Let’s start the ritual ‘Dharme Lakshana’ translated as ‘From birth to death’. While doing this ritual, feel how you change. As much as possible, try to manifest every stage of life, from the newborn, to the aged and the dead. Feel  that you are transient in your lives. Feel a keen need to use this short time to comprehend Truth.

Mentally, look at your body.

Take up the shavasana position and completely relax, feel comfort and peace in the whole of your body. Imagine and visualize that you don’t exist yet and that your soul has not manifested on Earth. You are in the subtle planes; you don’t know anything yet about embodiment on Earth, about your past embodiments. You are a pure, free soul…. divine individual consciousness. Finally, the moment comes when, at a precise time, you take up form in the womb of a woman, ‘pregnant with a little child’.

Let’s experience this moment; let’s do the pose of the newborn. Bend your legs, and lift them up, stretched, to your chest; lift your body upwards vertically whilst crossing your arms on your chest. Put your knees on your forehead, with your shanks pointing straight up. Visualise the whole of your body, and feel all of its muscles. With your intention send waves of relaxation to the muscles of your back and to the whole spine. Imagine and visualise that you are a little child in your mother’s womb. You don’t know anything about the world, life and Earth. You are simply pure consciousness. You only hear your mother’s heart beat and the sound of her blood. It is comfortable, easy, and pleasant to be in this quiet state. Nothing threatens you. You are not worried about anything. In a short while, you will go through the evolution of the whole life of Earth, beginning with a being made of a single, tiny cell and ending with a whole person. In the womb stage, you go through it: a moment you may have goose pimples and the next fins, and then the claws of a animal, or an animal’s face , nonetheless, in the final stage, you become human baby.

Here comes the period of your karmic embodiment on the Earth.

Feel the planetary flow, which resonate with your karma, your causal matrix. The planetary flow of the planets is in a state of resonation with your matrix, right at this moment, that of your birth. This is the karma that you have earned in your previous life. Your organism instinctively feels these fluidity and releases certain substances into your mother’s womb. The mother’s womb contracts and pushes you out, into this world.

Let’s experience the moment of your birth. Do a somersault backwards over your head. Freeze in the posture of the ‘Greetings to the Sun’. Take the first deep breath of your life. Feel how it expands your lungs and fills the whole of your body with energy. At this moment you become an autonomous being; your personal horoscope is now activated. You become independent from your mother. Concentrate your attention in the area of the Muladhara chakra, the centre of movement. Imagine that you are a small child who starts moving actively, moving your arms, legs, crawling, climbing and walking on four legs. You grow and develop. Everything around you is so interesting! You stretch your hand towards everything. You want to know everything by tasting it. You make a first effort to walk. You fall, hurt yourself, but you get up again, fall again and finally you learn to walk. You experience more and more moments. You learn more and more new movements. Your body does not grow by the days, but by the hours. You develop and grow. And you don’t notice how from little baby you turn into a child and from a child into a teenager, and from a teenager  into a young man or woman. You start feeling that something changes in your perception.

The time of carefree childhood fades deep into the past. You say good bye to your youth.

Now, let’s take the next posture, the pose of the lover. Gently get up and stand on your left knee. Place your hands joined in front of your chest and turn your body as far as you can to the right. Concentrate your attention on the area of Svadhistana chakra, the sexual centre. In your mind, take in the whole of your body, feel every muscle of it. Feel the vertebras of your spine and its muscles. Imagine and visualize that you are a young man. You start being filled with a strange languor. The whole world seems wonderful and beautiful to you. You are filled with insane power. You want to rebuild the whole world, seeing how people suffer in it. You want to help everyone. You want to change this life, to help everyone, to transform everything, make a revolution in this world. This huge power given to you makes you think that life is like a rainbow. No wonder that in youth people look at the world through pink glasses. Feel this sweet and ravishing state. You start creating, you start not sleeping at nights, and your whole state is expressed in your specific creativity. This state can never be forgotten or repeated. Yet, gradually, the time of mad youthfulness ends and you go into the next step of your life.

Gently turn and stand up. Place your left hand on your hip, bend the right hand and make a fist, turning as far as you can to the right. Feel your whole spine, turn the body, head and eyes as much as possible to the right. Feel the twist of every vertebra of your body. This is the posture of the house master. Imagine and visualize that you are a middle aged person. As you have become an independent person, your motivation goes to the Manipura chakra. Your own house, those close to you, your family, children and your second half, appear.  Your whole circle of interest is geared towards social things: getting social means for existence as well as a clear way of getting to them. You constantly think of how you can go further; in what? How? Feel a state of responsibility, concentration and harmony of all your activities. Nobody can take care of you, but it is you who needs to take care of all those close to you. That’s how, in a never ending chain of events, another period of your life passes and you don’t notice that you start feeling that your life is coming to a dead end. You feel dissatisfaction with it. A nw stage starts in your life.

