Once the body has been shed, once the legs have fallen, you cannot walk. Dead man cannot walk, isn’t it? But that’s not true. We can make them walk. The tantric sciences in India, this is their whole thing – to make a dead man walk. The corpses walk in the tantric rituals. There have been many, but one has been historically recorded.
There was a yogi – there have been many like this, there still are. There was a yogi, who had mastered what is known as Surya Sparsh. That means, sparsh – contact, or touch. So, this is like the solar touch. There is a certain type of yoga called Surya Sparsh. So, he mastered this. This was a Bong. What’s a Bong? A Bengali. So, he lived in Varanasi, and he periodically went to his guru, and learnt different steps of this, and was mastering this step by step.
So, any number of times he displayed this in public – that if you bring a bird, a dead bird which has been checked by everybody, it’s for sure a dead bird, not a bird which is acting dead – a really dead bird. If it died within the last 3 hours, it’s gone rigid, you know, within 3 hours a bird goes stiff. The rigor mortis sets in for a bird much quicker than for a human body, because a bird has the blood temperature, the body temperature of a bird is much, much higher than that of a human body, so, the way it cools down, and how soon the rigor mortis sets in is much quicker in a bird’s body than in a human body.
So, 3 hours after the bird is dead, if you brought a bird to him – with a simple magnifying glass, that too not from direct sunlight, from mirrored light. If you stand outside and mirror the sunlight inside, using that light through a magnifying glass, he would make the bird come alive. It would chirp, it would sit up, it would walk, and it would fly. It would fly around for some time, and then collapse and die again.
So, when people said, “Why can’t you make it live?” he said, “This is all I know. My guru can make this happen, I’m still learning.” But he was already close to 70 years of age at that time. To his misfortune, it so happened, a 7 year old boy of the local – Islamic conquests had already happened – a Muslim king’s son who was 7 years of age, died of some unexplained fever. So they’ve heard of this man bringing a bird alive. They came to him and said, “Come and try on our king’s son.”
One thing was – he would never try it outside the presence of his deity. He had a small deity and a shrine. Outside the shrine, he would never try such a thing. He would practice it only in the shrine. He said, “I will not do such things outside the view of my deity.” They have no value for the deity, because according to them it’s idolatry. It’s an energy form that he has created, and with that he works.
They said, “This deity, goddamn it, we’ll take it, we’ll take it to the palace.” He said, “No, no, it cannot be moved.” They said, “It can be moved!” and they just picked it up. He cried, “Don’t do this”. And when they picked it up and this was happening, they’re trying to drag him, he said, “I’m not going to come. I will not do it. I am not going to do this!” He got angry, when they picked up the deity and taking it out like it’s some kind of a toy. He said, “I’m not going to bring your king’s son to life. Even if I could – I cannot – but even if I could, I will not do it.”
Then they held him by the hair and dragged him to the king, and he said, “I’m not going to do it.” So, they butchered him right there. And in the process of doing all this, they dropped the deity and it broke. So, he had a few disciples to whom he was imparting this, it died with them – everything. But, this has been clearly recorded by very responsible people that actually any number of times he did this – that he would make a dead bird, which is dead for over 3 hours, to actually get up and fly for substantial period of time. That is, more than an hour’s time. And he repeatedly said, “My guru can make this bird live for its full length of life, whatever that is, and my guru can even do it to a human being.” There have been any number of such people.
There was another yogi in South India. So, usually they don’t – this is a kind of a fringe yogi, this bird yogi. This is a fringe yogi, this is not the mainstream. This is a mainstream yogi, so people were coming to him for blessings, and things were happening around him so much. He lived in Karnataka, in southwestern Karnataka, or south – somewhere near Kollegal, and people were gathering around him.
One day it so happened, a young boy who died, the parents brought this boy and cried their hearts out. So, he looked at their plight, and probably he sensed that the boy need not have died, it’s more accidental in nature. So he dipped his finger, there was a lamp like this next to him. It is generally there, almost every yogi who is into certain kind of process, will have a lamp burning next to him – an oil lamp. So, he dipped his finger into the oil, and put it into the dead boy’s mouth. And the boy came alive after some time, and became perfectly alright.
When somebody dies, or when somebody is certified dead by a doctor, he is not completely dead. Death happens slowly. If you’re not already aware of this – where’s this lady, she should know, pastor’s daughter! Anybody undertaker’s son or daughter? Nobody?
