Yogic Death
Adi Da Samraj, February 8, 2001
There are certain dimensions of Realization that cannot be passed on as a matter of verbal communication. You must do the ego-transcending practice or you do not know anything about it. There is no culture in the West to understand these supernormal Signs. The Signs of the seventh stage Unfolding cannot even be told. There is no reason to tell it. There will be no record being made as it is Occurring. It is as if I have no Signs. This Profundity is Unspeakable. It is not going to go away. It is the case, and I am not going to change. It will not go away.
The esoteric process preserved in the Great Tradition is essentially associated with what could be called “Yogic death”. Various practices are recommended, and those practices are a process of Yogic death. An esoteric Spiritual process of a profound kind takes place. The Yogic death process involves psycho-physical changes in the gross, subtle, and causal levels, diff erently aff ected in individual cases, resulting in an event (or numerous events) of Yogic death.
There is no better “Knowledge” than this Yogic death. To truly enter into the Samadhi of the esoteric stages in their profound form—the Samadhi that transforms people into Adepts or genuine Spiritual Masters (to one degree or another)—always involves Yogic death. It is a permanently transformative event. It changes the psycho-physical pattern, and changes the connection to that pattern.
Even those who enter into supernormal perceptions of what you might call “death experiences” report changes that they have to deal with. Even in the cas of ordinary people who are resuscitated, it is not just that they remember something—they are structurally changed. They know life is not the way it was before.
Samadhi is a profound event. There are psychophysical changes—much more than ecstasies or near death experiences. At the Adept level, as also (to a lesser degree) in the lesser levels of “experience”, it involves profound psycho-physical changes. One’s life becomes about those changes. Real Samadhi is a Revelation in the psycho-physical body. Just as you know that insanity changes the body-mind-”self”, so does this Yogic event. Just as you know that traumas (or accidents) change the body-mind- ”self”, so does this event, in a very particular manner. So also does supernormal Spiritual “experience”. This is valued in traditional cultures.
You all must value the Signs in This Body.
You have no idea of what the Process is that I am Involved in now.
The Western “world”, or Omega culture, does not understand this.
The seventh stage of life is a transformative process. It does not exist in any organizational or conventional manner. Ramana Maharshi had one “experience” in which He suddenly felt His body getting numb. He was anxious, and He felt He was going to die. It was something of an anxiety attack. When there is the total transcending of the pattern of egoity and all shedding in an instant of awareness, there is this Revelation, the very Pattern itself, or that Gnosis that characterizes the disposition. The phenomenon of Yogic death is a profound Yogic Samadhi. This has been So in My Case since Birth. Ramana Maharshi had a profound “experience” of Yogic death associated with the sixth stage Gnosis. It was not just lying down, closing your eyes, pursing your lips, and acting like a dead corpse. Something happened, someone died—and, instead of allowing the body to go into a state of fear, Ramana Maharshi just let it happen. In His case, there were no visions, no gross or subtle phenomena. Rather, there was a process that cut through the causal “root” in the sixth stage manner. It just happened. This death was patterned in the body-mind complex. The anxiety attack was part of the pa tern, and He participated in a spontaneous event. There was Self-Evidence in it. It is something that never changes, it is just so.
Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Bhagavan Nityananda, and Swami Muktananda—all of them knew that they had to “get out of town”. They could not live the way they were. I Know what that is about. This has occurred with Me various times, including various forms of Gnosis that penetrate aspects of the pattern, so that the Revelation is Evident.
Adept-level Samadhi is Profound. Profound Samadhis do change the structure of the psycho-physical being. A profound Yogic transformation changes the body—even a little bit of that “experience”, as with ordinary people being resuscitated from near-death. Anyone put in touch with that, not even for a long period— just a glimpse, just a touch—is changed.
However, when this Great Event Occurs, it Goes Beyond all structures and limitations. It is Permanent. It is a Transformation that you cannot understand until it Occurs. There are some utterances that can make people think they have some sense of It—but, if they have ever gone through such a Yogic ego-death, they would know that they have never understood it.
It is only through this actual process that they understand— not a moment before. There is real “experience” that people must go through, and their relationship to Me is not conventional. It is about devotionally recognizing Me in My Divine Avataric Transcendental Spiritual Form and Self-Revelation. In Ramana Maharshi’s case, Yogic death permanently changed Him. He tried to stay home with His family, but He could not bear it. He did not know what to say. At a certain point, He said, I cannot do it, it is too trivial—and He left.