Transitions: Living & Dying a Yogi (Part 2)

How can you enjoy life to its fullest? Examine your fears. The fear of losing what we love most keeps us from living fully. Death is the greatest of all fears. As the saying goes, everyone dies—beggars and sages alike. But accomplished yogis know how to die consciously, without suffering. Can we experience the same? As Swami Rama explains, the path of self-transformation helps us master our desires and eliminate our fears. We do this through a dedicated practice of meditation and self-dialogue.

Examine your desires. Most of us are drawn toward a variety of sensual pleasures, all of which are fleeting. But yogis use the mind as an instrument to truly enjoy life and to discover divine bliss, which is eternal. They transcend the three states of consciousness (waking, dreaming, and sleeping) in samadhi.

In this previously unreleased video from 1987’s Path of Fire & Light lectures, Swami Rama explains how the practices of meditation, yoga nidra (yogic sleep), and self-dialogue help us transcend fear and negativity to find unending joy—and how, when the time is right, the same practices can help us die peacefully and painlessly. This is how to live and die a yogi.