Carlos Pomeda – Indian Philosophy on Death and Dying

Yes. I’m actually working, I have several projects going but the main one that I’m being focusing on is a book about reincarnation, you know, bringing not only the ancient teachings about it, but also all the contemporary research. There’s very interesting rigorous research from several avenues and I want to put all of that together and also explain the whole mechanism of karma that underlies that. So I’ve been immersing that topic while I’ve been immersed in it for many years now, but very specifically now in the last few months.

Claire:

So before we get started, I just have to share with you Carlos how well synchronistic and meaningful it is to me to have this interview with you. Because in 2004, my mother was visiting me in Oakland and you were teaching the karma, death and dying course and she had not been diagnosed formally with Alzheimer’s yet, but we knew there was something going on. And we both took that course together and had no idea that that would be a foundation and a support for me for the next six years of being her main caregiver. And my father’s too. So and here we are, what, 16 years later and we’re talking about the same subject and for the listeners of this podcast, you know, there are a lot of people that have a lot of questions that are going through a lot of challenging times. And although a lot of it has to do with physical pain, I find that a lot of the pain is emotional and sometimes that’s worse than the actual physical pain. And there’s always a spiritual element that seems to be with that. So I think you’re a perfect guest to support everybody else the way you supported me so long ago. So welcome. Thank you.

Carlos Pomeda:

Thank you so much. It’s great to reconnect.

Claire:

Yeah, it is. So one of my first questions is that a lot of people, our culture really is just in denial about death. And from your perspective, how does that denial affect someone going through the end of life?

Carlos Pomeda:

Oh my God. That is, it is so fundamental to, to really think about this. One of the things I notice, which gives me a lot of hope is that there seems to be a cultural change. There has been a tremendous amount of literature, which I was not aware of. You know, it’s like in everything, once you start getting into a topic, you start uncovering more research and more resources and so on. And now I have this impression that there has been really a shift, a very slow shift that’s still going on culturally where people are talking more about this and so on. Maybe they’re also influenced by the whole baby boomer generation, right? Exactly.

So.. To the ostrich steak I pretended and I haven’t, or is that going to help. Also, there have been movements to, for people to reclaim the space of death. I remember for example, when my father passed away in, they were still in Spain, that I was really disturbed by how the state intervenes, you know, so that you are not, at least that’s the situation there. You are not allowed to spend time in the wake, you know, saying goodbye to your dear one. No, the state comes, takes the body to this particular place where they have all these showrooms where the bodies are in a refrigerated side of a, of a glass and then everybody else, all the visitors are on the other side of the glass.

Claire:

Are you saying the state, the state of Spain does that?

Carlos Pomeda:

Right? By law, when somebody dies you have to call a funeral home and then that’s what they do, right?

First year you go to these places that are called sanatoriums. It’s worth it. People are hurt. So basically the families come there and these places are also, they’re not centrally located. You know, they’re, they’re more, a little bit farther away. It’s like we want to push the thing under the rug, you know, we want to push it away.

We don’t want to think about it. We don’t want to see. So all the dead people let them be there and, and basically, you know, it is very limited. Like you’re already not physically with the part that the body of the departed one, right. But there’s this separation and then after that the funeral home disposes of the body the way you know, you arranged. Right. It was, this was, I found it very disturbing because in traditional cultures, as you know, it’s, it’s, you know, saying goodbye to the person. It’s a very integral part of how people live. And I think it’s a symptom. It’s an indication of this culture of denial that you’re talking about.

So I do hope it changes because I think that really helps you put your life in perspective. Far from being something you  know to be feared or to be, know like there’s this sort of image of something very dreary and so on. Of course there’s the loss that’s a, that’s a different thing, right? If you lose somebody, that’s a totally different thing, loss and grief. But death itself is not something to be feared, nothing to be understood and to be contemporary and to be integrated because we are all going to die.

Claire:

I feel like a lot of the people that I’ve worked with, this, they’ve spent, if that they can naturally get to a place of acceptance and that they’re going to die and that’s when the pain and the emotional anxiety is lifted because they get to that place of acceptance. And whether that’s from religious beliefs or whatever, I feel like there’s something actually even physiological that may happen in the dying process that supports us if we can get to that place and if families can get to that place of letting the dying person go, you know.

