This month sees the release of a new installment in the Sacred Text series, The Sacred Fire of Death: Reflections on the Katha Upanishad. The conversation Gangaji and Chris had about the Katha Upanishad was recorded more than 20 years ago. It is now being released since being digitally restored using advanced technology. Ahead of its release staff writer Harriet Watson sat down with Chris Mohr to ask him a few questions: Why now? and What will the reader get from listening? (No spoilers!)

The audio production includes readings from the Katha Upanishad with interludes of conversation between Gangaji and Chris Mohr. The part of Nachiketas is played by Amber Terrell. Gangaji plays Yama, the Ruler of Death, and Eli Jaxon-Bear serves as the narrator. The production uses the translation by Swami Ambikananda Saraswati.  You can now purchase an audio download of The Sacred Fire of Death: Reflections on the Katha Upanishad in our online download store. If you are a With Gangaji member, you can use your one free download per month benefit.

Harriet: Why was it important to you to make this recording about the Katha Upanishad with Gangaji? How does it relate to the larger context of her teaching?

Chris: Twenty-five years ago, I found a series of poems that I wanted to set to music, and I asked Gangaji to record them. Believe it or not, that music hasn't come out yet. But we both loved doing it so much that we wanted to do something else. So, we came up with A Love Secret Spoken, which is a collection of poems by Rumi with Gangaji’s commentary. It’s A fabulous exploration of ego, death, and ecstasy. Then we recorded The Heart Broken Open, about the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Naturally it goes more deeply into the subject of death because of Christ's crucifixion. But it also ends with resurrection, or rebirth. 

As deep as those two conversations were, and they were two of the most profound conversations I've ever had, I was left wondering if we could investigate Death itself, without any hope of rebirth or resurrection. Not in a metaphorical sense, or in the sense of “ego death,” but in a literal physical sense. At some point every one of us is going to die. Every thought we have of ourselves will come to a complete stop. Over. Finis. To me the Katha Upanishad was the most profound exploration of direct inquiry into the truth of death itself, death without any hope of what's on the other side. 

We actually made the recording about 23 years ago. It has taken till now, when  I'm turning 70 and I have incomplete projects out there, for me to realize that I certainly am not going to be immortal. So I just said, “It's time. I have to resurrect this.”

There were all kinds of glitches and reasons why it wasn't working back then. But now, amazingly, there is new technology that means we can fix the recordings. I went ahead and did a rough draft and sent it off to Barbara and Gangaji. I said, ‘You gotta listen to this. This is profound, and we can't let it slip through the cracks.” Luckily, they agreed.

So that's why it's coming out now. Now that I'm an old man, now that I'm facing my own mortality in ways that I couldn’t have faced 25 years ago, it has an incredible resonance for me.

Harriet: What's so striking to me when you put it all in context is that the very heart of this whole lineage is Ramana’s experience of death as a 16-year-old boy. There’s one point in the recording where Gangaji says, “Death is the teacher,” and it struck me that death has been the teacher all along. 

Chris: It's so true. For me, personally, it's been the greatest fear of my life as well, realizing, “Oh, my God, I'm going to die.” It certainly hit me hard when I was 35 years old, years before I met Gangaji. It hit me that it could happen tomorrow. I could be in an accident, I could get an illness, or I could just live a long life. But no matter what, at some point, everything is going to come to a screeching stop. The power of that stopping is what makes it the ultimate teacher. Papaji, Ramana, and Gangaji are always saying, “Stop.” I hear that on a very deep level: die to your thoughts of who you are. Because all the thoughts of who you are, your body, your feelings, your experiences, your successes, your failures—all of that is going to die. Done. The power of that strips away everything that is false. To me, there's just nothing like it. It’s the most terrifying teacher and the most beautiful teacher imaginable. As Gangaji says, in death is revealed a great secret. 

