Books of the dead - a guide for the soul
Tibetan "Book of the Dead"
It was first translated in 1927 and edited by Dr. Evans-Wentz at Oxford University Press. This book is Bardo Thodol. It may have been first recorded in the 8th century BC. e. And the manuscript from which this translation was made is about 200 years old.
The Tibetan "Book of the Dead" dates back to prehistoric times. This work was compiled based on folklore sources and the works of Tibetan sages, passed down orally from generation to generation. The sages who wrote this book considered death to be an art, something that can be performed beautifully or tastelessly, with or without benefit. The book was part of a funeral ceremony, read to the dying in their last moments of life. She helped the dying person understand what was happening.
The book contains descriptions of different states through which the soul passes after bodily death. There is a surprising similarity between the descriptions of the various phases of death and the stories of people approaching death. This is what the Tibetan Book of the Dead says.
In the beginning, the soul or spirit leaves the body. After some time, she begins to rush somewhere and falls into the void. This emptiness is not material. A dying person can hear disturbing sounds, hum, wind noise, roar. Then a gray, indistinct light appears. You experience when you are outside the material body. The deceased sees and hears relatives and friends. They cry over his body and prepare to say goodbye to him. He is not yet aware that he is dead and is in confusion. When the deceased finally realizes that he is dead, he does not know where to go now and what to do.
For a while, the deceased is in a familiar environment. He notices that he still has a body called the "shiny body." Obviously this body is not material. It is able to pass through walls, and does not meet obstacles … Its journey is instant. As soon as a person wants to be somewhere, he instantly finds himself there. His thought is not so limited, his consciousness becomes clear, his feelings are sharper and more perfect. And if in a material body he was stupid, blind, crippled, he will be surprised to see his "shiny" undamaged body, he will understand that not only the ability to feel has returned to him, but has also become stronger. Perhaps he will meet with another being while in this type of body. It is called a "clear" or "pure" body. When meeting with him, you should keep only the feeling of love in your heart.
The book describes the feelings of endless peace and contentment that a person can experience when dying. Someone sees, as in a mirror, his whole life passing in front of his inner gaze in all details. Then his good and bad deeds are clearly visible, and the light being sees it well and acts as a judge. In this situation, deception is excluded.
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The Tibetan "Book of the Dead" describes the later phases of death, occurring beyond the extreme line. In the subsequent stages of the 49-day "posthumous" tests, visions of both "peaceful" and "evil" deities occur, which, according to Buddhist teachings, are considered illusory. At the end of this process, the soul finally falls into "reincarnation" - an evil that can be avoided with the help of Buddhist training.
Is the Buddhist teaching, which is stated in the Tibetan "Book of the Dead", right when it speaks about the illusory nature of the phenomena of the "Bardo plane"? And that behind this phenomenon there is no objective reality at all. The book contains the most categorical statement that there are objectivity, projected by the minds of people, and endlessly unreal visions. The ultimate independent reality is the "pure light of emptiness." There is a striking similarity between the Tibetan "Book of the Dead" and the modern "near-death" and "out-of-body" experiences of people who have experienced these states. There is no doubt that the Book was largely created under the influence of knowledge gleaned from this kind of experience.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead speaks of the same thing as the earlier Egyptian book, but from a modern point of view. It is more understandable for an ordinary person, since all manifestations of the consciousness of a dying and deceased person are presented not in figurative forms, but in realistic ones. Many of her teachings are consistent with those of the later occult and psychological sciences.
The teachings of the Tibetan "Book of the Dead" have found wide application in practice. Among the people, the art of dying, the rituals of deathbed existence were transmitted mostly orally. This knowledge and craft was perfectly mastered by the lamas in Tibet.
A lama was invited to a person who was dying, whose duty was to care for the dying person and properly escort him to the next afterlife. First, the llama clamps the dying arteries on both sides of the neck. This is done in order to keep him conscious. The Lama directs this consciousness in the right way, because the consciousness of death determines the future state of the "soul complex", because existence is a continuous transition from one conscious state to another. Pressing on the arteries determines the path that the outgoing life current (prana) will follow. The true path is the one that passes through the Pearl Gate into the World of Clear Light. The words of the prayer accompany the dying man: “This world is a world of illusion. Life is nothing more than a dream. All that is born must die … ".
