Life After Death

By : Smt. Seetha Vijayakumar

I attended an interactive Lecture-demonstration at New Delhi in 1986 when Raymond Moody interviewed a number of people who had a ‘death’ experience. My husband had delivered the key-note address in which he had referred to Sai Baba giving up his body and re-entering it after three days. The main theme of his lecture was how Baba is active from his tomb years after his Mahasamadhi.

Raymond Moody described as to how dead people moved on to the other side of death, and, after some time came back. From their accounts, and those of others, who have had similar experiences, we get a glimpse of what happens after death. Some of them told Moody that they could hear the doctors declare them as dead. After this, they suddenly found themselves outside of their own bodies, but still in the same house, the same hall, the same rooms, with which they were familiar.

They could see their own bodies from a distance, as though they were mere spectators. Some of them said they watched the doctors prick their arms and inject drugs into their bodies. All this while, though they were separate from their bodies, and watched their bodies as spectators, they continued to have a subtle sense of identification with their bodies.

They did not yet feel that the bodies no longer belonged to them. It was only after some time, that they got accustomed to their odd conditions, and began to realize that they had left their physical bodies and were now in new bodies, altogether different from the physical bodies.

In new bodies, they were overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love and peace. Soon they found that some of their relatives and friends, who had already passed on, had come to meet them. This gave them a feeling of surprise, for they felt that they were still alive. How could the dead ones meet them? Then, what then? Then they saw something, which is difficult to describe in words. They saw a light, dazzling light, a light so dazzling that it was as though a hundred thousand suns shone simultaneously.

Out of this light stepped forth a Being of Light, a Form of Light. Different people saw different forms — depending upon the ishta deva they worshipped during the period of their earthly life. As many of those, whom Moody interviewed, were Christians, they identified the ‘Being of Light’ as Christ. A Jewish man and woman identified the Light as an Angel. A man, who had no religious beliefs, simply identified what he saw as a Being of Light. This is an important thing for us to note.

When a man dies, when a man drops the physical body, he encounters a Being of Light, who may take the form of Krishna or Rama, of the Buddha or Jesus, of Sai Baba or Ramana , of Moses or Muhammad, of Mira or Mahavira, of Nanak or Kabir, of Zoroaster or Baha’u’llah or of some other God-man depending on his religious background and beliefs.

When I drop the physical body, I shall encounter this being or Form of Light. What will happen to me then? Then, every single thing that I have done, since the day I was born, will appear to me in a panoramic view. It is, as though, I shall have to witness a movie of my life — every detail of it, every little thing that I have done either in public or in private, in light is continued presence or in darkness, before the eyes of men or unseen by anyone — all the things that I have done will appear to me in a panoramic view. Imagine my condition at that time. For I have done so many things in darkness, believing that nobody knows about them, that nobody can know about them.

For years I thought over these matters and perhaps Sai Baba felt that I should be given a practical experience of ‘Life after death’ and also demonstrate his continued presence. In August 2007, I developed end-stage Kidney failure and was admitted to the ICU of a major hospital at Bengaluru. My husband desperate at the hopeless situation had kept his fingers crossed. Since he is a Doctor, as a special case he was permitted to sit next to me, and I knew he was engaged in chanting ‘Om Sai Sri Sai’ japa. Suddenly I saw Sai Baba coming near me with a reassuring smile and holding my right shoulder – ‘Don’t worry my child – I will take care of you’. I was under the ventilator and beckoned the Nurse to take it out and give me a paper and pen. I wrote out that ‘Sai Baba is here’ and gave it to my husband. Baba blessed me and disappeared.

It was 2 am and my recovery was miraculous and the very next morning I requested the hospital to send me home. In a week’s time I was back to total normalcy.

I shall be filled with a feeling of remorse and repentance. My head will hang low, when all those things will appear to me, as in a movie. And they will be seen by the Being of Light, the great Sai Maharaj standing by my side. How would I like my Krishna, my Buddha, my Jesus, the beloved of my heart, like to see the many things that I thought were hidden from everyone?

But friends, at the same time, I shall have another wonderful feeling. I will feel that in the presence of the Being of Light — in the presence of Sai Baba, Krishna or Buddha or Jesus — I am in the presence of total and absolute love, a being, who though knows everything about me, yet totally accepts me.
(Editor’s note – Smt. Seetha Vijayakumar lived for three more years after this incident and merged in Sai Baba on 6^th January 2010)