(3) * Yajnavalkya/ said he, * when a man dies, what does not leave him? ' All-gods. An endless world he wins thereby.'

(3) When Tai lay dying someone asked him: 'O Tai, you have seen the essence of things, how is it with you now?' He said: ' I can say nothing about my state. I have measured the wind all the days of my life, and now the end is come I shall be buried, and so, good night.'

There is no other remedy for death than to look death constantly in the face. We all are born to die; life will not stay with us; we must submit. Even he who held the world under the seal of his ring is now only a mineral in the earth.

(24) O nobly-born, at that time, at bridge-heads, in temples, by stiipas of eight kinds, thou wilt rest a little while, but thou wilt not be able to remain there very long, for thine intellect hath been separated from thine [earth-plane] body. Because of this inability to loiter, thou oft-times wilt feel perturbed and vexed and panic-stricken. At times, thy Knower will be dim; at times, fleeting and incoherent. Thereupon this thought will occur to thee, 'Alas! I am dead! What shall I do?' and because of such thought the Knower will become saddened and the heart chilled, and thou wilt experience infinite misery of sorrow. Since thou canst not rest in any one place, and feel impelled to go on, think not of various things, but allow the intellect to abide in its own [unmodified] state.

(9) Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

(19) Whatever the religious practices of any one may have been — whether extensive or limited — during the moments of death various misleading illusions occur; and hence this Thodol is indispensable. To those who have meditated much, the real Truth dawneth as soon as the body and consciousness- principle part. The acquiring of experience while living is important: they who have [then] recognized [the true nature of] their own being, and thus have had some experience, obtain great power during the Bardo of the Moments of Death, when the Clear Light dawneth.

(23) "I approached to the confines of death, and having trod on the threshold of Proserpine I, returned from it, being carried through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining with a splendid light; and I manifestly drew near to, the gods beneath, and the gods above, and proximately adored them."

(5) "O my dear Guide, who more than seven times Hast rendered me security, and drawn me From imminent peril that before me stood, Do not desert me," said I, "thus undone; And if the going farther be denied us, Let us retrace our steps together swiftly." And that Lord, who had led me thitherward, Said unto me: "Fear not; because our passage None can take from us, it by Such is given. But here await me, and thy weary spirit Comfort and nourish with a better hope; For in this nether world I will not leave thee." So onward goes and there abandons me My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt, For No and Yes within my head contend. I could not hear what he proposed to them; But with them there he did not linger long, Ere each within in rivalry ran back. They closed the portals, those our adversaries, On my Lord's breast, who had remained without And turned to me with footsteps far between.

(9) And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and making their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended: and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are wrought on the earth.

(15) And Death is not real, even in the Relative sense--it is but Birth to a new life--and You shall go on, and on, and on, to higher and still higher planes of life, for aeons upon aeons of time. The Universe is your home, and you shall explore its farthest recesses before the end of Time. You are dwelling in the Infinite Mind of THE ALL, and your possibilities and opportunities are infinite, both in time and space. And at the end of the Grand Cycle of Aeons, when THE ALL shall draw back into itself all of its creations--you will go gladly for you will then be able to know the Whole Truth of being At One with THE ALL. Such is the report of the Illumined--those who have advanced well along The Path.

(12) was sitting leaning on a table. He looked up to heaven and sighed, at which juncture Yen Ch'êng Tzŭ entered and said, "How, Sir, can such an important person as yourself be in body like dry wood, in mind like dead ashes?" "I used to live in a cave on the hills," replied Tzŭ Chi. "At that time, T'ien Ho, because he once saw me, was thrice congratulated by the people of Ch'i. Now I must have given some indication by which he recognised me. I must have sold for him to buy. For had I not manifested myself, how would he have recognised me? Had I not sold, how could he have bought? "Alas! I grieve over man's self-destruction. And then I grieve over one who grieves for another. And then I grieve over him who grieves over one who grieves for another! And so I get daily farther and farther away."

