The Mystery of Death (5) The Processes

We mistake life for the processes through which it expresses itself in matter. We also mistake death for the cessation of those processes. For example, when the power is switched off, people say that there is no electricity. But electricity exists right there and would still continue to exist as a principle and manifest through the clouds as lightning. So too life exists as a principle, independent of our physical existence. We see life using different instrumentations in different species. What is life-threatening to us, is life giving to another. Even in the same species, we find records of inexplicable modes of living in times of grave life-threatening situations. Thus, in certain exceptionally difficult conditions, like wars or natural disasters, people have lived on despite the absence of external support systems like food, water, or even air (buried under debris for days). Again, during certain religious ceremonies and fasting, people are known to draw energy directly without food and water. Instances are also known of a spontaneous return to life (as well as artificially) following cessation of life processes. As an extreme example, there are well documented records of yogis continuing to live even when the internal processes of life like breathing and effective heartbeat have come to a halt. If this is so, then it is only logical to presume that death is not synonymous with the cessation of the processes of life like breathing, etc. In fact today we do make a distinction between biological (clinical) and cellular death, the former preceding the latter. This distinction has a lot of practical utility, not only for organ transplant, but also from a consciousness based approach to death and dying. It means first that death is not a cessation of processes but a complete withdrawal of the life force animating the body. Therefore, tampering with the body prematurely following biological death, as if it was just a bundle of matter, may not be correct.