The Road Between: a rehearsal of dying and return
Read slowly, aloud, leaving a breath between lines; about twenty-five minutes. Best guided by a trained clinician; if you practise alone, record it in your own voice. This is not a practice of dying. It is a practice of returning.
Before you begin. This practice walks gently through the sequence the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha gives for dying and revival: a remembering, a crossing, a meeting, a review, and a return. Do not use it alone if you are having thoughts of ending your life, if you have recently lost someone and feel drawn to follow them, or if you have a psychotic illness, a dissociative disorder, post-traumatic flashbacks, depersonalisation or panic attacks; in those cases use it only with a clinician who knows your history. If you are seriously ill, use it with your care team. Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Sit in a supported chair rather than lying in bed, so that the body knows this is a practice and not sleep.
How to return at any moment. Agree on a signal now: say the word "lamp" aloud. If anything becomes uncomfortable, say "lamp", place your palm on your chest, breathe in fully, feel your feet on the floor, count from one to five and open your eyes on five. Nothing in this practice requires you to stay.
Sit as the king sat before the goddess. Feet on the ground, or legs folded if that is easy. Join the hands in the lap. Let the eyes lower.
Breathe out.
The room is quiet. The doors are shut, the lamps are low. A cool fragrance is in the air, like flowers in the night. Let it lull you, as it lulled the whole camp to sleep.
Breathe out.
Now bring the fingertips of one hand to your forehead, lightly. This touch means: remember. Let it rest there a moment, and let a veil lift from the mind, as dew lifts from a lotus at morning. Then let the hand return to the lap.
A single scene of your life comes forward. Let it be an ordinary one, a good one: a table, a walk, a voice you love. Watch it from a little above, the way Līlā watched from the sky: present, interested, untouched. See the colours. Hear the sounds.
Now notice something. All of it, every year that led to it, fits inside one small room of the mind. Let the years fold into a single breath. And let them open out again. A moment can hold a lifetime. A lifetime can rest in a moment.
Breathe out.
Now, gently, the light of the scene begins to dim, the way a landscape fades at sunset. Nothing is lost. It is only evening.
The sounds draw away. The body grows heavy, then light. Perhaps there is a sense of floating, or of sinking slowly, or of turning, like a leaf on still water. Let it be slow. Let it be kind.
The names of things loosen, as the directions of the compass loosen after twilight. You do not need them now.
And there is a rest, a soft swoon between two breaths, like the pause at the bottom of a breath. Rest there. Remember: one word, "lamp", brings you home.
(Pause: three slow breaths.)
Then something wakes, lightly, like a fragrance opening on the breeze. You are here, and aware, and at ease.
Someone has been waiting for you on the way. "I have been waiting here on thy way." Let the companion be whatever form is kind to you: a person, a light, a presence at your side. If no form comes, let the waiting itself keep you company. Walk together a little.
Now you come to a place of seeing. Here your life is looked at, not to be judged, but the way the king's life was looked at and found clean. Let the companion show you one thing in your life that is spotless: one act of care, one moment of honesty, one kindness you may have forgotten. Look at it. Let it be enough.
Now ask yourself one question, and let the answer be a single word or image: what do I wish to return to? Not what you must do. What you love. Let the word come. Hold it as the tomb was held in the king's mind, the place his desire knew the way to.
That word is your road home. You do not need a map. Let it draw you, the way a scent draws a bee.
(Pause: two to three minutes.)
Now the return.
You are coming back to a room you know. The doors, the low lamps, the chair beneath you.
A breath comes in through the nostrils, slowly, the way a vine finds its way into the earth. Let it go all the way down to the heart.
Feel warmth come into the face. Colour into the cheeks. Let the hands and arms soften, like branches in spring.
Feel the weight of the body on the seat. Feel the feet on the floor; press them down a little.
I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes open, clear and rested.
One. The breath is full and your own.
Two. Warmth in the hands and feet. Move the fingers.
Three. The sounds of the room come back, near and ordinary.
Four. Take one deep breath in, and let the shoulders roll.
Five. Eyes open. Sit up, as the king sat up.
Now ask aloud, as he did: "Who waits there?" And answer aloud: say your name. Say the day and the date. Say where you are. Name three things you can see, and one you can hear.
Say aloud the word you brought back. Write it down.
If you feel at all slow or far away, repeat the count from one to five, stand, walk a few steps, wash your face and drink some water. Do not drive or operate anything for fifteen minutes. If anything distressing stays with you, speak to your clinician.
Then go about your day, as Padma did his kingdom, carrying the word.