Originally posted by: shruti.nil
was does the term "aakal Mrityu" mean?
Beautiful question.
As you would be knowing, according to the Vedas, a Man's life is divided into four stages- Brahmacharya, Grihasthashrama, Vanaprastha and Sanyasa.
Now, a key feature in first three stages is the worship offered to the sacred fire. During the brahmacharya stage, the student offers worship to the fire lit in his Guru's ashram. When he gets married, a fire is ceremoniously lit in his house- in fact the same fire in front of which he gets married. Till he embraces Vanaprastashrama, this fire is supposed to be kept constantly alive and ritual worship offered to it by the householder and his wife. Now, there is certain number (I don't recollect exactly) of such worships he has to offer to the sacred fire.
When this man enters Vanaprasthashrama- he takes a small flame from his sacred fire and proceeds to the forest. In the forest, the fire need not be kept constantly alive but invoked on a daily basis. When the man takes Sanyasa, he is exempt from this ritual of fire worship.
Now, if the man is blessed with a lifespan long enough to undergo all the four stages- the fire is never extinguished abruptly.
But if the man should die while in grihastashrama itself, then after his body has been consigned to the flames, the fire which he had been worshiping from time he was a brahmachari is extinguished.
This is called akal mrityu . It is Akaal because the human soul has not been allowed to experience the sanyasa stage of life where it would have got an opportunity to let go of all bondage and attachments.
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