Secrets Revealed : 5 Stages of Death

Sadhguru: You may check somebody's breath and declare them dead, but they can still feel sensations. There's a whole school of udan in China, where you might have seen those movies, where they have mastery over udana where they can float around a little bit. There are yogic practices to activate this. If vyana recedes, even when you're alive, body will begin to rot. There are certain types of snake venoms which can do this. This is the reason why in this culture you have rituals running up to fourteen days. Dr. Rajasekaran: Sadhguru, you said about life. And that brings a big question what doctors have about life. Now they say we have one trillion cells in our body… Sadhguru: Mmm-hmm. (Indicating agreement) Dr. Rajasekaran: …and each of this cell is living by itself. And when you say a patient is no more, it's just that the brain dies after two or three minutes, but still a large part of his body is still alive. Sadhguru: That has changed now. Doctors are saying the brain lives for over ten hours. Today the new… Dr. Rajasekaran: So he is dead but the brain is living. His skin, his muscles, his bones live for many hours. So, we have said, “He’s dead” but a large part of his body is still alive. And these cells even when after the patient is dead, you take the cells and put in a cul… (Overlapping conversation) Sadhguru: Those of you who are all shaving every day, even after you're dead, we still have to shave you. You know this? Dr. Rajasekaran: (Laughs) The hair grows. Sadhguru: That is why I'm ready, you know? (Few Laugh) Now, you asked why if somebody is dead, still some of the cells are active. It has been recorded up to ten hours there is lot of activity and actually the brain goes into a certain level of activity and produces certain very surprising elements in the last ten hours after somebody is medically dead. As I said, dead bodies are given a shave up to ten, eleven days. Why this is so? What we're calling as life physically is a mechanism on many different levels. There is hardware and there is software. You are core of hardware – bones. (Laughter) The software is equally important. Otherwise, how would a cell know that it's a human cell that it is not a pig cell or a tree cell or something else? How does it know? Because there is an entire software, there is memory – evolutionary memory, genetic memory, karmic memory. There are varieties of memories imposed on every cell in the system so that it never gets confused. If you eat dog food for three days you will not become a dog, isn't it? Because the memory is entrenched in this. So there is a whole software. The software package is actually bigger than the hardware – much bigger. And it is energized by what we are considering as a life force. In yoga, we call this prana. It manifests itself in five basic dimensions. There are other forms to it, which gets too complicated. Five basic forms – these are called prana vayu, samana vayu, apana vayu, udana vayu and vyana. These have different functions – prana is related to breath, respiratory action and thought process. If the prana vayu depletes, your respiratory action will go away. So immediately, doctor checks and says, "He's dead." they'll try to pump their chest, if he doesn't come back, he's dead. Respiration and your pulmonary action are very directly connected – once respiration stops, that process will naturally come to an end. So prana vayu is gone. It's not like one after another they will go. They will go at the same time, but one goes means this is gone. If samana vayu goes – this is in charge of generating heat in the system – so once samana vayu starts receding, the body starts getting cold and it also starts becoming stiff. Once apana vayu starts receding in a major way, then the sensory aspect of it… We must understand this, you may check somebody's breath and declare them dead, but they can still feel sensations. There have been any number of cases where people get terrified because a dead body moves a little bit. This has happened again and again, many, many times that when he's been medically declared dead, there are twitchings in the body that happen in a very mild way because the sensory activity is still on. Still, life is not fully convinced that it's finished. It is still making an effort of its own. When udana vayu goes away, then the buoyancy is gone. When I say buoyancy, see, you may weigh seventy or eighty or whatever number of… I'm sorry. Maybe you weigh fifty or fifty-five kilograms (Laughter) whatever is your weight, you don't – let's say you're very happy and alive right now – you don't feel fifty kilograms on you, isn't it? Hello? Participants: Yes. Sadhguru: It is there. If you stand on the scale, it is there. But when you walk, it is not there simply because this udana creates a buoyancy – It makes you less available to gravity. There are yogic practices to activate this. There's a whole school of udan in China where you might have seen those movies… Hollywood movies – what is that? Crouching Tiger or something, something. What? Dr. Rajasekaran: Hidden Dragon. Sadhguru: Yes. So these are udan schools, where they have mastery over udana where they can float around a little bit. Well, little exaggerated in the movies, but becomes lighter, more buoyant body. For a martial arts fighter, to be buoyant is important. There have been many cases where certain ballet dancers and martial arts experts have shown what is physically not possible they have done by leaping up to heights, which all physicists believe is simply impossible. But they've gone beyond that level simply by creating more buoyancy. So udana is in charge of buoyancy. Once udana starts receding, suddenly, body becomes heavy. Always it was the same weight. Weight does not increase, but you can feel the weight much more simply because udana is gone. This, doctors may know – maybe doctors don't do it, the people who work in the hospitals may know, carrying a live person and a dead person, there's a big difference, simply because udana is gone, there is no buoyancy. The fourth dimension is called vyana. This is preservative in nature. If vyana recedes, even when you're alive, body will begin to rot. There are certain types of snake venoms which can do this. If they bite you, you will not die. But literally parts of the body will start falling apart simply because vyana will recede and it will start falling apart. So, once vyana recedes, the rotting process will begin. There are systems in yoga where we want all the seven to go reasonably together, within one-and-a-half hours we want it to go. In normal death, depending upon the age of a person, how vibrant a particular body is, it may take a long time. When I say long time, up to fourteen hours it may take. Vyana may take up to fourteen days to leave. This is the reason why in this culture you have rituals running up to fourteen days. Because they feel the vyana may be still there because when you bury a p