mutation.
[4] — maya: in the original Vedic sense of giving form to the formlessness of the indivisible Self for the joy of the cosmic play—the eternal Lila of the One in the Many.