Carlos Pomeda:

Right, right. You have there the pioneering work of Dr. Kubler Ross, right? Who talked about the stages of grieving and the last one is the acceptance. Something happens when you come to that acceptance because you cannot fight with reality, right? I mean you lose every time. How can you fight with realities?

So the thing is how do we get to a place of acceptance? And here again, I think the culture has such a huge role to play. You know, how do we call electively, how do we deal with the reality of death? But also I, you know, as my own body gets older, I’ve come to feel that there is also, there’s like a silver lining I think in old age. Not that it will never happen, or except to me, and it’s tough to be in old age, right?

But get in there  and I think is that as the body loses  all the you know, the exuberance of youth and so on that your focus becomes more internalized and also that then you come to see death at some point as a relief actually, which by the way, something very interesting when we look at the research people they have near death experiences and things like that, that’s how they describe it. It’s  a relief to get out of this frigid physical body. But particularly when it’s old. You know, it’s actually, it’s a blessing. All of a sudden you’re free from this body.

And, and so I think there’s also like some wisdom, if you will, from nature.  We certainly, nobody wants to suffer and nobody wants to experience the loss. But as far as just the fact, that biological fact of death itself, I think it’s far from being a negative in itself.  It’s actually, tell liberation.

Claire:

Yeah. Yeah. So if I mean if we kinda got into Indian philosophy point of view, if, if the purpose of life is to know yourself, you know, what would how would that relate to the end of life? You know? And is it too late if you want it to, I mean, if you’re getting to the end of your life, is it too late to know yourself and have that experience?

Carlos Pomeda:

Right. But this is why I was saying that I think that the subject of death helps you get to put everything else in perspective on, actually to give meaning to life. Because for example, in my own journey, I realized the big shift that has happened or one of the big shifts that has happened is that before, I used to see life from the perspective of this lifetime, right? Whereas now it’s the other way around. My perspective is that this lifetime is a very small chapter in a much bigger journey of the soul.

Here is where we’re getting to the topic of reincarnation. Now, I have to say for me, having been brought up as a Catholic, I was brought up with this idea that you only live once. That always seemed to me tremendously unfair.

Claire:

Really.

Carlos Pomeda:

I remember when I was a kid thinking about, nobody asked my permission if I wanted to be born and now, you know, I’m being put here in this position, and then when I came across these teachings about reincarnation, all of sudden, everything made sense. Okay, so we are here in a process of evolution. Life is like a school. We are here to grow. We are here to learn about our true nature. We’re here to learn how to love others and so on and so forth.

But of course this is, it’s a matter of belief, right? What I have seen is that recently there have been a number of really important developments, as I said in the research about reincarnation from several different directions.

One of them is the near death experiences. There have been really interesting studies that show that there are many universal factors in the near death experience that kind of cross cultures, genders, age groups, religious backgrounds, you name it. So there are some common threads.

There have been even statistics about what are the experiences that people share, right? People who have had near death experience by and large, they get a large majority, I forget the exact percentage, but it’s something if I remember correctly, like 73% of people report a really positive experience out of report not being afraid of death anymore after having such an experience.

We look at the other area of research, which is with people who work in hospices and who work with the terminally ill and people who are making the transition and so on and what they share from the experience of people who are preparing for death and then making their transition. Same thing, I don’t remember the exact members right now, but they are like the immense majority of people. It comes to this point of like you were saying before of acceptance or, peaceful, a frame of being and so on.

And they start seeing things that of course from a materialistic perspective, you think, well this person is hallucinating. But the thing is, in these so-called hallucinations, which they call visions, they find out things that are factually correct that they didn’t know before. Right.

So he can not really be dismissed so easily as the hallucination because they find out about, you know, all the relatives who passed away and things like that. Just very fascinating to start looking into this and seeing how many converging points there are. And then the other area of research which is a very promising field is with people who remember, but they’re already children who remember a previous lifetime.

It is actually much more common than I ever thought. But what happens is that very often the parents, you know, when children start talking about something like that, their parents dismiss it and the child learns to block it very early on. But children in cultures that accept reincarnation, particularly countries like India, like Thailand, so mostly in Asia, they recall. And very often they recall facts about their previous birth. That then turned out to be correct.

