Mahasamar by Narendra Kohli

I've just started reading Mahasamar by Narendra Kohli which is a seven part rewrite of the Mahabharat. I'm merely 40 pages into the first part but I immediately had things to say so I thought I might say it in a small blog post.

Novelistic Style
Unlike other Hindi literature that I've been reading, Mahasamar follows the pattern of the western novel to the T. This is very different from the works of Acharya Chatursen. Chatursen's mode of writing is 'historical'. He concentrates on who did what, when. Kohli on the other hand, concentrates on character motivation right from the beginning. Specially since it is a retelling that he's doing, he's more concerned about why did a particular character take a particular action than in the details of the action.

Modern Thinking Pattern
One thing that bugs me most about Hindi literature is its right wing leanings. A lot of Hindi literature that I've come across reeks of the RSS brand of thinking. However, in Kohli's novel one immediately begins to see trends of the modern questioning attitude. For example, in the first chapter itself, Kohli is narrating the tale of Shantanu, who made is elder son forgo his right to the throne so that he could marry a girl half his age. Kohli takes up an Indian father-son relationship (the chief characteristic of which is that the son is a 'property' of the father) and dissects is piece by piece. A very interesting read.

The Missing Watch

There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him. After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn. He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.
Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around
the entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the
farmer was about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to
him and asked to be given another chance.

The farmer looked at him and thought, "Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere enough." So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed.

The boy replied, "I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the
silence, I heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that
direction."

Moral: A peaceful mind can think better than a worked up mind.

Allow a few minutes of silence to your mind every day, and see, how sharply
it helps you to set your life the way you expect it to be...!

The Chennai automan

"Is it a bird? Is it a plane?",is what you think as you travel in a Chennai auto, driven by somebody who should have been rightfully adopted by the Schumacher family. "No da Kaide, its a Chennai auto", would be his response had he heard that line from the Superman franchise. Adorned with a khakhi shirt that goes over a purple t-shirt with the image of the playboy bunny, he smiles around displaying teeth laden with tobacco. When you land up at Chennai, you can't help but ignore the ubiquitous autos here.

Enterprising, dynamic and audacious, the Chennai auto driver is the first thing you see when you place your foot outside the Central station in Chennai. The auto driver is blessed with the knack of identifying prospective auto-goers. Sleepy IT-goers sporting T-shirts, parents of NRIs and North Indians are easy pickings for him. He sports a friendly smile, makes an attempt at grabbing your suitcase from your hand and pursuing you to board his auto and all the while making sure of not revealing the charge. More often than not, his rate is equal to 60% of your train travel expenses.

As you discuss the rate, other auto drivers gather along to witness this deal. As any helpless customer would do, you would quote an amount that is half of what he quoted. They all smirk at what you say, as if you questioned Darwin's theory of evolution. But yes, don't lose hope and get deterred by all the contempt you face. Stick to your price. The automan, in turn , aided by his colleagues, quotes inflation, the price rise and the economics of it all, justifying his rate to the precision of Amaratya Sen. If he had a computer, I believe he would shown you price fluctuation comparisons in the form of excel charts of atleast 10 different colours. You in turn quote the distance being in the range of just 8-10 kms making a pretence of knowing Chennai routes. The driver brings up issues of traffic diversions and one-ways to counter you. Other auto drivers try to politely explain to you the concept of price rise and advice you to accept their man's rate, thereby making you feel like a dull student in an economics class.

Finally you arrive at 80% of his aforementioned amount and believe you made a deal out of it. And he is happy to have made a fool of you. Win-Win situation. The auto-driver takes your luggage acting as a porter until you reach his auto. As you walk along and reach his auto, you notice the picture of a tamil actor blocking most of his view on the glass. You pray for your safety. He starts the auto by pulling a lever from somewhere down suddenly. After a few unruly pulls of the lever, the auto budges and starts. He takes a U-turn and drives like he is going to save the earth from an asteroid. His auto makes a weird noise, which I feel resembles Amrish Puri's voice when he yells. He takes on everybody, overtaking buses from the left, driving zig zag in tandem with bikes, driving in parallel with other autos talking to his friends, taking a moment to spin Paan and dodging signals or any other form of safety mechanism. No one but the Chennai auto driver can abuse others inspite of the mistake being his own. In short, he is CEO material.

