If you are not hospitable , you lose all your merit. | Katho Upanishad

🌷 Katho Upanishad 🌷

       

       Chapter 1

       At the door of death 

          🌻 Day 5 🌻

Nachiketa goes to the abode of death and waits there for 3 days without food and water. There is greater , deeper knowledge here. What happens in the process of death? What happens to you when you die? First , the mind withdraws from the five senses with their impression. You stop feeling, numbness comes. Sensations in the body disappear. Then , sight gets blurred and vision goes away. Sense of touch goes away , sense of taste goes away , sight goes away and then smells and finally sound disappears. When body is dying , they keep a candle burning so that if the soul, the spirit leaves the body , it can feel the light , see the light and remind itself that it is light and move on. This ritual is there in all ancient traditions. The mind retrieves from the five senses , with the impressions of those senses. Once it snaps out of the body , it feels such a freedom , it is like coming out of cage. The spirit becomes so peaceful. In its peace, it also has impressions of craving. If a person is fond of ice cream , burger , that fondness will remain there for some time. It takes three days for the spirit , to really adjust to the other side. You have come out of the body. You don’t know how to get into the body. It doesn’t interest you also – the body is not interesting anymore. It looks like garbage. Suppose you have used a tissue and thrown it in the garbage , will you take it and use it again? The same feeling comes to the spirit when it snaps out of the body. It doesn’t care about the body anymore. If it wants , it will take another body somewhere else. It takes almost 48 hours , i.e. 3 days to get used to the other side, to get relief from this side. It is very significant. That is why for three days , friends and relatives are in more anguish. They start getting some relief after three days. In the ancient days, ten days were kept for mourning. In these ten days , you could cry as much as you wanted and celebrate on the eleventh day. You should mourn for a maximum of ten days , no more. There is a time zone here but when you leave the body the time zone changes. Six months here is a day there and six months here is a night there. Our one whole year is one day there.

For three days , Nachiketa waited at the door of death but the Lord of Death did not come. Nachiketa didn’t eat anything. He was there – poised , peace , peaceful , calm and uplifted spirit. Even death became apologetic to him.

वैश्वनरः प्रविशत्यतिथिर्ब्राह्मणो गृहान् ।

तस्यैताँ शान्तिं कुर्वन्ति हर वैवस्वतोदकम् ॥

आशाप्रतीक्षे सङ्गतँ सूनृतां चेष्टापूर्ते पुत्रपशूँश्च सर्वान् ।

एतद्वृङ्क्ते पुरुषस्याल्पमेधसो यस्यानश्नन्वसति ब्राह्मणो गृहे ॥

Yama said , “When a spiritual guest enters the house like a bright flame, he must be received with water to wash his feet.” This is to glorify hospitality. If you are not hospitable , you lose all your merit. You do so many things but if you are not kind , not caring for your guest , then you have lost all merit.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Katho Upanishad