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PHASE 1. The earth element degernerates and dissolves into the water element. The solid aspects of the body, such as bone, are no longer capable of serving as a mount, or foundation, for consciousness; the capacity of the solid aspects to do so dissolves into, or is transferred to, the fluids of the body, such as blood and phlegm.

Now the capacity of the water element to act as a base of consciousness becomes more manifest. Your body becomes dramatically thinner and your limbs loosen. You loose physical strenght - the vitality and luster of the body radically diminishes, leaving it worn out. Your sight becomes dark und unclear; you can no longer open and close your eyes.

PHASE 2. The capacity of the water element degenerates and dissolves into the fire element - the warmth that maintains the body - and the fire element's capacity to serve as a basis of consciousness is enhanced. You no longer experience feelings of pleasure and pain, or even neutral feelings, associated with the senses and the mental consciousness.

Your mouth, tongue, and throat dry due to loss of saliva, and scum forms on the teeth. Other fluids, such as urine, blood, regenerative fluid, and sweat, dry up. You can no longer hear sounds, and the usual hum in the ears stops. What you see in your mind looks like puffs of smoke, or thin smoke throughout a room, or smoke billowing from a chimney.

PHASE 3. The capacity of the fire element degenerates and dissolves into the wind element - the currents of air, or energy that direct various bodily functions such as inhalation, exhalation, burping, spitting, speaking, swallowing, flexing the joints, streching and contracting the limbs, opening and closing the mouth and eyelids, digestion, urination, dafecation, menstruation, and ejaculation.

The warmth of the body diminishes, resulting in an inability to digest food. If you have conducted your life perdominantly without virtue, the bodily warmth initially gathers downward from the top of the head to the heart, the upper body becoming cold first;

PHASE 4. The capacity of the coarser wind element degenerates and dissolves into consciousness. The tongue becomes thick and short, its root turning bluish. Experiencing physical touch is impossible, as is physical action. The breath through the nostrils ceases, but there are subtler levels of breath, or wind, so the cessation of breath through the nose does not indicate the completion of the death of a process. What you see in your mind is like a flame of a butter lamp or a candle (or like the flickering light above a butter lamp or candle). At first the light flickers as if the butter or wax were almost consumed. Then, when the winds on which mental conceptions ride begin to collapse, the flame's appearance becomes steady.

In general, the body of a human is composed of the four elements; however, due to variations in the channels and winds within the framework, different people experience different internal appearances during the process of dissolution.

The Better your Karma, The Better Your Dying!
Realize, that the myriad appearances, some even frightening and horrible, which might occur while dying are due to karma. Do not be distracted by them.

Near-Death Experiences
Sometimes people who are clinically dead experience tunnels of light, or meet people etc. They are not really dead; the spiritual dying process continues long after the breathing has stopped. The most subtle consciousness usually remains in the body for three days, unless the body has been ravaged by disease, in which case it might not remain even a day.

Uncertainty and your karma during the intermediate state are the reason for various appearances. Your place, reliance, behavior, food, friends, and feelings are completely uncertain. • Uncertainty of place means that you constantly arrive in various places. • Uncertainty of reliance means that you seek refuge in the transient: bridges, tunnels, wells, and so forth. • Uncertainty of behavior means that you abruptly change and waft about like a feather on the wind. • Uncertainty of food means that you see delicious foods but are unable to eat then unless they have been intended for you. • Uncertainty of friends means that you take up company with random beings. • Uncertainty of feeling means that you experience sudden changes in mood - sometimes happy, sometimes pained, sometimes sad, angry, and so forth.

Stages of Dying

The final four phases of death begin with three levels of subtle mind and conlude with one phase of very subtle mind. The gross levels of consciousness having ceased, three phases of subtle mind emerge. As you proceed through these three levels, your consciousness becomes increasingly non-dualistic, since there is less and less sense of subject and object.

PHASE 5. When all eighty conceptions of the gross level of consciousness dissolve, the first of three subtler levels of mind emerges, a vivid white appearance that dawns of its own accord. This is a luminous openness, like an autumn sky suffused by white light. Nothing else appears to this mind. The mere abscence of obstruction, the coarse conceptions have disappeared, leaving a sense of openness.

The first of the three subtler states is called "appearance", because an appearance like moonlight dawns, but there is no such light shining from outside. This state is also called "empty", because it is beyond the eighty conceptions and the winds on which they ride.

PHASE 6. When the mind of white appearance and its wind dissolve into the mind of increase-of-appearance, a vivid red-orange appearance dawns of its own accord. This is an even brighter openness, like an autumn sky free from dust and clouds pervaded by red-orange light. Nothing else appears to this mind.

This state is called "increase of appearance" because an appearance like very vivid sunlight appears, but again there is no such light shining from outside. This state is also called "very empty", because it is beyond the mind of appearance and the wind on which it rides.

PHASE 7. When the mind of red-orange increase-of-appearance and its wind dissolve into the mind of near-attainment, a vivid black appearance and its dawns of its own accord. Now it is like an autumn sky free from dust and clouds and pervaded by the thick darkness that falls right after dusk. Nothing else appears to this mind. During the first part of the mind of black near-attainment, you are still aware, but in the latter part you become unconscious in a very thick darkness like fainting.

This phase is called "near-attainment" because it is close to manifestion of the mind of clear light. It is also called "greatly empty", because it is beyond the mind of increase-of-appearance and the wind on which it rides.

For most people death occurs when the subtlest level of mind manifests. But its important to know, that at this time the dying process is not completed.