This second ethereal experience has more or less defined my life's path. Let me try to concisely recapitulate the turn of events, that had manifested towards this particular encounter.
Somehow lacking a sound sleep or simply after losing the motive push to get up from bed at 0800 in the morning (quite unusual for an early riser), I was still in a state of deep slumber, but was aware of it. There was also a gravity of feeling within this slumber, which could have been along the very lines of death. Breath drawn out, heart almost still, lack of any wilful control over my body. May be my own, may be not, but it was just powerful and it was in a sense, omnipresent. Add to that, my mind's utter ineffectiveness, as if held by a sudden uncontainable force, I was made to delve into a strange form of communication. Later someone explained this as an intuitive message, made possible via one's spiritual eye (point between the eyebrows). I was not able to decipher anything, neither about the source nor the medium of communication, till late afternoon. What could only be deduced, was that, it was an impending death with a sudden painful bereavement within my family. Someone very close! No visuals or anything similar, but in a way an irrefutable! And at the same time, I was certain that this was never a dream, it was a real-time precise communication, intended for a specific soul. And the thoughts of portending mortality supposed to occur in my family, filled all accompanying thoughts with merciless anxiety.
Moments later, I got a call from my Mom, and she shared regarding urgent official orders from the Central Government for my Dad. He had to take one of the earliest flights to Delhi. And eventually reach one of the remotest villages in Uttar Pradesh (UP). It was to oversee that the running elections go peacefully. There had been some shooting incident earlier and one of the earlier observers had been injured by bullets. Of course, remote villages in UP or anywhere in India don't have airstrips. It had to be a composite air-road-air-road journey, with a hundred or more miles to be covered by road. After listening to these accounts, I was mentally shaking with fear. Dad had to take two flights and two cars to reach that particular village. What if my premonitions came true! Somehow I was sure of a death, but lacked any idea on the subject. Unable to tell any of this to Mom and with shaken prayers to God, I boarded a train back home. It was a planned trip and the tickets had been made a few weeks earlier.
Comically though, my accompaniment was Chetan Bhagat's new book then, 'The 3 mistakes of my life' to help cover these six or seven anxious hours, with some senseless comedy. After going through a few pages, a realisation dawned upon me, that it was perhaps Bhagat's fourth mistake to have written that book, in the first place! Bravely with scyllas of sarcasm and with an almost dispassionate reading, three-fourths of the book were completed. This was when my Mom called again, sobbing. I got to know that my maternal grandfather had passed away! So it was he, the soul behind the communication. Contrary to a relative scenario of losing one's parent, I felt an immediate sigh of relief and surety, that my father was safe from harms way. Along came the sadness, that my mother had lost hers. All I could do was to console her, with my heart and soul. She mentioned that she would be leaving with her sister at around 7 pm, which was roughly coinciding with the time of my arrival at home. I wanted to go with her, to help unfold this mystery. The rest of the journey helped give a thought to subtle (astral) forces, of which we become aware only when, we are not aware of ourselves (A tiny bubble of laughter I, Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself). Pretty concocted is the human being. Composed of the same elements as Earth or Stardust, how can (s)he be so misplaced to assert with ample confidence that the Earth & the Stars are just gases, without consciousness!
And the last page of Bhagat's fourth mistake was flipped with a high dispassion for content. After reaching home, and having some food (devoid of any spices as per Hindu customs) and we embarked on a greater journey, back to that quiet place, where my grandfather, mom, dad and even I was born; the ancestral home where, grandfather gave away his physical being. We covered six more hours by road and it was well past midnight, when we reached the place.
