kevin82
31-08-2009, 10:47 AM
http://www.tibet-trilogy.com/images/book_of_the_dead_us.jpg
Tibetan book of the dead (Bardo Thodol) which was written in the 8th century. The book is a funerary text.
It is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place. It is the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.
The book mentions interesting things about serpent entities.
It talks about the darker side of one's own nature (their "Shadow") sometimes reveals itself in the serpentine form in the afterlife. It becomes a form of mirror through which a person can encounter the feelings or thoughts they repressed when alive. In other words, the frightening serpentine forms we see in the afterlife, are not symbols of evil, as western tradition has conditioned us to believe, but they are symbol of all that we fear to see in ourselves.
Tibetan priests teach people who are about to die that, unless they act neutral or passive towards these reptilian forms in the afterlife, they will become engaged in conflict with something that can never be ignored or destroyed and they will forever be trapped in that particular stage of the afterlife.
"You will hate them! You will panic! You will faint! Your own visions having become devils, you will wander in the life cycle."
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Translation: Robert Thurman, Bantam 1994. p162
Tibetan book of the dead (Bardo Thodol) which was written in the 8th century. The book is a funerary text.
It is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place. It is the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.
The book mentions interesting things about serpent entities.
It talks about the darker side of one's own nature (their "Shadow") sometimes reveals itself in the serpentine form in the afterlife. It becomes a form of mirror through which a person can encounter the feelings or thoughts they repressed when alive. In other words, the frightening serpentine forms we see in the afterlife, are not symbols of evil, as western tradition has conditioned us to believe, but they are symbol of all that we fear to see in ourselves.
Tibetan priests teach people who are about to die that, unless they act neutral or passive towards these reptilian forms in the afterlife, they will become engaged in conflict with something that can never be ignored or destroyed and they will forever be trapped in that particular stage of the afterlife.
"You will hate them! You will panic! You will faint! Your own visions having become devils, you will wander in the life cycle."
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Translation: Robert Thurman, Bantam 1994. p162