As he drives, giving you an experience of a VGP ride, you look at fear while the tamil star who is in the form of a sticker covering the entire rear view mirror smiles at you. You also notice the meter which for some reason exists for display purpose. I somehow feel that a meter visually completes the auto. But history quotes that meters were occasionally used in certain autos, some of them thermodynamically charged to run faster than the auto itself.

The auto driver has no qualms on anything . He just whizzes around you in his typical audacious manner. His rates may be exorbitant. But don't we all like to be slightly paid more? He may be impolite and rude. But at least he is being himself. Talk to him, and he speaks of how Chennai has changed around in the years, how IT has ruined the city, Rajnikanth and politics. He has simple opinions on things around him, unlike many of us who don't have one.

All said and done, I enjoy an auto ride . Especially when I travel early morning along Mount road gazing at LIC building and Spencers. And as for the auto driver, he is by far the super king on Chennai roads.

Rumi

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving — it doesn't matter,

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,

Come, come again, come.

~ RUMI


One day the sun admitted

I am just a shadow

I wish I could show you the Infinite

Incandescence that has cast my brilliant image!

I wish I could show you

when you are lonely or in darkness

the Astonishing Light of your own Being!

~HAFIZ

What a wonderful world

Blessed are those who give without remembering. And blessed are those who take without forgetting.

The world but seems to be

yet is nothing more

than a line drawn

between light and shadow.

Decipher the message

of this dream-script

and learn to distinguish time

from Eternity.

The cure for pain is in the pain!

"Love takes you towards the trap…

Love tortures and oppresses the innocents

Those who fall into its hands cry like clouds

Those who flee from it are frozen like the snow

In the heart of lovers, there is a pain no remedy can cure

Neither walk nor sleep nor food nor thought nor prayer…

Nothing, nothing but the sight of the Friend

The meeting with the Friend IS the cure."
~Rumi

The Light of Enlightenment

Relationship is the giving and receiving of energy in the form of love, light and power.
Every interaction is an exchange and every exchange is energetic. While love is the primary form of that energy when the heart of the self is unblocked and whole, the second form the energy of the self takes is that of light. But what do we mean by light?

Imagine yourself in ancient Greece, sitting around the fire, under the stars, late at night, with friends and family. The young ones are listening to the elders as they pass on the 'light' of their wisdom through myth, legend and their own experiences. It is this wisdom of right understanding, right thinking and right living which 'enlightens' the next generation, maintaining the balance and harmony of society and right relationship with nature.

Not far away, there is another group discussing why the world is the way it is, why people do what they do. They are trying to work out why there is a marked increase in conflict and suffering. They are the philosophers in a process of inquiry, seeking to understand how the world and the universe works. One day, a few philosophers become tired of all the talk and intellectual toing and froing, and they decide to 'do something'. They begin to study the material world in all its forms and variety of phenomena. They start to fathom the rhythms of nature and the movement of the planets in an attempt to find meaning and purpose. They ask questions like 'why does water fall down and not up, why is grass green, why does a flower have fragrance?' Scientific research is born and wisdom gives way to the gathering and exchange of the 'light' of knowledge about the world.

The discovery of over one hundred elements, the development of electricity and, several hundred years later, the appliance of science spawns technology. Knowledge gives way to information as we develop the ability to send huge amounts of information in the form or packets of light across vast distances in seconds. In only of a few short decades, everything that can be quantified and measured is reduced to set of digits, a form of data, and fed into a machine for lightning transmission in massive quantities from one side of the world to the other, almost instantly. Information gives way to data. We now evaluate the worth of many modern organizations according to their 'data resources'. From wisdom, to knowledge, to information, to data - this is progress . isn't it?

