Yet there is a deeper view of Death. Going deep within through the inner subjective spaces we can discover within us the flaming soul made of an immortal substance that can neither be buried nor burnt, neither cleaved by weapons or blown away by the winds. It can neither be drowned by the waters nor absorbed by the elements. The immortal soul in man is a most wonderful discovery, a discovery that completely liberates us from the fear of death. The soul knows that it always was, is and will be through a thousand changing masks we call body.
Climbing beyond the higher mind towards a vaster spiritual vision one sees that the body is meant to be an instrument of the Spirit. It is a means for the Divine Manifestation intended upon earth. It is towards this end that Nature has been labouring through a long complex process. It has evolved the living cell out of matter by building means for it to draw the vital energy that animates the creation. In human beings the means to draw this vital energy is primarily through breath and subordinately food though there are other direct means as well for the universal energy to enter the system. But the breath remains the primary means of drawing the vital energy locked within the oxygen molecule. Once released into the blood the vital energy or prana is carried through other transport systems and delivered to the rest of the body where it is further taken up by the cellular mechanisms and used for various purposes.
Therefore when the breath and heartbeat stops we say that the person has died. But the person, the true person is the soul that can never die. It is the body that dies or rather its mechanisms through which it draws the vital energy are snapped. Just as an electrical machine would stop working if its wires have been cut. The difference however between the body and the other machines is that if the supply of the vital energy is not restored soon the machine itself becomes subject to the degenerative forces through smaller life forms and other vital forms that begin to feed upon it. The energy therefore gets transferred from the body to the material and vital world around it. It was to dissolve these vital formations that are attracted towards ‘dead’ and disintegrating once living body that the fire and other rituals have been used so that the atmosphere around the places where the dead bodies are disposed are cleansed of these forces.
This of course does not apply to realised Yogis who withdraw consciously and have the occult knowledge to protect the body and even maintain some kind of contact with it to act upon the world.
But the cell is not just a hub of vital energy. The human cell has also evolved to the point of receiving the imprints of thoughts and suggestions that circulate in the world. The brain and the nervous system receive impacts from the external world through the senses of directly. These impacts get stored as imprints in some subconscious memory. The brain mechanism transcribes them into thoughts just as the computer software transcribes the impact of fingers on the keys into words and sentences depending upon the programming.
In other words the human body has evolved certain mechanism and processes through which it receives and transmits vital energy that is required for our normal and ordinary human operations. Our brain and nervous system too receive and transcribe impacts of certain vibrations from different sources into thoughts and feelings and impulses and all the rest of our cognate experiences that build the subjective life of an individual behind his physical frame.
About Savitri | B1C1-11 A Sacred Yearning (p.5)