Why be afraid of the old man’s death?

My mother was a disciple of Shri Atmananda’s, and in 1952 she took my sister and me to see him. I was then a five year old boy, troubled by a fear of death. When my mother told him of this, he asked me: “Were you not a small baby, some years ago?” I had of course to answer yes.

He asked again: “Where is the baby now?” I answered: “It is gone.” He asked if I could bring it back, and I had to agree that this was impossible. He went on to say, the baby I was once had gone for ever, and it could never come back again. It had thus died away, while I stayed undeniably present and alive, quite unaffected by the natural dying of this now passed babyhood.

Shri Atmananda then pointed out that this boy would also die, and I would become a young man. The young man too would die and I would become an old man. All these deaths keep succeeding one after the other, in the natural course of the body’s journey through the world. Then why be afraid of the old man’s death? Is it not also like the many deaths that will have passed already?

And then he said: “Why were you not sorry when the baby in you died? Because you knew that the baby alone dies and that you do not die. Similarly, it is only the old man in you that will die. You know that you will never die. You know your many deaths from your babyhood onwards. Similarly, you are the knower of the death of your old age also…. Now you are deathless, the Eternal. That is God. Do you follow me?”

I found this simple explanation deeply comforting, and I think that my sister did as well. Our mother was very much a devoted disciple; and we too came to accept Shri Atmananda as our “karana guru” or in other words our “spiritual teacher”. So too did my father, though somewhat later on.

What does the Sanskrit word “Sadhaka”mean?
Ananda Wood: A “sadhaka” is one who strives towards achievement, in particular towards a spiritual achievement of plain truth beyond all compromise. That achievement cannot take place outwardly. In all our picturing of an external world, there is a taint of compromise. Such picturing is always compromised by the limitations and partialities of our bodily and sensual and mental personalities.

As we perceive and think and feel, we build up pictures that are never quite complete or fully accurate. In all our picturing of world, there’s always something left obscure, there’s always some remaining ignorance confusing what the picture shows. There’s always some contaminating cover-up, which somehow taints our understanding of what’s plain and simply true.

In order to achieve plain truth, a sadhaka must keep on striving to reflect all questioning back in. The questioning must turn back down: from different objects shown in space, through changing thoughts which come and go in mind, to underlying consciousness beneath all change and difference.

Ananda Wood (born 1947) is a disciple of the Sage Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon. His mother was Indian and father Irish. He lives in the city of Pune.

Ananda Wood