Each day we need to make hundreds of decisions. Most are small, occasionally some are large and life changing. The commodity we need in order to make the best decisions is not data, it is not information, not even knowledge - it is wisdom. Yet it is wisdom that is now in shortest supply in the world. If you were to look at the currency of exchange across all your relationships today, at what level do you exchange 'light' - is it as data, information, knowledge or wisdom? Which one do you exchange the most?

For most people it is 'information' as we talk mostly about what others are doing (gossip), and what happened yesterday (news). If we are to increase our resource of wisdom it makes sense to mix with people who are exchanging energy (light) at this level. This will only happen when we decide to see life itself as the school, our self as a student, and consciously embark on a journey of continuous learning. If we don't learn we don't change. If we don't change we don't grow. If we don't grow we diminish.

This makes all your relationships opportunities to learn and grow in wisdom. If you are having difficulty in any particular relationship it is never the others fault, it is the way you are responding, which derives from the way you perceive the other. It means your responses are not being informed and shaped by a deep enough wisdom - the wisdom of compassion, the wisdom of forgiveness or the wisdom of understanding is missing. So every relationship is a teacher, a facilitator, a space in which you can grow in wisdom, nourish with wisdom and be nourished by wisdom. The wisdom cycle might look likes this - experience, followed by reflection upon experience, generates insight, followed by application, creating more experience, for further reflection. If you are a meditator then you will likely know that you have within you an innate sense of 'what is true', and you are able to allow that 'knowingness' to refine the wisdom that you grow in your life.

Like good wine wisdom matures with age. Hence the natural wisdom that can be accumulated in a long life. However, unlike wine, which sits still for most of its life until tasted, all of life must be actively faced and tasted! Only then will you see the dullness and emptiness of all data and information, and how unnecessary it is to accumulate yet more knowledge about the world. Only then can you fully taste and appreciate the wisdom that is distilled from taking risks, rising to new challenges, engaging fully with others and then silently reflecting on the whole process of living.

And unlike a battery whose power runs down when used to light up a room, your wisdom becomes brighter and deeper the more you use it to 'enlighten' the relationships that you form and the world that you live in

Sleep and Death

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

“Hamlet” (1948)



"One short sleep past, we wake eternally..."


- Hypnos and Thanatos,Sleep & Death by John William Waterhouse, 1874.

Hypnos and his twin brother, Thanatos; or, Sleep and his twin brother, Death.

It's interesting that the ancient civilizations thought of death and sleep as related. As sons of night (Nyx), they embodied the moment between the conscious and unconscious state. It didn't matter if a person was lying down to sleep for the night or if they were closing their eyes on a battlefield. In the end, the body was just as calm.

The picture on depicts sleep and death sitting next to each other, reclined, as if to take an afternoon nap. It is interesting to note that this artist chose to put death in the darkness, whereas sleep remains in the light.


- The Angel of Death (L'Angelo della Morte) (1896),Simeon Solomon

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow
And soonest our best men with thee do go
Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die! - "HOLY SONNET X"
by John Donne



. . . if we admit the existence of a higher or permanent Ego in us -- which Ego must not be confused with what we call the "Higher Self," we can comprehend that what we often regard as dreams, generally accepted as idle fancies, are, in truth, stray pages torn out from the life and experiences of the inner man, and the dim recollection of which at the moment of awakening becomes more or less distorted by our physical memory. The latter catches mechanically a few impressions of the thoughts, facts witnessed, and deeds performed by the inner man during its hours of complete freedom. For our Ego lives its own separate life within its prison of clay whenever it becomes free from the trammels of matter, i.e., during the sleep of the physical man. This Ego it is which is the actor, the real man, the true human self. But the physical man cannot feel or be conscious during dreams; for the personality, the outer man, with its brain and thinking apparatus, are paralyzed more or less completely. -- Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, p. 50

Sleep and death are brothers, according to the old Greek proverb. However, they are not merely brothers, born of the same fabric of human consciousness, but are in all verity one, identical. Death is a perfect sleep, with its interim awakenings of a kind, such as in the devachan, and a full human awakening in the succeeding reincarnation. Sleep is an imperfect fulfillment of death, nature's prophecy of the future death. Nightly we sleep, and therefore nightly we partially die. Indeed, one may go still farther and say that sleep and death and all the various processes and realizations of initiation are but different phases or operations of consciousness, varied forms of the same fundamental thing. Sleep is largely an automatic functioning of the human consciousness; death is the same, but in immensely greater degree, and is a necessary habit of the consciousness in order that it may gain for the psychological part of the constitution a resting and an assimilation of experience.