Harriet: The characters in the Katha recording are so beautifully portrayed, with Amber Terrell (who died in 2020), as the young Nachiketa, Gangaji as Yama, and Eli as the narrator. Wherever we are on that spectrum in terms of our age, our prospects of a long life, our health, or aging, it’s relatable. Whether you're closer to Yama, or closer to Nachiketa, it's so universal. 

Chris: Yes, it really is, and Gangaji’s commentary makes it even more so. We may assume that Nachiketa was not afraid of death. He wanted to know the truth of death. But what Gangaji is saying is let's not assume that he wasn’t afraid. Maybe he had the same fear of death as the rest of us ordinary human beings. Maybe he's not so heroic or so amazing. Maybe he was just willing to sit in the waiting room of death to discover its true nature, even in the face of his greatest fear. That is the most profound inquiry imaginable because it is the one that forces us to stop.

Harriet: I love this phrase, “the waiting room of death,” because it's where we all are, our entire lives, even though we don't know it. I think you've really described it well. Is there more that you could say about how this teaching, and particularly the experience of making this recording, has benefited you? How would it be of benefit to somebody who's listening? What would they learn from it?

Chris: The benefit of this teaching can't even be described in terms of any practical value. It's not like, “Wow, listen to this, and you'll find the love of your life or attain financial success,” or whatever is on your list. It is exactly the opposite of that. It is a spiritual path of loss. What is the benefit of that loss? That is the mystery that can't even be spoken. When the Katha Upanishad leads us into the inquiry about the actual nature of physical death directed by Yama, the God of Death himself, without giving away too much, I think the answer to that makes it very, very much more possible for us to be at peace. It’s about the truth of who we are. That’s the profound gift of listening.

I don't want to throw people into some hope that they'll be able to somehow overcome death or something, because that ain’t happening. But there's a release in knowing that at the core of who I am, at the core of who you are, at the core of who Gangaji and Papaji and Ramana are, is the same unnamable peace. This is discoverable through deep inquiry into the true nature of death.

Harriet: One of the really glorious points in the whole conversation is what death offers to Nachiketa in place of this knowledge: beautiful women, wealth, palaces, many elephants, and dancing girls, to name a few. You talk about the power of desire in the recording, and the point of choice. Can you say more?

Chris: Well, Nachiketa is having none of that. He wants only the truth from the ultimate teacher. I would say that almost anybody could look at the list of things that were being offered by Yama and find something they would be tempted by. In the recording I was sharing with Gangaji that what tempted me was a long life followed by a sojourn in heaven. I thought that sounded good. So Gangaji and I had a conversation about that, that was very powerful. If you want anything less than the absolute truth, if you want anything less than absolute freedom, you're going to be disappointed. You may find temporary pleasure, but you're not going to finally have deep happiness or deep peace. That is really what we all desire more than anything.

Harriet: What was it like for you to be in that conversation? Because from a listener’s perspective you drop very deep. What was the experience for you?

Chris: I do have professional experience as a radio announcer and as an interviewer. Certainly, that experience has helped me. But when I was first doing these interviews with Gangaji her advice was, “Be empty. Don't have any questions lined up on a piece of paper. Just go in completely empty.” I was like, “Oh, my God.” While I was having the conversations, there were other people in the studio— recording technicians and people from the Foundation. And everybody was saying, “I'm just so glad I'm not in that hot seat.” But there's nowhere on earth I would rather be. 

One of the things that doesn't appear in the recording is the long silences, where Gangaji would answer a question, and then it would be my turn to ask the next question. She was completely comfortable with the silence. I was grateful for that. I would just sit there and wait until something appeared. I knew we could edit it out, of course. But just going deeper and deeper, and being three feet away, and having her look right into my eyes, as she's speaking these words, was a blessing beyond belief. 

In the story sometimes it feels like Nachiketa almost robs Yama, the god of death, of his will because his questions are so powerful. They are just irresistible. And Yama has no choice but to answer them. I feel like the same thing happens with Gangaji. Every time somebody asks her a question that comes from their depths, she has no choice but to meet them at that depth and go even deeper. That is one of the beauties of those conversations. She was the one that played the role of answering the deep questions. But my role was to lead her to those answers with the sincerity and the depth of the questions that were arising. 

