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...unless you realize the inner light, you will not know that which is beyond death. In a sense it is beyond death and beyond life also. Only then does it become immortal. That which is born will have to die; that which is alive will be dead. So only that can be beyond death which is beyond life itself.
Light is beyond life and beyond death. Whenever mystics have been talking about light, they always talk about deathlessness, because the moment you enter the inner light, the source of life, you enter deathlessness.
So unless you are bathed in your own inner light, and in the nectar, in the immortality which belongs to that light, you are not ready to enter the Divine temple.
When Krishna showed his infiniteness to Arjuna, Arjuna said, "I don't see you, Krishna, I see only light. Where have you gone? I see only thousands and thousands of suns - and I am scared. You come back!" When one enters into the inner light... it is there, because without it you cannot be. Nothing can be.
You are, so you have a deep realm of light. The moment you enter it, you are bathed. and this bath means many things.
Ordinarily, when you enter a temple, outwardly you take a bath. You take a bath because dirt can be washed from the body, and you can enter into the temple with a purer body - fresh, undirty, clean. But when you are really entering into the Divine temple. your body is not entering: your consciousness is entering. And you cannot bathe your consciousness with water. But consciousness can have a deep cleansing in inner light, and that deep cleansing means cleansing the dirt of all karma - all actions.
Whatsoever you have done, whatsoever you have been, whatsoever your past has been. it dings to you - just like dirt, just like dust, it clings to you. When you enter inner light, it disappears. Why?
Because the moment you enter that inner light, everything takes the velocity of light and nothing can remain. The dirt, the dirt of karmas, dissolves - all that you have done in all your lives. When you enter that realm, everything becomes light, because with light, in that velocity, nothing can remain anything else. So it is not simply a bath. All the karmas, just disappear, they become light, and the consciousness is cleaned. It becomes fresh and young as it should be, as it is meant to be.
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