Initiation is a kind of temporary 'death' of all the lower man, a 'sleep' of the lower psychological nature, and a magical awakening to an intense awareness of the higher psychological part upon which is then radiating the inner light of the man's monadic consciousness. Thus it is that initiation comprises both sleep and death and uses these functions of consciousness in order to free the 'inner man' for the marvelous experience on inner planes that initiation brings about.



Poppies have long been used as a symbol of both sleep and death: sleep because of the opium extracted from them, and death because of their (commonly) blood-red color. In Greco-Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead. Poppies are used as emblems on tombstones to symbolize eternal sleep.

Anyone who has stood at the bedside of one who is dying must have been strongly impressed with the extraordinary similitude between the coming of death and going to sleep. The sole distinction between death and sleep is one of degree. Precisely as in death, the consciousness during sleep becomes, following upon a brief period of complete unconsciousness, the seat or active focus of forms of inner mental activity which we call dreams.




In sleep, the psychological or personal part of man is non-manifesting through the physical brain; in point of fact, it is this absence, this temporary disjunction of the intermediate nature which is the efficient cause of sleep. The body sleeps because the personal man is no longer there. When we go to sleep at night, we slip into a state of complete unconsciousness only because we have not yet learned during the daytime to become self-conscious in the higher parts of us.

As a rule, the physical body is guarded during sleep by an akasic veil -- a condensation of the substance of the auric egg itself, naturally thrown forth from the body as it sinks into repose -- which usually prevents hurt. This is well exemplified in the case of sleepwalkers. There are other contributing agencies likewise, one of which is seen in the interesting fact that most animate beings do not touch with intent to injure a body which is quiescent. And even 'inanimate' nature is so constructed that there seems to be a corresponding response in it of peace and quiet. Still other factors are involved here, but the main one is the veil or wall of akasa surrounding the sleeping body which, however, is effective only in proportion as the life is pure.



The vital thread of life and consciousness still vibrates in even the physical brain of a man during sleep, producing dreams, some that delight him and others that harass and perplex him. The thread of radiance remains unbroken, so that the ego, which has left the lower mind and the body behind and is soaring out into the spaces, is able to return along this luminous thread linking the monad to the astral-vital brain of the sleeping body. When a man dies, it is exactly like falling into a very deep sleep, utter, sweet unconsciousness, except that the vital cord is snapped and then, instantaneously, like the sounding of a soft golden note, the soul is free.



What happens to a man during sleep is an adumbration of what will happen to him at death. The personal ego goes into oblivion and its consciousness is withdrawn into the spiritual part where it rests and has temporary peace. During sleep, certain parts of man's inner constitution wing their way into the spaces of the solar system. The migration of course is very short; sometimes like a lightning flash, where one has slept only a few moments. But time to pure consciousness does not exist; time pertains to material existence. Some men go to the moon when they sleep, some to their parent planet, others to the sun. And another part of the constitution flashes forth and back to its parent star. Certain other men visit the elemental world, go to the center of our own globe, for instance.



To sleep: perchance to dream;
ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what
dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

William Shakespeare. - Hamlet act 3. sc.1


During sleep and after death, each individual goes to those places which he has earned for himself by his thought and his aspirations, or lack of them; in other words, it is all a matter of synchronous vibration -- a man goes to his natural home, whether high or low. The cause of such peregrinations inheres fundamentally in the psychomagnetic attractions to these different localities in the solar systems, which are 'stations' along the devious routes of the circulations of the cosmos; and since the consciousness is accustomed to these routes through long ages of habit, each of the various parts of the human constitution follows its own particular direction in these circulations.

