Death is the hopeless end of all our aspirations of success and happiness at the material level of reality. At that final moment of our life, all that we have accumulated and aspired for is taken away from us irrevocably.

Indeed, the finality of death is so grim, so cruel, and so hopeless that we often prefer not to think about it at all. Just as an ostrich hopes to evade danger by putting its head into an owl, so too do we hope to evade the hopeless end of death. But just as the ostrich’s strategy fails, so does our strategy.

For countering death’s ghastly finality, spiritual knowledge offers us a more fruitful strategy: raise our consciousness to the level of reality that is beyond destruction – spiritual level. We are at our core souls, indestructible spiritual beings. The Bhagavad-gita (02.30) declares that the soul which pervades and animates all living beings is indestructible.

For us as souls, death is not a termination, but a transition – not the termination of our very existence, but the transition of our existence from one level to another. Understanding this changes our vision of life: life is not doomed to end, but is destined for endlessness.

To elevate our understanding of life from endless to endless hopeful, we need to gain a further spiritual realization – the realization of eternal, unfailing love in the spiritual arena. We are not just eternal beings, but are also eternal parts of the supreme spiritual being, Krishna. He loves us eternally and in realizing his unfailing love, we gain undying hope. Understanding that he loves us always, irrespective of what we have or don’t have, what we do or don’t, who we are or aren’t, fills us with a hope that nothing can steal from us.

Explanation of article:


Download by “right-click and save content”