The Lama, conducting the traditional ritual with the dying, strictly and repeatedly admonishes: “O spirit, about to leave his vessel of flesh, we light the first incense stick to attract your attention, so that you have guidance on the way, so that it will be easier for you to avoid danger, that your imagination draws for you. Be attentive on the way, because because of your false knowledge and empty imagination, you have set traps for yourself that will hinder you and complicate your journey. There are no demons other than those created by your thought. They will dissipate like a ring of smoke in a strong wind if you are aware of the truth of your imagination and wrong thought. They exist only in your imagination, and you will defeat them …"
The lama observes how the spiritual essence leaves, leaves life within the body of the dying person and gathers outside, accumulating in an amorphous mass above the body. It is close because of the magnetic attraction, which exists until the time when at least some kind of life glimmers in the body, until the stream of life particles that leave their former owner dries up. As more organs lose their vitality, the blurry form hovering above the flesh body becomes more and more similar to it. And in the end, when the similarity becomes complete, the magnetic attraction ceases, and the "spirit body" goes on an otherworldly journey.
The lama communicates telepathically with the "spiritual body" - giving parting words to him on a difficult path. Helps to navigate in the other world. Continuously observing the newly liberated spirit with the telepathic senses. Telepathically transmitting instructions, he sends mental impulses: “O newly liberated spirit,” says the lama, “listen carefully to my thoughts, they make your transition easier. Heed my instructions, I give them to you so that your path is not difficult, because millions have already passed this path before you and many millions will pass after … ".
During the entire time of dying, the lama encourages a person to a calm and balanced state of mind so that he can see and enter the Clear Light of Reality and so that he is not disturbed by hallucinations or "thought forms" that have no objective existence, except in his own mind. The mind of a dying person must concentrate on the Clear Light, then he will not see all kinds of demons. Demons do not exist: they are only hallucinations or thought forms that take place only in the mind of the seer. The mind is able to create them as in dreams.
The lama, imagining a "spiritual body" floating in the other world, mentally sends him the following instructions again: "When you wake up from fainting (death), then your" knowing "must rise in its original state, and the luminous body must first come out - "The body of desire". It has all the senses, endowed with the power of a wonderful movement. There will be an endless and involuntary journey. Concentrate your mind on the Clear Light and you will make your way through the void of the Black Light; otherwise there will be gray, twilight light at night, and during the day, and always. Allow your mind to be in a state of humility and tranquility and your path into the Clear Light of Reality will be easy; the sooner you will achieve "liberation".
Egyptian "Book of the Dead"
First Egyptian Dynasty, circa 4266 BC e., priests from the Nile Valley create a manuscript on the death and preservation of the bodies of the deceased, later called the "Book of the Dead." Some fragments of this work have survived to our time.
The translation was carried out from papyri and other documents found mainly during the excavations of Thebes. Therefore, all these texts taken together are called the "Thebes version of the Book of the Dead", that is, "The version of the great Egyptian funerary composition, which was copied by the scribes for themselves and for the Egyptian kings, queens, their children and court nobles, for the nobility and ordinary people, for the rich. and the poor, between 1600 and 900 BC. e. ".
This is one of the great religious works of the planet, passed down from generation to generation, primarily orally. It was distributed in many copies, reproduced by professional scribes and other people, and therefore was doomed to individual distortions. The translation of the ancient Egyptian title of these works: REU NU PERT EM HRU, which means "Chapters on the Ascent to the Light." Some of the texts are of a ritual nature, and the entire collection of these works is entirely dedicated to the dead and what awaits them in the afterlife.
For the Egyptians, the Book of the Dead was an almighty guide along the road that, through death and burial, led to the kingdom of light and life, in the presence of the divine Osiris, the conqueror of death, who gave men and women the ability to be "born again."