There is not only a close analogy, but an identity -- both of process and of fact -- between the dreams had during sleep and those of the after-death state. Dreams depend upon two main factors: (a) the mechanism of the psychic consciousness, and (b) the two kinds of forces impinging upon this mechanism, which control the direction and guide the operations of the psychic consciousness of the dreamer. Of these forces, the first kind is the solar, lunar, and planetary influences under which an individual is born; and the second is the automatic reaction to the events and experiences that had occurred during the waking state.



"Sleep, those little slices of death; Oh how I loathe them."
- Edgar Allan Poe

The astrological influences under which an individual is born are the conjoined action of all the solar, lunar, and planetary powers in the solar system; but in every case certain powers predominate because of their swabhava -- this swabhava coalescing with the man's own swabhava because of identity of origin; and it is this identity of origin or of powers which causes these forces or influences to act most strongly upon him. Therefore, while all human beings have dreams which are more or less alike, everyone has dreams of his or her own characteristically unique type.

To phrase the matter in other words, every man is more particularly the offspring or under the influence of one of the twelve logoic forces of the solar system. Now as each such solar logos finds its own especial focus of action in one of the twelve sacred planets, we see how the planetary as well as the solar influences come into play in the psychic consciousness of the sleeping man. Also, as all human beings have a 'lunar body,' i.e. a 'lunar layer' in their auric egg, the moon likewise plays upon the mind of the sleeper; indeed, in most cases the lunar influences are by far the most powerful upon the sleeping man.



When asked what dreams were, H.P.B. answered that it depended upon the meaning attached to the term:

You may "dream," or, as we say, sleep visions, awake or asleep. If the Astral Light is collected in a cup or metal vessel by will-power, and the eyes fixed on some point in it with a strong will to see, a waking vision or "dream" is the result, if the person is at all sensitive. The reflections in the Astral Light are seen better with closed eyes, and, in sleep, still more distinctly. From a lucid state, vision becomes translucid; from normal organic consciousness it rises to a transcendental state of consciousness. . . .

There are many kinds of dreams, as we all know. Leaving the "digestion dream" aside, there are brain dreams and memory dreams, mechanical and conscious visions. Dreams of warning and premonition require the active co-operation of the inner Ego. They are also often due to the conscious or unconscious co-operation of the brains of two living persons, or of their two Egos. . . .

[That which dreams is] generally the physical brain of the personal Ego, the seat of memory, radiating and throwing off sparks like the dying embers of a fire. The memory of the Sleeper is like an Aeolian seven-stringed harp; and his state of mind may be compared to the wind that sweeps over the chords. -- Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, pp. 58-9



The nature of a man's dreams is determined almost wholly -- yet by no means entirely -- by his waking life. The little child, for example, has no positive dreams of any kind; its experiences are still too trifling. Its mind, even its brain, are not yet set or fully formed; nevertheless on occasion it will have frightening dreams, but these are usually caused by automatic psychologic reactions in the child's sleeping brain to some disturbance that it has experienced when awake.



Most of us have dreams which are neither very delightful nor very terrifying, but which often are mixed -- inchoate and confused. The reason is obvious, for our dreams are but reflections of our waking hours. Sometimes our mind is bent to the things of the spirit and the ways of beauty and harmony, and at other times gives way to thoughts of a completely opposite character, which at night (or after death in the karma-loka) return to us in our dreams.

It is thought that makes all dreams. The evil man, one who is so selfish, and whose imagination and feelings are so restricted and imprisoned that a kindly impulse seldom if ever enters his consciousness, feels the unfailing reaction: when he dreams, which is frequently, he is in an emotional and mental hell. His thoughts haunt his brain like avenging ghosts, and afflict his dreaming consciousness. Contrariwise, the man who yearns to help his fellows, is impersonal, of lofty thinking, very rarely has evil dreams; if he dreams at all, he has dreams that the gods might envy.

The above equally applies not only to the dreams of the devachan but also to those of the karma-loka. The cause is the same: mental deposits or thought impulses arising during the life of a man, and so affecting his mental structure that they automatically begin to act upon his consciousness. Thus thought and feeling not only make character throughout the evolving ages, but likewise bring happiness and peace or the nightmares of the karma-loka.