Let’s move on to the next posture, the pose ‘farewell to the world’. Gently turn and stand straight, placing your joined hands in front of your chest. Focus your attention on Anahata chakra and visualize the following picture:  half of your life has already passed, your children have grown up and left you and the first grey hair appear on your head. You are alone and think about the meaning of life. You think: “Why do I live on Earth? Why is everything this way? You feel that you cannot live anymore in the way you lived before. You start thinking about the meaning of human life, you see that money, politics, social  position as well as various plans you make are very unsteady. Sooner or later all this will be destroyed, including your relationships with people. Today people think one thing of you, tomorrow something else, and then, the day after something else again:  their opinion is changing like the wind, and so you become disappointed in this world. You think, “Why do I live? What is the essence of my existence?” You feel empty inside. You understand that everything is unsteady and menaingless in this world. And now a strong and final decision appears in your soul: go to a monastery, to go to a ashram. You want to move on the spiritual path. How can you do it? You don’t know. And you are searching for an environment in which your spiritual development becomes possible.

For the first time in all your life you cross the threshold of a monastery and become a novice. Let’s experience this moment. Let’s do the position of the novice. Place the right hand on the hip, bend your left arm with the tip of your fingers together, turn as far as you can to the left, bending your arm at the elbow, with fingers facing upwards. In your mind, visually take your body in. Feel that you are your spine and feel all the muscles surrounding it. Yogis say that the spine is cured by twisting. Feel every vertebra twisting in your back. Imagine and visualize that you are obedient: a person, who has come to a monastery or ashram and has acquired 3 great assets: a teacher, teaching and a community. The Teacher is the person, the only existing being on Earth, who can tell you personally what you should do for your growth and development; the teaching transmits the common doctrine about what a person should do to stop suffering;  finally, the community gives the structure of life, a daily schedule that helps sadhani, the spiritual practice for personal development. Thanks to these three assets, you grow and develop. Feel sharp concentration in the Vishudha chackra. You being to show an interest towards all types of science, and knowledge. You want to understand why the world is built like this. What is the cause of human suffering? How should you develop and grow? You ask your Teacher thousands of questions. You feel great gratitude towards Him for this precious gift he gives to you. You devote your time to studying these practices, praying and self-development. You grow, develop, and comprehend the Truth. And, naturally, you express everything you have acquired in a creative way. This is not the same creativity that you had in youth. This creativity is bright and constructive, and it is based on the understanding of all the laws of the cosmos. This is objective art, expressed through you as through the flow. Feel the ravishing and the inclusiveness of this state.

The time of middles age passes and life starts heading towards its end. Your teachers, who were with you, leave this world. Life brings you a new lesson. Let’s do the next posture, the posture of the ascetic. Smoothly turn, stand on your right knee, join your hands in front of your chest and turn your body as far as you can to the left. Visualize and take in your whole body. Feel all your muscles supporting your spine. Imagine and visualise this picture: you are getting old, you are now alone, your spiritual teachers have left this world. You not only feel the sorrow of the separating from them, but you also feel a great sense of responsibility. You understand that you are the one who must deliver this great knowledge to the world. Bring your concentration to your Ajna chakra. Feel a great concentration and sense of purpose. All day long you write treatises, you have discussions with your students, the new obedient ones. You constantly think what else to do in delivering this higher knowledge. Your successors ask you spiritual questions in the same way as you did a long time ago. You devote the rest of your life to this great task and, at the same time, you feel that also your days are counted. You understand that, in not so much time, the moment for a new stage in your spiritual development will come to you. Now you must prepare yourself for the transition to another world.

Let’s do the next posture, the pose of the sanyasin. Gently turn and take the position of padmasana. Place your hands on your knees and join the thumb and index fingers together, concentrate on the top of your head. In your mind, imagine that you leave this world. You seclude yourself in a separate cell or go to a cave. You start your personal self-development in the silence of the cave, in the coldness of the cave’s halls you feel calmness. Nobody disturbs you; there is nobody to remind you of your personality. You become pure essence, you start praying, fasting, meditating….. You are already a very old man, your beard and hair have turned  white, your glance looks towards eternity. You review the whole of your life, from the moment of your birth to its very end. You see how many mistakes, how many unsuccessful moments you have experienced in this life. You give a completely new meaning to all that happens inside of you. You experience something that you would do differently. You review your whole life. Your soul is being purified. Your prayer is directed towards the highest realm. By fasting, your vital body is purifying itself from unnecessary and bad energy; your whole being becomes refined. In this vacuum of information, in the conditions of pratyahara, the organs are disconnected from the objects of sensation, and so meditation appears. You can see beings of the subtle world. With the help of prayer, you tune in to the higher realm and start communicating with angels, archangels, with the spiritual teachers of the humankind. You understand how fast flowing your life has been and you feel inevitability and closeness of death.

Let’s experience this solemn moment. Gently stretch your legs and take the position of shalasana, or more precisely, savasana, the pose of the dead.

Mentally take in the whole of your body. Feel every muscle. In your mind imagine that, in complete calm and peace, you move to another world. Your body is like old pieces of clothing that were given us for a certain time. Take them off. You are not sorry at all about this, you release yourself from rags. In one moment, in front of your eyes, flashes all your life, from the moment of your birth to its end and, death. In the crazy kaleidoscope of events, your whole life rushes through in one moment, and in the next moment you feel that you detach yourself from the physical body.

When the free spirit is not distracted by anything, death is as easy as falling asleep. In the black waters, like a ray of light I plunge; and its essence cannot be argued anymore. Feel that with ease, with prayer you strive to the higher realms. Quietly you head towards another world and strive to eternity. The one whom today we were calling “I”, yesterday was completely different, and in addition, nobody knows who the “I” who is known today will become in tomorrow.

Those who will always remember these words, will be able to release their souls from all chains.