Consciousness during coma,death

Venkatraman.Chandrasekaran at NOKIA.COM Venkatraman.Chandrasekaran at NOKIA.COM
Sat Aug 31 14:32:02 CDT 2002


Dear members,
    This has been lingering in my mind for long. Please shed some light on this.
Please pardon and correct me if I go wrong.
    When we pass-out, our inner organs plunge into a timeless, spaceless realm. 
Clearly there is no experience whatsoever, in this state. No experiencer, no 
experienced. Why is this void? When there is utter inner silence aided by the 
fainting act where mind, ego, intellect everything just vanish, why are we not 
experiencing the bliss that the Realisation is supposed to bring about. 
     Though I don't know what this bliss is like, atleast from the words of gurus, 
I know that the realised state is sat-chit-ananda and nothing comes close to it 
in terms of its blissful nature. But why are we not experiencing this same bliss 
during fainting? Is it because of total nescience that has engulfed the anthakaraNa?
But if consciousness is knowledge itself, why is this nescience? With nothing to 
taint or draw a veil on, why is the consciousness not showing itself to itself during
fainting? This is my first doubt.
     But my next doubt and the main one comes in relation to my above assumption.
I have heard/read that after death the jIvA (subtle body viz., mind, ego, prANa)
gets expelled; when it is out, it knows, it feels pain, it grieves etc., Why is the
state of the subtle body different in death and in coma. How is this biologically
possible? I understand science can't explain everything. But is there any 
explanation that you can provide?

To pose my doubt in a single sentence, 
    How should I convince myself that once I die, there won't be the same void that
    I experience during coma?

    Please don't retort saying "why don't you worry about your present state and 
leave the rest?". Frankly, I am unable to, because some beliefs, IMO are surrounding 
this assumption of state-after-death.

    Regards,
    chandrasekaran.

     



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