There was a great pioneer of these studies, the scientific study, he was a psychiatrist, Dr. Ian Stevenson, he was a pioneer. He was a professor at the University of Virginia and actually the University of Virginia has created a center, they call it for a perceptual studies where they’re doing a rigorous scientific study of these phenomena. Right. And they, their position I liked very much because they say, look, we cannot prove that reincarnation exists, but they take a phenomenological approach, which means here are these reports from people and it turns out that these things that they are saying checked out, right. And things like the memory of our previous lifetime corresponds to birthmarks, all sorts of things that are really interesting information that they couldn’t know children who speak a different language spontaneously from the one that’s spoken in their area, things like that. Their position is the hypothesis that best explains all this data is reincarnation. And they are doing fantastic work studying.

Dr. Stevenson himself before he passed away, collected more than 800 cases that are, that are very tough to explain in any other way other than, you know, reincarnation. So it’s been a tremendous amount of literature lately. And as I said, very rigorous studies. Yeah. That they’re looking at this phenomenon and they give us a completely different idea of existence because then this lifetime is just as they said before, it’s just one chapter, that very, very long journey. So then the question becomes, okay, what are we supposed to do here?

Claire:

What do we do? What do we do with this information? No, my dad had a near death awareness, so he hasn’t passed over yet, but he had a near death awareness where you know, he was saying relatives, you know, in the corner of the room. Then he was, Oh, sweet, can you see? And he started naming off all of these relatives that I just, I don’t, but I really believe you do. You know? Yeah. That’s, that is really a common, but how wonderful that it’s you know.

Carlos Pomeda:

There’s a great book. It’s in the UK. There’s this, the psychiatrist called dr Peter Fenwick,

Claire:

Peter Fenwick?

Carlos Pomeda:

Peter Fenwick. He has research, particularly within hospices and it can be people who help others were dying and so on. Fascinating book. The book is called The Art of Dying and I found it really enjoyable, particularly reading it in airports, but you have your book and says the Art of Dying and just see people looking at you

Claire:

Conversation starter.

Carlos Pomeda:

Exactly. It’s really fascinating because again, he has done, they distributed all these questionnaires to people and they got several hundred responses, I think something like 600 responses that they’ve studied. And it’s again, it’s fascinating what people report seeing and their attitudes on how their attitudes about death change and so on is really beautiful.

Claire:

Yeah, it is. Now what if I mean, you know, we have a spiritual path, but a lot of people nowadays really don’t even have a spiritual path. And a lot of people that do are quite fixed in what their belief systems are. And you know, I mean, none of us can say this is what death is, but a what.. Yeah. What can they expect if they, is it too late to have the spiritual path? What if the one that they think they believe doesn’t, I mean, how does that work?

Carlos Pomeda:

In Dr Fenwick’s research, he has found that your own culture conditioning plays a role, which of course is not surprising, right? So that your, your religious background, your expectations, all of that for a certain percentage of people shapes their experience,

Claire:

Their dying experience.

Carlos Pomeda:

Exactly. And, and so for example, I’ve seen testimonies of people who had the near-death experience and they describe what they and what they experienced, what they saw, what they felt, for example, in Christian terms, if that is their background.

Same thing in, in Hinduism and Buddhism because, you know, I’ve, I’ve been talking about this topic all over the world. I get to hear directly from people who’ve had experiences from many different cultures. And very often you find this, that your own expectations can actually shape the experience when that happens. On the other hand, there’s also a large percentage of people whose experience is nothing like their condition.

There was a famous case a few years ago actually of a gentleman who was, I think he was a Pentecostal. But anyhow, he was a little bit of an agnostic, you know, saying, well, I don’t really know how can I be sure. And he had an experience, a spiritual experience when his brain was in a coma and that totally changed. It was nothing like his expectations or his religious expectations. Right? But it was very much typical of near death experiences. And again, he came back transformed.

Claire:

It was a good experience.

Carlos Pomeda:

Oh, it was a fantastic experience. And, and with so many of the common traits that you see in other near death experiences, and again, after he came back, he said he’s not afraid of death anymore. In fact, he’s dedicated his life to sharing his experience with others. So it has changed.