My job was to keep asking, keep coming up with a wide range of questions for an hour and 20 minutes even though in my heart, I felt completely satisfied with some of the very first things we talked about. I will never forget those conversations. They are some of the greatest and most cherished memories in this life, to be able to be there and to share such precious moments with her that can now be shared with everybody. They have a universal quality.

Harriet: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

Chris: When this conversation was recorded and finished, I ended up with a profound feeling of peace, or joy. I wouldn't call it ecstasy exactly, because ecstasy has a quality of dancing around the fire or something. But I would call it a quiet, indescribable joy in knowing that this exploration really deeply answered the questions and the fears that I have had about death my whole life in ways that nothing I had encountered prior to that had been able to. Thirty-two years ago, when I first met Gangaji, I actually came to her with my own fear of death. We were in a small group in Boulder. We were all sitting on pillows on the floor, including Gangaji, and I talked about my fear of death. I assumed at that time that fear of death meant i was unenlightened. I now know that this fear, like any other emotion, is just there to be experienced. Gangaji started by patting my knee and rocking back and forth and saying: “You are so lucky, you are going to have wave after wave after wave of fear of death. And it's going to go deeper and deeper for decades.” And I was like, “Is that a blessing?” I really wasn't quite sure. It felt like she was blessing me. And she was, but many years ago, I was thinking, “Oh, my God, can we just get this over with?” 

It's true for all of us, the wave upon wave. Like Ramana meeting death at the age of 16, we meet it again and again: when our parents die, when our friends die, when we get a bad diagnosis from a doctor, when we almost have a car accident, or when we get injured, when we face disease or incapacitation of any kind. We have these small deaths, real honest-to-god brushes with physical death, over and over again. The opportunity that continues to this day is to deepen more and more into that. 

Harriet: Where's that fear of death for you today? 

Chris: Well, I experience it. It’s there. When that emotion arises, it’s a clarion call not to avoid, or deny, or dramatize. If i just stop completely, this fear may simply be revealed as an expression of my instinct for survival, especially when I am facing some kind of physical crisis where my life may be threatened. We all have that. Without that, I don't know how long we would live. Sometimes this fear reveals the simple fact that I love life. I'm in love with so many things in my life, and I have things that I want to do, that I'm enjoying very much. And I also have a deep awareness that it’s not about the projects, or the enjoyments of life. As wonderful as they are, they will end. I get more and more deeply aware of that, as the circumstances of my life and circumstances of my aging change. There’s more and more of a process of both acknowledging my instinct for survival, and this feeling of “yes,” of deep surrender that is always with me. Or maybe my mind is starting to fire up its not-so-simple reactions, old strategies and activities. Then it’s time to stop. Stop. Stop.  It is so much easier than any mind activity I can generate. There is fear, and there might be the thought, “I'm not done with this life yet.” Thankfully, I no longer entertain the thought that fear of death proves I’m unenlightened or neurotic. There is a deep peace that is carrying me through this. 

Harriet: How does that touch the people around you?

Chris: I have volunteered in hospice. I'm pretty much retired now, but I’ve probably performed over 750 funerals. And some twenty years of prison volunteer work for Gangaji. So I am there for people. I'm in service to people who are in deep grief, sometimes horrible circumstances, like a teenage girl committing suicide because of horrible things that were said about her on social media, for example. I mean, just the most awful things imaginable that break my heart. But at least to be there, and to be present in peace and in compassion, and in love with those people, is a great service. That’s what Papaji and Gangaji made possible for me to offer to others. There's a peace that gets transmitted.

Harriet: Thank you, Chris. It has been a delight to talk to you. I know everyone will be looking forward to listening to the newly remastered edition of A Dialogue with Death, Reflections on the Katha Upanishad.