For many centuries Osiris has been the model and symbol of the resurrection. Many generations of people lived and died with faith in his ability to give people immortality. In the hymns addressed to him, he was called "the king of eternity", "the lord of the infinite, who is subject to millions of years." He was sung: "Oh you, he who is Eternity and Immortality"; “Giving people the power to be born again” (here new birth means birth to a new, eternal life in the afterlife). In later texts of that era, it is written: "Ra receives you with his soul in heaven, with his body on earth." The deceased is addressed with the words: "Your essence is in heaven, your body is in the earth." The dead are told: "The sky owns your soul (sakhu), but the earth receives a body (khat)." Among the Egyptians, khat is a physical body subject to decay. Sahu is a spiritual body, the abode of the soul, it developed from a material body.
The Egyptians believed in Ka - which corresponds to a certain extent to the concept of the "astral body". This Ka, as it should be understood, is not the human soul, but its bearer - just as it is today believed that the astral body is the bearer of the mind and soul. This Ka occasionally visited the mummified body and was generally described as some kind of birdlike counterpart to the deceased. This can be seen in many ancient Egyptian drawings. The wanderings and trials of the deceased in the Underworld are described in detail not only in the Egyptian "Book of the Dead", but also in other, earlier scriptures.
As you can see, to keep Ka on earth in ancient times, a mummification rite was created. The oldest of the mummies is 3,000 years old. In ancient times, the Egyptians believed that mummification prevented the transmigration of the soul into another body. The first mummies were found in deep mines and underground tunnels in special stone coffins. Probably, due to the low temperature, they did not undergo decomposition for some time, and the relatives of the deceased believed that the soul was in the body.
Books of the dead
The Hebrew Kabbalah, the Chinese Book of Changes, the Tarot scrolls, the Key of Solomon, as well as the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead, also express deep knowledge about the dying state of a person, death and the afterlife. There is also a later literary work of medieval Europe known as The Art of Death (Ars Moriendi). As "magic systems", they are a specific area of knowledge and have historical and cultural value.
There are two main books on Kabbalism: Sefer Itzirah (or The Book of Construction) and The Zohar (or The Book of Splendor). It is believed that the first part was written in the II-III century AD. Traditionally, its fundamental tenets are traced back to Abraham, and there is no doubt that they represent the early stage of Jewish mysticism. The Zohar was written in Aramaic (Spain) around 1275 by a Kabbalist named Moses de Lyon. The importance of Kabbalism is that it is one of the oldest systems of mystical thinking in the world.
For many centuries he was considered as the key to all the mysteries of the universe and influenced all philosophers and religious thinkers from the Essenes to Roger Bacon. The basis of all Kabbalism is a diagram known as the "sacred tree," which consists of ten circles connected by twenty-two lines. 10 circles are emanations (radiation) of God. Kabbalism recognizes that the soul's attempt to achieve union with God is possible in one leap. But the soul, starting to separate from the body, must make its way back through the nine spheres above all the paths of eternal existence. The doctrine of the astral body is fundamental for Kabbalism: a person has a "spiritual shell" that almost coincides in shape with the body, which can separate and move upward. Like the Egyptian and Tibetan manuscripts of death,the book on Kabbalism is a guide for the soul on its way upward.
The Kabbalistic tree is a guide with warnings and instructions on the journey of the soul in the astral world ("travel in the imaginary"). Seeing this or that image, the phantom must determine whether his path to the goal is correct or the vision is unreliable. The Phantom explores the fearsome land into which he entered and speaks to every figure approaching him, but he must be careful. These figures can trick him and lure him into a dark mysterious world, but there are beacons that help to find the way and avoid traps. Lighthouses are provided with a system of correspondences (analogies) that describes creatures, plants, colors, jewelry, smells, and symbols (shapes) associated with circles and twenty-two paths. They help the “spiritual body” to overcome them without hindrance and achieve the ultimate goal - union with God.
G. Naumenko