That’s the case where actually the religious views of the person change. Not that you have to give up your religion, but that informs, obviously, your experience informs it with a new level of depth so it’s not that you need a religious experience or, or religious belief rather. But I think just what we need is an open mind. For me that’s the most important. Just have an open mind.

Claire:

I had often heard that you know, you don’t need a religion, you know, to, to meditate, you know, and, and it’s just I mean meditation is such a part of how I have, I guess it had some kind of personal growth. It’s just through meditation. But I think you don’t need a religion to meditate. You don’t even watch and sleep. You don’t need religion to meditate and you probably don’t need a religion to die either. Yeah.

So the, okay, one of the questions, well I have other questions, but what, what are some practical practical things from your point of view on death and dying or Indian philosophy on death and dying about how to die well?

Carlos Pomeda:

Well, I would say the very first thing is meditate. Well, meditation is now, it has become mainstream, right? Because there’s really like literally tons of research on the many benefits of meditation. But in connection to this subject, I think one of the great boons of meditation is that it helps you to be aware of yourself without reference to the body. So much of our self image, if you think about it, then our identity, it’s really body identity, right? We think of ourselves in terms of gender or age or height or whatever. But those are attributes of the body, right, not of the soul, not of the essence of consciousness that we are at our core. So meditation really, I think it is profoundly transformational in that it teaches you how to be and how to be in pure awareness without reference to the body.

Actually, I remember many years ago when my mother took up meditation, the very first thing that she told me was I was, I was very surprised. She said, I’m not afraid of death anymore. It was [inaudible]. She had always been very afraid of death. But she’s not afraid at all. In fact, you know, she’s in her 90’s now and we talk about that very openly and she’s not afraid of it. She says she’s worried about suffering. Right? Like that’s something I find like nobody wants to suffer. Like everybody has said, well, I don’t want to be sick and in pain or, yeah, well that’s understandable. What about death itself? There’s no more fear. And that is something that I’ve seen in myself and in so many other people that as you take up a meditative practice, in a way it’s like a small death, right? In the sense that it is the death of a limited identity. Little by little.

Claire:

The anticipatory fear, I think what they call, what your mother experiences and that fear of going through the process itself and any pain or anxiety that might be, you know, nowadays with one of the good things about modern technology, you know, with medicine is that you can be all of the pain and the anxiety can be dealt with if you have the proper palliative care. You know, and it’s so much a part of what we’re trying to promote. But yeah, I think if you talk to people who’ve had the near death experiences, you know, they have done it and they’ve come back and they go, yeah, it’s just not that big of a deal. Yeah. So that’s something..

In the book that you’re writing, what are some of the, I mean, are there things in the book that pertains specifically to the dying process or to death or..

Carlos Pomeda:

Yes. It’s also an important part of my intention because I think we need the, you know, we come to the world, we don’t come alone, right. We have help. And I think when we depart is the same thing. Right. And it’s important to learn how to make the transition. So, I have a whole section there with advice for the person who is there of course. How you help others make the transition. How to be present with them, how to help them deal with any pending issues that they may have unresolved issues. Because it may trigger regret or sadness or whatever is having unresolved issues. So that’s a very important thing as you know better than me for, for the person who is helping but also for the person making the transition. I find the rituals, I find that there’s a lot of wisdom in the traditions because rituals serve search for yourself and also for the other person.

And there are a number of rituals that have the goal, which is to put you in a frame of mind where you’re at peace and you can just let go and move on. And I find in this regard, and also it’s a continuation to your earlier question about practices. I think it is very important to take time and reflect, reflect on our life and see if there’s any unfinished business that we have or any regrets. And if so, find in the way to, to become at peace with it because otherwise, you know, when you are, your deathbed is not the moment to start dealing with stuff. Right. So again, I think if we’re living in a culture that taught us to actually think about there’s more could help to get to this point of resolution and peace rather than trying to push it under the rug until it’s too late to do anything about it.

Claire:

So I’m gonna get back to your book before we actually sign off, but I have one more question I’ve got to ask. So Carlos, what is death?

