The World Beyond

By Sri Chinmoy

What should we do when someone we love dies? Who can console us? What happens when someone passes beyond the Curtain of Eternity into the World Beyond?

The World Beyond may be unknown, but it is not unknowable. In this insightful and uplifting book, Sri Chinmoy shares inner secrets and profound insights about what happens after death.

Sri Chinmoy offers solace and a new realm of hope in the face of death. He explains that the afterlife does exist , and that is not something alien, to be feared, but a normal and natural experience that everyone shares.

This book contains priceless wisdom about this world and the World Beyond and offers deep consolation and inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sri Chinmoy
• Release date: Nov 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781934972311

Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy was born in the small village of Shakpura in East Bengal, India (now Bangladesh) in 1931. He was the youngest of seven children in a devout family. In 1944, after the passing of both of his parents, he joined his brothers and sisters at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, a spiritual community near Pondicherry in South India. He prayed and meditated for several hours a day, having many deep inner experiences. It was here that he first began writing poetry to convey his widening mystical vision. He also took an active part in Ashram life and was an athletic champion for many years. Heeding an inner command, Sri Chinmoy came to the United States in 1964 to be of service to spiritual aspirants in the Western world. During the 43 years that he lived in the West, he opened more than 100 meditation Centres worldwide and served as spiritual guide to thousands of students. Sri Chinmoy’s boundless creativity found expression not only in poetry and other forms of literature, but also in musical composition and performance, art and sport. In each sphere he sought to convey the diverse experiences that comprise the spiritual journey: the search for truth and beauty, the struggle to transcend limitations, and the supremely fulfilling communion of the human soul with the Divine. As a self-described student of peace who combined Eastern spirituality and Western dynamism in a remarkable way, Sri Chinmoy garnered international renown. In 1970, at the request of U Thant, third Secretary-General of the United Nations, he began the twice-weekly peace meditations for delegates and staff members at UN headquarters that continue to this day. He offered hundreds of peace concerts, always free of charge, in the U.S. and many other countries. He founded the World Harmony Run, a biennial Olympic-style relay in which runners pass a flaming peace torch from hand to hand as they travel around the globe bearing the message of universal oneness. And he established the Oneness-Heart-Tears and Smiles humanitarian organization, which serves the less fortunate members of the world family by supplying food, medical and educational equipment and other urgent support. On 11 October 2007, Sri Chinmoy passed behind the curtain of Eternity. His creative, peace-loving and humanitarian endeavours are carried on worldwide by his students, who practise meditation and strive to serve the world in accordance with his timeless teachings.

Book preview

The World Beyond

The World Beyond

Sri Chinmoy

AUM PUBLICATIONS       NEW YORK

Sri Chinmoy’s first book,

Meditations, Food for the Soul,

was published in 1970.

Copyright © 2007 Sri Chinmoy

Copyright © 2011 Sri Chinmoy Centre (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-934972-31-1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book

may be reproduced in any form without express

written permission from the Publisher.

Published By

Aum Publications

8610 Parsons Blvd.

Jamaica, NY 11432

USA

www.srichinmoy.org

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Is Death the End?

When We Lose Our Dear Ones

Fear of Death

To Conquer Death

Death and Dying

Suffering

Farewell to the Physical Body

A New Birth

Praying for the Departed

The Buddha Needs a Few Mustard Seeds

Burning with Grief

The Death of the Villager’s Son

Foreword

He who lives the inner life knows that death is truly his resting room. To him, death is anything but extinction. It is a meaningful departure.

The body has death, but not the soul. The body sleeps, the soul flies. The soul-stirring words on death and the soul in the Bhagavad Gita let us recollect:

Even as a man discards old clothes for new ones,

So the dweller in the body, the soul,

Leaving aside the worn-out bodies,

Enters into new bodies.

The soul migrates from body to body.

Weapons cannot cleave the soul,

Nor fire consume it,

Nor water drench it,

Nor wind dry it.

This is the soul and this is what is meant by the existence of the soul.

—Sri Chinmoy

Is Death the End?

It is farewell time;

The play of the heart will now begin.

The banner of Divine Love will

Fly today in the boundless sky.

The sun, the moon, the deathless consciousness,

Infinity’s secret wealth, the World-Lord’s very Feet,

Far Heaven’s blessing-message,

The flood of liberation,

The Abode of divine Nectar,

All will be united in the heart of our world.

Death is not the end. Death can never be the end.

Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The soul is the guide.

When the traveller is tired and exhausted, the guide instructs the traveller to take either a short or a long rest, and then the traveller’s journey begins again.

In the spiritual life, when an aspirant does not cry for a higher light, bliss and power, it is the birth of his death.

In the ordinary life, when an unaspiring man wallows in the mire of ignorance, it is the real victory of death.

What can we learn from the inner life, the life that desires the extinction of death? The inner life tells us that life is soulfully precious, that time is fruitfully precious.

Life without the aspiration of time is meaningless.

Time without the aspiration of life is useless.

Our mind thinks of death. Our heart thinks of life. Our soul thinks of Immortality. Mind and death can be transcended. Heart and life can be expanded. Soul and Immortality can be fulfilled.

When the mind and death are transcended, man will have a new home: Light, the Light of the Beyond.

When the soul and Immortality are fulfilled, man will have a new goal: Delight, the transcendental Delight.

Today man feels that death is an unavoidable necessity.

Tomorrow man will feel that Immortality is an unmistakable reality.

Unfortunately, most of us cherish wrong conceptions of death. We think death is something unusual, something destructive. But we have to know that right now death is something natural, normal and, to some extent, inevitable.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, O Arjuna, certain is death for the born and certain is birth for the dead. Therefore, what is inevitable ought not be a cause for thy sorrow.

The Chhandogya Upanishad tells us something significant: When the hour of death approaches, what should we do? We should take refuge in three sublime thoughts: we are indestructible; we can never be shaken; we are the very essence of life.

When the hour of death approaches us, if we feel that we can never be destroyed, that nothing can shake us and that we are the very