Mental Death: Living Without Being Yourself
Kiran: “What is death?”
Ganesh: “Which death are you talking about?”
Kiran: “Are there different types of death?”
Ganesh: “Yes. There are mainly two types—physical death and mental
death.”
If you are doing an action to achieve your future goal, or an action that gives
you the right knowledge to reach that goal—that is prarabdha karma.”
Kiran: “I know about physical death. After dying, the
body becomes cold and stiff, and we cremate it. But I’m hearing about mental
death for the first time. What is mental death?”
Ganesh: “Every human being has a destined path
(prarabdha) written for them. When a person abandons their own destined path
and starts walking according to someone else’s instructions, they move closer
to mental death. And when there is no possibility of returning to their own
destined path, that is mental death—they never get to discover their real
character or true self.”
Kiran: “I didn’t understand a single word of that.
Explain it like a friend, not like a teacher.”
Ganesh: “The work you are meant to do in the future is
called prarabdha. It was written in your destiny that you would work in
insurance—that’s why, that day on the train, you met a stranger who offered you
the job. If you had refused him, saying, ‘I don’t know you; I don’t trust you,’
then you would probably never have experienced the real moments in insurance
that were meant to take you to the next stage of your destiny.”
Kiran: “If I had refused to work with that man, what
would have happened?”
Ganesh: “Taking the insurance exam was part of your
prarabdha. If you had refused that man, nature would have sent another person
to motivate you to take the exam. If you refused again, then taking the
insurance exam would have become part of your accumulated (sanchita) karma, and
you would have had to complete it in this life or the next—you cannot escape
it.”
Kiran: “First prarabdha, now sanchita karma. How many
types of karma are there in total?”
Ganesh: “There are three types: sanchita karma
(accumulated karma), kriyamana karma (present actions), and prarabdha karma
(destined karma).”
Kiran: “How do we recognise which is sanchita and
which is prarabdha?”
Ganesh: “The actions that are your responsibility but
you avoid doing become sanchita karma. All the actions you could have done until
today but kept postponing have become accumulated karma; you will have to do
them someday in the future.
Kiran: “In the future, if I do some action, how will I
know whether it will become sanchita or prarabdha karma?”
Ganesh: “If you are doing an action that has no
connection with your present or future, yet you are still doing it—that is
sanchita karma.
Kiran: “That means working in insurance forced me to
contemplate death. So that I could contemplate death and, in the future, become
a sage and write about the secrets of death in religious scriptures—that’s why
working in insurance was part of my prarabdha. I never wanted to work in
insurance; I never applied to an insurance company. My destiny wanted me to
work there. That’s why only when Mankhurd station arrived did my eyes fall on
the job poster, and the man opposite sensed it immediately.”
Ganesh: “Yes. Remember when you worked for ten days at
the printing press? You worked very hard but got no money because you couldn’t
stay for the full month. That job had no connection with your past, present, or
future. It was sanchita karma. That’s why you had to do it, and you received
neither money nor knowledge in return. Whenever you do a task and receive
neither reward nor knowledge, understand that it was your sanchita karma.”
Kiran: “Whatever is written in my prarabdha, I will
get it anyway. So, does that mean even if I don’t do any karma, I will still
get it?”
Ganesh: “These are not your own words. You have
repeatedly heard people say that whatever is written in one’s prarabdha, one
definitely gets it. But this is a wrong notion.”
Kiran: “Then what is the truth?”
Ganesh: “Prarabdha is not something you simply
receive. Prarabdha itself is karma—action. Only by performing it do you attain
your true original existence. Prarabdha is not the result; the karma done to
attain a certain result is what prarabdha truly is.”
Kiran: “If someone does not perform their prarabdha
karma, what happens then?”
Ganesh: “When someone does not perform their prarabdha
karma, those actions accumulate as sanchita karma. Whatever achievement a
person is meant to receive, they will get it only after performing the
necessary karma. If a person wants to obtain anything, they must first act.”
Kiran: “Some people put in very little effort yet get
a lot, while others work extremely hard but get nothing. Why is that?”
Ganesh: “The fruits of karma are not limited to wealth
and respect. Through karma, a person receives eight kinds of achievements: sex,
purity, love, pleasure, peace, knowledge, bliss, and liberation.”
Kiran: “What is the connection between these eight
achievements and the effort put into karma?”
Ganesh: “When a person performs the karma linked to
their prarabdha, they receive the appropriate achievement from these eight
types. But when a person abandons their own prarabdha and follows someone
else’s path, no matter how hard they work, they will not receive what was truly
meant for them.”
Kiran: “I still didn’t understand. Please explain it
to me like I’m a child.”
Ganesh: “You love vada pav. In your prarabdha, it is
written that eating vada pav is your karma, and the bliss of its spicy taste is
written in your destiny. Your friend loves sandwiches. In his prarabdha, eating
sandwiches is his karma, and enblissing the sweet-salty taste of the filling is
his destined bliss.
Now, if you never go to eat vada pav—if you don’t perform
your prarabdha karma—you will never experience its spicy taste. Eating vada pav
is your karma; enblissing its flavour is your destined reward.
But if, instead of going for vada pav, you follow your
friend and eat sandwiches, no matter how many sandwiches you eat, you will
never taste the spice of vada pav. Then you will blame the world and God,
saying, “I worked so hard but didn’t get the proper result.” You would get the
proper result only by choosing what truly belongs to you.”
Kiran: “What’s the big deal if someone doesn’t eat
vada pav? He is alive and eating samosa. Then how can he get mental death?”
Ganesh: “If someone is born with a particular
prarabdha and a particular character, and if he does not live according to his
original character and does not perform his own karma, he loses the opportunity
to become his real self as well as to attain moksha. That is mental death.”
Kiran: “Now I understand. What is the relationship
between karma and death?”
Ganesh: “Karma itself becomes the cause of both
physical and mental death. When you abandon your own path and imitate someone
else, you lose your natural bliss and enthusiasm. That loss of your true nature
is mental death.”
Kiran: “If I eat a sandwich with a friend and later
also eat vada pav, would that still be mental death?”
Ganesh: “That’s what most people do. Mental death
happens when, after eating the sandwich, there is no space left in the
stomach—or no willpower left—to eat the vada pav. When both the path and the
strength to return are gone, mental death occurs.”
Note: This content represents one half of a chapter from Kedi Purana, a 64-chapter work authored by Kedi Ganapati.
Kedi Purana is a modern Purana of the present and final Kaliyuga of the current Kalpa.
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