I have cherished this excerpt for nearly forty years. I believe it explains in amazing detail life after death.
The book titled, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa-Yogananda, was a required reading while I was training as a minister in Science of Mind back in the 1970’s. This excerpt so moved me I wrote it down and tucked it away in a box. I discovered it two days ago while looking for another document. I am thrilled to share it with you, as I believe it explains life after death. For me, it removes the fear of what life after death will be like.
About the Book
Selected as “One of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the Twentieth Century”, Autobiography of a Yogi has been translated into more than 30 languages, and is regarded worldwide as a classic of religious literature. Several million copies have been sold, and it continues to appear on best-seller lists after more than sixty consecutive years in print.
-Amazon
The author clearly explains the subtle but definite laws behind both the ordinary events of everyday life and the extraordinary events commonly termed miracles. His absorbing life story becomes the background for a penetrating and unforgettable look at the ultimate mysteries of human existence.
In the following excerpt. the author asked his Guru, ” Sir, why don’t you grant me a samadhi?” His wish was granted…
For clarification “samadhi” means: a state of intense concentration achieved through meditation. In Hindu yoga this is regarded as the final stage, at which union with the divine is reached (before or at death).
The Mystic Experience
My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from every pore. The flesh was as though dead; yet in my intense awareness I knew that never before had I been more fully alive. My sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body but embraced the circumambient atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my own remote periphery. The roots of plants and trees appeared through a dim transparency of the soil; I discerned the inward flow of their sap.
The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all perspective. Through the back of my head I saw men strolling far down Rai Ghat Lane, and noticed also a white cow that was leisurely approaching.
All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like quick motion pictures. My body, Master’s, the pillared courtyard, the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; even as sugar crystals, thrown into a glass of water, dissolve after being shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations of form, the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect in creation.
An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless bliss. His body is countless tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night glimmered within the infinitude of my being. The dazzling light beyond the sharply etched global outlines faded slightly at the farthest edges. There I saw a mellow radiance, ever undiminished. It was indescribably subtle; the planetary pictures were formed of a grosser light.
The divine dispersion of rays poured from a Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again, and again I saw the creative beams condensed into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame. By rhythmic reversion sextillion words passed into diaphanous luster, then fire became firmament.
I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus to every part of the universal structure. Blissful amrita,
Life after Death?
The experience described by the author echoes what the popular teachings of Abraham-Hicks say about death:
…
-Abraham-Hicks
that “death” is a matter of closing one’s eyes in this dimension and literally opening one’s eyes in the other dimension. And that, truly, is how all death is, no matter how it looks, up to that point.. The re-emergence into Source Energy is always a delightful thing.”
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This one experience is just a tad of the remarkable life of this Yogi. Even if you perceive it as fiction, it is a good read.
