WHEN TENG YIN FENG WAS ABOUT TO DIE HE SAID TO THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM: I HAVE SEEN MONKS DIE SITTING AND LYING, BUT HAVE ANY DIED STANDING? 'YES, SOME,' THEY REPLIED.
'HOW ABOUT UPSIDE-DOWN?' ASKED TENG. 'NO, NEVER SUCH A THING,' THEY SAID. SO TENG DIED STANDING ON HIS HEAD AND HIS CLOTHES ALSO ROSE UP, CLOSE TO HIS BODY.
IT WAS DECIDED TO CARRY HIM TO THE BURNING GROUND, BUT HE STILL STOOD THERE WITHOUT MOVING. PEOPLE FROM FAR AND NEAR GAZED WITH ASTONISHMENT AT THE SCENE.
HIS YOUNGER SISTER, A NUN, HAPPENED TO BE THERE. SHE GRUMBLED AT HIM: WHEN YOU WERE ALIVE, YOU TOOK NO NOTICE OF LAWS AND CUSTOMS; AND EVEN NOW YOU'RE DEAD, YOU'RE MAKING A NUISANCE OF YOURSELF.
SHE THEN PRODDED HER BROTHER WITH HER FINGER, AND HE FELL DOWN WITH A BANG. THEN THEY WENT OFF TO THE CREMATORIUM.
The more rich a country, the more thinking there is; the poorer a country, the less thinking there is, because you cannot afford energy for thinking. If you fast, you will feel that in the night it is difficult to sleep, very difficult, because with nothing to digest the whole energy moves towards the head. The movement of energy towards the head has to be stopped, only then you can sleep. It is difficult to sleep standing in an upside-down posture.
'HOW ABOUT UPSIDE-DOWN' ASKED TENG. 'NO, NEVER SUCH A THING,' THEY SAID.
-- 'We have never heard of it, what are you talking about? A person standing on his head and dying?'SO TENG DIED STANDING ON HIS HEAD, AND HIS CLOTHES ALSO ROSE UP, CLOSE TO HIS BODY. That is possible. Until a few years ago, it would have simply been a myth, but now there are scientific explanations for it. It is possible because the body is electricity, it is nothing but bio-electricity. When somebody dies, the body becomes a pillar of energy and that pillar leaves the body. If it is very magnetic energy, as it has to be with a Master, the clothes will just be magnetized.
Not only did Teng die upside-down, but his clothes rose with his body, they clung to the body. If you rub your clothes on your body you will feel a certain electricity created in the clothes. The body is electric and when the body dies the electricity leaves the body; it is pulled upwards. Just with that flow those clothes might have risen. There is no need to think about it as a myth or a story -- it is possible.
SO TENG DIED STANDING ON HIS HEAD.
Is death so easy that you can die upside-down? Yes, death is easy if you have lived. Then you can choose the right moment to die. You must have heard about many saints making a prediction that they will be dying on a certain day, a certain time. People think that they know how to read the future. That is nonsense, nobody can read the future. Future means that which remains invisible. Then what do they do?
To the mind, the only possibility seems to be that somehow I know the future. That is not the truth, nobody knows the future. But a man who has lived totally can decide when to die. He is not predicting, he is simply saying that he has decided to die on a certain day at six o'clock in the morning.
If you have lived -- and when I say lived, I mean totally _ then you know what life-energy is. You come to know all the nooks and crannies of life energy; then you know all its tides, when it comes to flow and when it ebbs, where there is a peak and where there is a valley -- then you know all its nuances. If you have lived totally, you know yourself totally. Then you can decide when to die, there is no problem.