(3) Thou wilt pay undistracted attention to that with which I am about to set thee face to face, and hold on: O nobly-born, that which is called death hath now come. Thou art departing from this world, but thou art not the only one; [death] cometh to all. Do not cling, in fondness and weakness, to this life. Even though thou clingest out of weakness, thou hast not the power to remain here. Thou wilt gain nothing more than wandering in this Sangsara. Be not attached [to this world]; be not weak. Remember the Precious Trinity.

(21) Verily, verily, I say unto you. The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

(10) On the Seventh Day, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, come to receive on. Simultaneously, the pathway to the brute world, produced by the obscuring passion, stupidity, also cometh to receive one. The setting-face-to-face at that time is, calling the deceased by name, thus: O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. On the Seventh Day the vari-coloured radiance of the purified propensities will come to shine. Simultaneously, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, will come to receive one.

(12) Again, calling the deceased by name, [address him] thus: O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. Not having been able to recognize when the Peaceful [Deities] shone upon thee in the Bardo above, thou hast come wandering thus far. Now, on the Eighth Day, the blood-drinking Wrathful Deities will come to shine. Act so as to recognize them without being distracted.

(48) From a consideration of all these ancient and secret rituals it becomes evident that the mystery of the dying god was universal among the illumined and venerated colleges of the sacred teaching. This mystery has been perpetuated in Christianity in the crucifixion and death of the God-man-Jesus the Christ. The secret import of this world tragedy and the Universal Martyr must be rediscovered if Christianity is to reach the heights attained by the pagans in the days of their philosophic supremacy. The myth of the dying god is the key to both universal and individual redemption and regeneration, and those who do not comprehend the true nature of this supreme allegory are not privileged to consider themselves either wise or truly religious.

(11) But when, in my resolved zeal, I gave so hard an assault, storm and onset upon God, and upon all the gates of hell, as if I had more reserves of virtue and power ready, with a resolution to hazard my life upon it, (which assuredly were not in my ability without the assistance of the spirit of God), suddenly, after some violent storms made, my spirit did break through the gates of hell, even into the innermost birth or geniture of the Deity, and there I was embraced with love, as a bridegroom embraceth his dearly beloved bride.

(47) A curious aspect of the dying-god myth is that of the Hanged Man. The most important example of this peculiar conception is found in the Odinic rituals where Odin hangs himself for nine nights from the branches of the World Tree and upon the same occasion also pierces his own side with the sacred spear. As the result of this great sacrifice, Odin, while suspended over the depths of Nifl-heim, discovered by meditation the runes or alphabets by which later the records of his people were preserved. Because of this remarkable experience, Odin is sometimes shown seated on a gallows tree and he became the patron deity of all who died by the noose. Esoterically, the Hanged Man is the human spirit which is suspended from heaven by a single thread. Wisdom, not death, is the reward for this voluntary sacrifice during which the human soul, suspended above the world of illusion, and meditating upon its unreality, is rewarded by the achievement of self-realization.

(7) Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forever more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

(6) Again, calling the deceased by name, the setting-face-to-face is thus: O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. On the Third Day the primal form of the element earth will shine forth as a yellow light. At that time, from the Southern Realm Endowed with Glory, the Bhagavan Ratna-Sambhava, yellow in colour bearing a jewel in his hand, seated upon a horse-throne and embraced by the Divine Mother Sangyay-Chanma, will shine upon thee.

(24) O nobly-born, when thou art driven [hither and thither] by the ever-moving wind of karma, thine intellect, having no object upon which to rest, will be like a feather tossed about by the wind, riding on the horse of breath. Ceaselessly and involuntarily wilt thou be wandering about. To all those who are weeping [thou wilt say], 'Here I am; weep not.' But they not hearing thee, thou wilt think, 'I am dead!' And again, at that time, thou wilt be feeling very miserable. Be not miserable in that way.