Swami Vivekananda on Death and the Survival of Consciousness

It’s like this… but it really isn’t…

Swami Vivekananda was pivotal in bringing the ideas of Eastern religion to the West in the late 19th century. Although he lived in India, he visited America and Europe, where he gave many lectures on Hindu Vedanta. He had a real knack for explaining foreign concepts in terms that were easy to understand for Westerners, in part because he was as great a student as he was a teacher.

In a lecture given in New York, titled The Real and Apparent Man, he gives a detailed account of the after-death experience — in all its varieties. This is the basis for this article in my series on Death and the Survival of Consciousness (the link to the full series is below).

It’s Like This…

During the death process, with the cessation of bodily functions the vital forces go back to the mind, then the mind dissolves into Prana (the universal creative power), and the Prana enters into the soul. The soul then leaves with the Prana to become what Vivekananda says is “the fine body, the mental body, or spiritual body, as you may call it” (I think astral body might be an equivalent). The fine or mental body then has three possible general destinations, guided by past thoughts and actions.

Those that were ‘very spiritual’ are guided by solar rays through the solar sphere to the lunar sphere, and finally to the sphere of lightning. In the sphere of lightning they are met by another soul, a highly developed guide, who leads them to the Brahmaloka, the heaven of the creator god Brahma. The Brahmaloka is the highest of all spheres. Vivekananda goes on to say that according to dualist Vedantists, beings who have attained the level of the Brahmaloka stay there forever, whereas nondualists (Advaitists) believe that at the end of this cycle of creation beings in the Brahmaloka become one with infinite god.

Those folks that have been doing good works but for selfish purposes (like getting to heaven), travel only as far as the lunar sphere. The lunar sphere has many heavens of various types, where the beings take on the bodies of gods (or are godlike?) and enjoy themselves for a good long time. However, when their good karma is expended, they have to come back to earth to continue their work.

Interestingly, Vivekananda describes the rebirth process as the soul becoming mingled in raindrops, which are then incorporated into some ‘cereal’ (grains) that are eaten by a man (not to be sexist, but that is what he says) who has the material to make the soul a new body.

Finally, those of us who have been wicked (Vivekananda’s term) become ghosts or demons and live between the lunar sphere and the earth. When their karma in the realm of ghosts and demons is expended, they fall back to earth and become animals, eventually working their way back up to human form.

Except It Isn’t…

Being a nondualist, Swami Vivekananda reminds us that the realms we may find ourselves in after death are not really real, just as this earthly realm is not really real. The only reality is the unchanging Brahman, or Atman, consciousness that is unconditioned. All the spheres are projections from this one unified reality.

For Comparison Purposes…

One of the goals of this series is to see where accounts of the afterlife run in parallel to each other, and where they contrast. Swami Vivekananda gives us a fairly detailed description of the death process, which is in some ways similar to that offered in the Bardo Thodal, or Tibetan Book of the Dead (although the latter’s account is even more detailed). Vivekananda’s similarity to the Tibetan version ends there — as do most accounts of post-mortem existence.

Vivekananda’s description closely parallels, but elaborates upon, what is offered in the Upanishads (which themselves offer slightly different stories). The various spheres that Vivekananda tells us about can be made to fit with Yogananda’s two levels of the afterlife, the astral and the causal, with the lunar sphere of heavens having a similarities to the astral level and the Brahmaloka relating to the causal level. Yet while Yogananda (or, properly, his guru, Sri Yukteswar) talks about the potential to leave the causal level and be reborn at the astral level, Vivekananda sees arrival at the Brahmaloka as one-way trip. Yogananda doesn’t address the possibility of rebirth in animal form, which Vivekananda does — also, rebirth as an animal seems to be a set outcome for those in the sublunary sphere of ghosts and demons, while in the Bardo Thodal it is seen as a choice (not a good one, but a choice).

The presence of a guide is a staple of Western esoteric accounts of the afterlife, while Vivekananda only mentions guides in the context of those heading towards the high realm of the Brahmaloka. The lunar realms can be seen as similar to the various afterlife locations offered in the Western esoteric traditions, although the Western accounts tend to indicate ongoing spiritual development, while Vivekananda, following the Upanishads, describes them as pleasurable but not useful for spiritual work. It is interesting that he describes them in terms of spheres, and that two of the spheres — the lunar and solar — relate to planets: this is something that is sometimes found in older Western esoteric teachings, although the spheres are of the seven planets in the West.

Concluding Thought…

Swami Vivekananda gives us a detailed account of the afterlife, while stressing that the celestial realms are not to be taken as the ultimate reality but as manifestations of the one underlying consciousness, God, Brahman. More or less, though, they are nice places, and if you make it as far as the Brahmaloka, you have a good shot of eventually merging with the infinite.

Here’s a link to my stories on Death and the Survival of Consciousness…