Carlos Pomeda:

Death really is, is just the body. It’s just the body that from, you know, from an Indian perspective using the traditional Indian language, it’s a body whose source of prana or life energy ends. This is part also of what I want to bring out in the book showing the connection between the mental and the physical, right? We are, we’re holistic beings. Everything is interconnected. What keeps the body connected to the soul or vice versa is this link that is called prana in sanskrit, it means the vital energy and what is it that keeps the vital energy connected with the body? What keeps this link. It’s all this stuff, which again, in Sanskrit terms we would say karma that we bring to work out in a particular lifetime. And once that karma is worked out, right? So once we’ve experienced everything that we brought, we’ve done everything that we came to do. That link is program. There’s no more impetus for that vital energy to continue to revitalize the body. And so the mode of death, that’s also a part of your life experiences as part of the karma, right? Using that language. But the moment of death from that perspective depends on when that sort of spool, if you will, of unresolved stuff ends.

So, this is the traditional explanation, but the moment of death then is the moment when prana actually withdraws from the body. And just like at night, you know, when we go to sleep, there’s something very similar that happens. The only thing is that the body doesn’t stop living, but something similar happens.

If you watch the transition into sleep, it’s your vital energy, it’s your prana that does it right. You don’t do it, we don’t know how to do it, but prana literally draws you inside yourself into a mental world of dreams first, then into the world of deep sleep, and then it’s prana itself that in the morning brings you back into the body.

Claire:

Oh, this is so beautiful. Anyway, go ahead.

Carlos Pomeda:

Yeah. It’s a great metaphor because every, every day is like a microcosmic, a replica of the big cycle of the life. Sorry. Every, every night when we go to sleep, it’s like a little death. Actually, need, yeah. It’s traditional that you wash yourself up in the morning because it’s like a purification after the death of sleep.

Claire:

Sure. It’s a purification after the death of sleep. I love that.

Carlos Pomeda:

Right? So when you wake up, you have to purify yourself and, and it’s the same thing, right? This is your prana that again, brings your awareness back into the physical body. So death is like that. The only difference is of course it’s a big difference…

Claire:

You don’t come back.

Carlos Pomeda:

Exactly.

Claire:

Does the prana die?

Carlos Pomeda:

No, apparently it doesn’t die because prana is the manifestation of the soul. That’s what life is, right? Life is consciousness. Supreme consciousness manifesting itself. That’s how our consciousness, that’s life..

Claire:

..and it goes for this wherever we go.

Carlos Pomeda:
Right. Because we are consciousness. So each one of us, it’s an expression of that consciousness so live expresses itself through each one of us. So we can, that’s why death doesn’t really exist. You don’t want to apply the body.

Claire:

Yeah. You’ve touched on it just briefly, a little bit earlier about the specialness that we give to birth. You know, and, and all of the help and everything that comes when someone is born, you know, and again, and I think if anything that we can contribute is to get the message out that death needs that same kind of support and this sacred energy,the environment and the people around you that are celebrating a wonderful life and peacefully letting you transition to the next, wherever that is.

So, oh, Carlos, I could talk to you forever and ever..

Carlos Pomeda:

Yes and it’s very interesting. It’s a hot topic.

Claire:

It’s a hot topic and yeah, I think it’s pretty pertinent, well before we say goodbye though, number one, thank you so much for doing this.

Carlos Pomeda:

You’re very welcome.

Claire:

So happy to see you again after 16 years. You look fantastic. It’s really good to see you. So.. Yeah, if people wanted to get hold of you, what’s the best way for them to reach you and give us the title of your book slowly one more time?

Carlos Pomeda:

My book doesn’t have a title yet.

Claire:
Okay. Forget about the title. Nevermind.

Carlos Pomeda:

It’s a  working title. I have something like, I run the mystery of karma and the journey of the soul, but we’ll see.

Claire:

Okay. All right.

Carlos Pomeda:

But the easiest way to stay in touch is with my website is my last name, pomeda.com.

Claire:

P-O-M-E-D-A dot com

Carlos Pomeda:

Right. So that’s the easiest way, cause there’s a contact page there. There’s also a list. We don’t say we don’t send newsletter even though it says newsletter above. Whenever there’s an announcement, we send them email.

Claire:

Yeah. Well, okay. Have a very safe trip to Europe.

Carlos Pomeda:

Thank you very much.

Claire:

Give our love to Suzy. Yeah. It’s just great to have you again, Carlos, and be well. Thank you so much.

Carlos Pomeda:

Great. Thank you. Thank you so much.