Some people, when they’re expecting death, may start repeating a name of God because Krishna says,
“You remember Me.”
So taking His name is a way of remembering Him. When they’re on their deathbed, they keep saying, “Ram, Ram,” “Shyam, Shyam,” or something like that. But then what happens is, if death comes at that time, let’s say that person’s last word was “Ram” or “Shyam”, but that’s not the moment they’re leaving their body. That’s just the moment their brain stopped working. Their senses shut down, their brain shut down, then their breathing stops, then their heart stops, but still their soul hasn’t left their body. Otherwise, how could someone be resuscitated after their heart has stopped?
So it’s quite a bit later, quite some time after, that the soul actually leaves the body, and that’s the moment of spiritual death. Meaning, that’s the actual death. The doctor may have pronounced you dead hours ago, but when your soul leaves your body, that’s when you’re really not coming back. So, at that moment, we have to remember God. And at that moment, an ordinary soul is not conscious; we’re unconscious.
So, at that time, Shree Krishna says, “What will you be remembering?”
Because your subconscious mind will be active. He says you’ll be thinking of whatever you’re attached to. Whatever you’re attached to in life, whatever you spent your whole life doing, chintan (contemplation) of, thinking of a lot, that is what you’ll remember at that time. And as your soul is leaving your body, accordingly you’ll be reborn.
So that’s why it’s said that we’re reborn in the field of our attachments. If we did a lot of bad actions, we might not be born as a human being again, but we’ll still be reborn in the field of our attachments. Meaning, we could be born as a dog or a fly or something. But if we’re attached to our house, say, and we didn’t want to leave it, then we could be born as a fly on a wall in our house, and someone could be chasing us around with a fly swatter. It means that we’re reborn according to whatever we’re attached to.
It makes no difference what our last word was.