You may already know, most of you, that after a person dies, up to 11 days for sure, most of the time up to 14 days, finger nails grow, hair grows. You know this? How many of you are already aware of this? Yeah. So, because death is happening slowly, step by step it’s going, it’s not yet complete. The withdrawal of life process from this lump of earth, happens step by step. For all practical purposes, when it is immobile, lungs have stopped, heart has stopped, so they’ll declare you dead. But not yet. So it is by using this, that still, the life process is still continuing, you can rekindle that and activate the system. It is by using this that the tantrics have dead bodies walking. And it’s not very uncommon, it’s quite common.
And sometimes, you know, they will be working upon this when the cremation is on. There have been many instances, I’ve not personally seen, but I know people who have no reason to lie about it, and they will not, such people have actually seen a burning body getting up and walking. They’ve set fire to it, it’s burning, but it gets up and walks, because at that moment when the burning begins from outside, the life process retreats and there is a concentrated, spaces where life is happening more intensely at that moment. They make use of that, and rekindle the system in such a way that suddenly it gets up and walks. Up to 5 to 7 minutes it’s behaving as if it’s alive, and then falls dead, exhausts itself.
So it’s based on this that when somebody dies there are rituals in India – up to 14 days, there are various kinds of rituals. Unfortunately, these rituals have mostly lost the knowledge behind that. The power behind that has been lost, and people are just doing things like – for livelihood somebody’s doing it, or just for the sake of doing it, they’re doing it. Very few people truly understand the significance of what it is.
Because life energies recede slowly, they have gotten so deep into every cell in the body – it doesn’t just go poof, like this. Functionally it may die, but totally it does not die – it dies slowly. So we want to hasten the process. We don’t want somebody to die slowly. Dying slowly can be torturous, isn’t it? Hmm? Dying slowly is torturous, or no? So it can be torturous, so we want him to leave quickly.
After he dies, first thing is to tie the toes together, you know this? You still do it, or no? Tie the toes together, because if you do not tie the toes together, from the lower end of the body, it will start imbibing life. It wants to live, because all the cells in the body are not dead, they’re still making an effort to live, they will try to draw energy. When they try to draw energy, certain forces will enter the body. So you don’t want that to happen to your loved one. So, the moment he dies you tie the toes – now no external support, he will go much more quickly.
And the next thing is, you wash him up with water, because when you wash the dead – see, even if you’re alive, if somebody tries to give you a bath, they’ll pour water on your face, you will feel like you’re being waterboarded. When you were a child, when your mother gave bath to you, because we never used showers and things, they poured water, she always held it like this for you [places hand over eyes] so that the water doesn’t come here [nose], and you don’t feel waterboarded. But somebody else was giving a bath to you, they just poured. “Agh, agh, agh!” children are doing like this. Yes, or no? So if you just pour water over the face, this dead guy gets waterboarded. If any little activity is happening, it will all cease.
So, to live gracefully and to die gracefully is very important. Death is not some strange subject that we should not talk about. It is right here, progressing for all of us, isn’t it? Slowly maturing, your death is maturing – one day it will be complete. Let it be a long time after, but right now it is maturing, isn’t it? So if you understand life very well, absolutely well, you can exit the body in such a way, that you exit completely – you gather everything and leave. If you leave like that, then we will give you a burial. We don’t burn your body, because we don’t want to waste the wood on you. You have completely exited, there is no hurry, we can keep you for a day or two, and then bury you.
So I’m saying, this is a culture where we understood life and death absolutely well, and dealt with as it should be dealt with. Within the first 14 days, you can do a lot of service to the dead. That culture grew, that science grew in a big way in this country, but then got corrupted. So, what was a very wonderful science became commerce, and commerce became corruption.
So today, if somebody in your house dies, you go to those people who claim they will do something, they will say, “Your grandfather wants to drink milk – give a cow.” Not one liter of milk, a cow! “It’s raining, your grandfather needs umbrella – give an umbrella.” “Your grandfather is walking through thorny paths, he needs footwear.” See, whatever you may know, or you may not know about your grandfather, one thing you know is, he left his body here and went. Once he’s left his body here, umbrella, clothing, footwear – not okay. Yes? But unfortunately, it’s become like this.
So we are right now in the process of training people to do these kind of services, but you should never make it your profession. Just as a service, if you are willing to offer, we can train you to do these things properly, and it’s a very important thing to do in life. It’s a very important aspect. When somebody has lost his body, he’s completely helpless, he needs help! And he can be helped, but not with contaminated, corrupt hands. Somebody who cares, somebody who has the necessary sense about it. If you want to go through something like that, such training it’s available. We’re even starting our own cremation places.
In Coimbatore, we have Isha Sudukadu. You know this? You don’t know? Oh, you know where to die at least now. And if some of you train for this, you can deliver that service, and it’s a very significant service. People don’t understand the value of it in today’s world. The modern world, they don’t understand the value of it, but it is extremely valuable to do that.