Paying my respects to all elders present there, all of us went to pay respects to our late grandfather's physical body. He was lying on his usually unadorned bed, and I noticed a perfectly straight spine, and a remarkable expression of freedom & peace, on his face. Blood circulation had stopped, which added additional lightness to his already very fair skin. Some cotton balls were plugged in his nose and ears. Then, mysteriously while I was exiting through the other door, suddenly I felt a substantial force field (astral field perhaps) enveloping me. And it was felt, whenever I entered my grandfather's room again. Trying two or three times and it did seem certain, that an(many) unseen forces had been encompassing and enveloping that very room. It was a strange feeling, and there were doubts regarding these forces sharing the same origin, as to the forces which led the original communication. I can't help feeling that the room was surrounded by angels, blessing everyone, since it uplifted the energy :)
My maternal grandfather had been a spiritual (not religious though) person throughout his life, keeping himself engaged in his spiritual quest through Kriya-Yoga (& meditation) for extended times. During the golden times, when we were kids, I can remember him doing Bhramari pranyam with long AUMs (pronounced OM), audible even at a distance, coming from the prayer room. My recollection comes with a photo-frame of Paramahansa Yogananda & Maa Kali, on his altar. Later I came to know from my mother, that he had received his teachings from a direct disciple of both Paramahansa Yogananda & his Guru Swami Yukteswar. In case you may not know, Paramhansa Yogananda is known to be an Avatar(ava - down, tri - to pass, or Divine Descent in human form) and the most loved author for many as well as for me, personally. He was assigned the responsibility to spread Kriya-Yoga in the West, by Mahavtar Babaji (below is a photo of the revered Babaji by late Sananda Lal Ghosh, a disciple & younger brother of Paramhansa Yogananda).
The most famous Yoganandaji's literary works is Autobiography of a Yogi (AY), which records a Man's eternal quest, played by a young devotee (he himself). The book has sold more than 10 Mn copies worldwide and has changed the lives of at least 30 Mn people across the globe at least in some way. Many successful personalities in creative and business fields, including Steve Jobs, George Harrison, Pt. Ravi Shankar among others, have been deeply inspired by the AY book. It is also known that, this was the only book on Steve Job's iPad and he used to read the book once every year.
This brings to memory, rather some funny anecdotes. Six years ago when one of my close friends (& engineering batchmate) had asked me whether I had read this particular AY book, I just expressed utter bewilderment, on who reads these kind of books. Later onwards, I did discover that the same book had been lying there in our bookshelves for the last 15-20 years. And when I had asked my mother, what brings joy, she first told me to study and get into one of the best engineering schools. Then again, after a few years when I asked the same question after completing engineering, she told me that may be I might be happy with further studies in one of the top B-schools. Then I asked again, and she handed me the AY book. Six years later, I found myself gleaming greedily through this book's content again and again and again! My mom could have just given me the book and reduced those blind efforts of six years. For, Joy as I discovered later, is something that is within yourself, you just need to tune into it, by calming your outflowing energies through meditation.
The AY book though does not tell much about the greatness of the author himself, who was perhaps much greater many of the spiritual personas he has met in AY, and whom he has praised so generously, so humbly. That's when you want a continuity to know more about the author himself. This brings me to the second most prolific author with the same aspect of divine love & kindness, better known by the name of Swami Kriyananda. I can recommend one of his books from my heart, for people who have loved the AY. Kriyananda authored The New Path. There is also another loved book Mejda by Yogananda's disciple and younger brother Sananda Lal Ghosh, which encompasses funny but deeply spiritual anecdotes of their childhood.
Coming back to the story, I still inwardly get a feeling that my grandfather was much more spiritually (a devotee in complete secret) elevated, than we could have possibly imagined during his lifetime. My mother was told that he did not have any karma left on the physical plane by the Brahmin doing the puja, since there was no mark left (An old Hindu custom where a mark left on sand decides what the next incarnation/form for a deceased one could possibly be, personally I am not the right person to comment on it). However, the fact he did consciously convey his death to his grandchild before it actually occurred, does give a strong enough reason to believe that he knew his time of leaving the physical body. A devotee in complete secret, who did bless his grandchildren with directions (including my maternal cousins & we together constitute one closely knit family), for our own spiritual searches, given respective spiritual inclinations: divine love for the devotee, divine wisdom for the discerning and right action for the karma yogi. Many miracles followed the event in the family, some decipherable other not so, close to our hearts.
This experience had established an alternate reality, with a much greater scheme of things, beyond the usual mortality of life & death and perhaps a vast array of thoughts and hidden inside man's real ambition. The following year I joined one of the B-schools, located in one of the most scenic towns of India - Indore. And almost every day of this rigorous course, I have asked God to give me Kriya. I could start on the path of Kriya Yoga only 4-5 years later and have been able to validate these experiences with different aspects of divine contact. Never knowing that my grandfather loved me so deeply, I am glad that he did in the same way Master (Yogananda) does.
Here is a picture of both my paternal (left) and maternal grandfathers (right).
PS: Some additions after six long years, when understanding is relatively deeper & after finally taking all four Kriya Dikshas.