Dreams of any kind are the earth-side of a man's character coming into pictorial action again in the mind, and therefore are 'effects' and not 'causes'; and this is why the devachan is called the sphere of effects and our earth-existence, wherein originate the causative life-impulses, the sphere of causes (cf. The Mahatma Letters, pp. 47-8).

This does not mean that earth-life is the only sphere of causes; the statement refers only to incarnated human beings, and the effects produced after death by their thoughts and feelings and actions while imbodied. Thus, neither in the devachan nor when a man is dreaming at night does he originate any positive or inventive courses of action, although it is occasionally true that the dreams of a man, by reaction on the mind, may consciously or unconsciously somewhat influence the thoughts of the waking man.


- Death Awakening Sleep (1896), Simeon Solomon

There is a certain danger, however, in putting too much importance upon the matter of dreams and their interpretations. Occasionally dreams are prophetic, but to a large extent they 'come true' because they are the foreshadowings of the automatic working of consciousness, i.e. of what the consciousness itself, because of its biases and tendencies, will bring to pass in the future. Therefore, it could very plausibly be argued that if an observer of a dreaming man were quasi-omniscient, he would be able to discern in all the dreams of the man what his future would be. But it is obvious that there are very few such perfect soothsayers or dream-interpreters!

Truly prophetic dreams do not occur in the devachan, but can do so during sleep because they arise in the stored knowledge of the reincarnating ego, which latter attempts to impress the sleeping brain with a 'radiation' of prophetic foresight. This does happen upon very rare occasions, but one should examine such dreams very suspiciously and not automatically look upon them as guides in life. In general, it is far better to ignore one's dreams, for very few people indeed are sufficiently awakened inwardly to know whether a dream is of a prophetic character or one which is merely an ordinary psychic reaction of the usually erratic and confused brain-mind.*




* Many dreams, again, while not truly prophetic, nevertheless can tell the one who studies his own mental and vital processes something at least, and possibly much, of what his character is. Very often the body, or the passions and feelings, react upon the sleeping brain producing pictures therein, and the one who knows how to read these dreams from careful self-examination, without morbidity, may get useful warnings or reminders that his life and emotions are not just what they should be.

But, as said, it is far wiser to forget dreams of all kinds, unless they be of such immensely vivid character, and so impress us when we are awake, that we have the intuition that we had better hold such dreams in mind.



If a man can -- and will -- study his consciousness during the day as well as the reactions upon his percipient mind to the various impacts of the daily events, he will have a master key to knowing precisely what will happen to him, as a center of consciousness, both during sleep and after death. If he desire to know how he will feel or what he will cognize at the moment of death, let him grip his consciousness with his will and study the actual processes of his falling asleep -- if he can! No man, however, at that precise instant knows that he is lapsing into sleep. For a time he seems to himself to be thinking, and the more intensely he thinks the farther is sleep from him -- and then he is off, he is asleep! Instant unconsciousness supervenes at the critical juncture, and it may or may not be succeeded by dreams.

Death is identical with this process of falling asleep. It matters not at all how we die: whether by age, by disease, or by violence. The instant of death always brings for a period the unutterable peace of perfect unconsciousness, which is like gliding into a beginning, a foretaste as it were, of the devachanic bliss, just as the careful observer will find to be his experience when falling to sleep.



Finally, I venture to call attention once more to the point that the mind will automatically go on functioning along the exact lines of thought which one had preceding either sleep or death. Hence the extreme importance of having one's mind in order and peaceful before going to sleep -- or before dying; to refuse entrance to any thoughts of dislike, hatred or evil. As the great Pythagoras taught in the verses attributed to him by his disciple Lysis, which form a part of the so-called Golden Verses of Pythagoras:



Admit not sleep to thy drooping eyes,
Ere thou hast well reviewed each one of the day's deeds.
In what was I remiss? What did I do? What duty was not fulfilled?

(From Fountain-Source of Occultism by G. de Purucker. Copyright © 1974 by Theosophical University Press)