Parallel Myths (37 page)
Authors: J.F. Bierlein
There are two human souls, the Athun Ajayo and the Jukkui Ajayo. The Athun Ajayo is created by Pachamama [Mother Earth] and is the soul that provides consciousness, movement, and other signs of life. The Athun Ajayo survives after the death of the body.
The Jukkui Ajayo is the soul that provides the body with immunity
from diseases as it maintains the proper equilibrium among the mind, the body, and the Athun Ajayo. It is the Jukkui Ajayo that wanders about during sleep, transmitting its impressions in the form of dreams. If the Jukkui Ajayo leaves the living body, there is no protection against disease. When a body dies, the Jukkui Ajayo leaves permanently within the first week of death.
Both Ajayos hover about the body of the deceased for three days. Bachelors and spinsters are well-advised to stay away from the corpse during this time, as the Athun may take a soul with it to be a spouse in the afterlife.
The Athun Ajayos return to earth to visit the living, especially during the Christian feast of All Saints’ Day on the first of November. At that time one may speak with the Athuns of dead relatives and give them gifts.
From Socrates’s “Speech on His Condemnation to Death”:
*
M
oreover, we may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated and have no sensation of anything whatever; or, as it is said, there is a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were, a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be wonderful gain. For I think that if anyone, having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life, should be required on consideration to say how many nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person, but even a great king himself would find them easy to number in comparison with other days and
nights. If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said can be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades, released from those who pretend to be judges, one shall find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, Aeacus and Triptolemus, and such others of the demigods who were just during their own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer? I indeed should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the soujourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax, son of Telamón, and any other of the ancients who has died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs would, I think, be no unpleasant occupation.
But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others, whom one might mention, both men and women? With whom to converse and associate, and to question them, would be an inconceivable happiness. Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects those who live there are more happy than those that are here, and are henceforth immortal, if at least what is said be true.
You, therefore, O my judges, ought to entertain good hopes with respect to death, and to meditate on this one truth, that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the gods. And what has befallen me is not the effect of chance; but this is clear to me, that now to die, and be freed from my cares is better for me. On this account the warning in no way turned me aside; and I bear no resentment toward those who condemned me, or against my accusers, although they did not condemn and accuse me with this
intention, but thinking to injure me: in this they deserve to be blamed.… But it is now time to depart,—for me to die, for you to live. But which of us is going to a better state is unknown to everyone but God.
NOTE
: Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia (now Iran), is a faith founded on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster. There are now only 100,000 Zoroastrians in the world, principally in India, Iran, and Great Britain.
A
t death the soul hovers over the body for three nights. On the first night, the soul contemplates the words of its past life; on the second, it contemplates its thoughts; and on the third, it contemplates its deeds. Then the soul passes on to the three judges who are absolutely impartial and care nothing about the person’s status in life. The three judges base their decision upon the person’s deeds, which are recorded in the House of Song. The soul’s merits are weighed on a scale. If the good outweighs the bad, then the soul proceeds on to heaven. If the good and bad are equal, the soul proceeds to Hamestagan, or Purgatory, where it is cleansed of its sin. If the bad outweighs the good, then the soul goes to hell.
As the souls leave the place of judgment they are met by a guide. For the good, this guide is a beautiful young woman; for the bad it is an ugly hag. Then the guide identifies herself—“I am your own conscience.” All souls, good or bad, are conducted by their guides to the Chinvat bridge.
At this bridge the path into heaven widens for the good; for the evil it becomes razor thin and they plunge into hell. However, hell is not permanent; once the sins are expiated the soul may return to the seat of judgment for a review of their case. If sufficiently purged, the soul may proceed into heaven.
At the end of time, at the last judgment, all will be resurrected, and the body and soul reunited and judged as a whole.
(India)
T
here was once a Brahman herdsman named Vajashrava who earnestly desired to win the favor of the gods; he wanted to give them something to ensure prosperity. However, all of his cows were old and no longer gave milk. His crops were poor and lie had barely enough to feed his family. Vajashrava spoke with his son, Nachiketas, about this predicament. Nachiketas replied, “Father, you have nothing to give to the gods but me. To which god would you offer me?” Vajashrava sadly said, “To Yama, lord of the dead.”
Nachiketas was an unusually wise young man and thought about this. He knew that there was nothing to fear; he was neither the first nor the last person to be offered to Yama. Certainly the blessings that would derive from this offering would be great. So the young man agreed. Nachiketas made his way to the land of the dead, but Yama was out gathering souls. Nachiketas waited for Yama for three days.
When Yama returned, his servants told him that a noble Brahman named Nachiketas awaited him. Certainly, given the wait, the young man was entitled to some welcome hospitality. Moreover, Yama knew that great harm comes to those who have a Brahman guest and fail to feed and welcome him.
So Yama told Nachiketas that, as an honored guest who had patiently waited for three days, the young mortal was entitled to three wishes that could not be refused. Nachiketas first wished that his father would recognize him and welcome him when he returned from the land of the dead. The second request was to know where the sacred fire that leads directly to heaven might be found. Third, Nachiketas asked to know the secret of what is beyond death, beyond the reach of Yama in the Underworld.
Although Yama gladly granted the first two requests, he was most reluctant to grant this third wish. Yama told Nachiketas, “Even the gods of old were in doubt as to this mystery. Ask anything else, whether wealth, fame, sons, long life, or any other wish, but not this.”
Nachiketas told Yama that wealth does not last forever, even a long life must come to an end, sons can be both a sorrow and a blessing, and all material things come to rust and rot; all these material blessings are but illusion. Yama then offered Nachiketas fine wives, the fairest maidens of Indra’s heavens, and worldly power. Nachiketas replied that all these things are but pleasure, and pleasure is also an illusion. The youth said, “There is nothing but the mystery beyond death that interests me.”
Yama smiled and responded, “You are very wise, Nachiketas. Duty is one path and delight is another. It is always best for one to choose duty, for delight can lead astray. The fool believes that only the life of this world is real and sets his heart on pleasures and wealth. Even the learned fall prey to illusion. But beyond death, I tell you, is the great and eternal One.
*
Many do not know the eternal One, nor do they seek him.
“To know the eternal One that is greater than all gods is to be deathless, O Nachiketas; the One never was born and never dies. Smaller than small and greater than great, the Self indwells in the human heart of those who seek Him. The human who knows the One knows no grief; there is nothing that can discourage him. This cannot be learned by mere explanation, nor even by knowing and reciting the Scriptures. When every knot in the human heart is loosened, then one can know the One.”
This third wish granted, Nachiketas returned to the land of the living. In asking Death what is beyond Death, he assured his immortality.
THE RABBI’S DEAD VISITOR
O
nce, after his death, a prominent Jew in the congregation of the Tsaddik [holy man] Rabbi Yissochor of Velburz came to ask him for help; as his wife had died, said the man, he needed money to remarry.“But you’re dead yourself,” said the Tsaddik. “What are you doing in the land of the living?”
The dead man refused to believe him until the rabbi made him lift up his coat and showed him that there were shrouds underneath it. After he had departed, the rabbi’s son asked him, “Father, how do I know that I am not also a dead person who is haunting the land of the living?”
“If you know there’s such a thing as death, you’re not dead,” said the rabbi. “The dead themselves know nothing of death.”
—Pinhas Seder,
Jewish Folktales
, translated by Hillel Halkin
A
t the exact moment of death the soul first experiences the colorless light of emptiness, which bathes it. If one merges with the light at this opportunity, one is saved. Most people, however, first fall unconscious and then are shocked back into consciousness by the terror of the recognition that they are dead. Often the recognition that one is dying is frightening and the soul tries to flee; this is futile. If one tries to maintain a separate identity by clinging to the illusion of the ego, it is also pointless. Very few people attain salvation or have the insight necessary to understand what is happening.