As children, while playing one day, we happened to see a group of people carrying a dead body past us. Seeing the somber procession, we stopped and watched fascinated. After the procession passed, one of us piped up, “What happens when a person dies?” We kids, none more than twelve year old, looked at each other quizzically. None of us had learnt anything about this. One of us finally came up with an answer – “Death is like sleep. He just doesn’t wake up, that’s it.” None of us were fully convinced, but that was the best answer we could think of. I too did not have an answer but the question left me thoughtful.
Decades later, the incident and unanswered question still vividly etched in my mind, I came across a beautiful verse in the second chapter of the Gita, where Lord Krishna says “vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro 'paran, tatha sharirani vihaya jirnany anyani samyati navani dehi - As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” I had found the answer! What a beautiful and poetic way to describe the phenomenon of death.
Death was no longer that enigmatic, unknown and fear instilling phenomenon. Sri Krishna has in a very simple analogy, laid threadbare the mystery of death.
From time immemorial, for all, death is that most unwanted but inescapable final moment which everyone has to face. It is also the most feared and distressing event – whether it is one’s own death or of anyone else near and dear to one. For a person, however, who has understood his existence as being separate from that of his body, death is shorn of its enigma and fear. No one is afraid if his shirt is torn and destroyed. He simply looks for another shirt to wear. Similarly, when we realize that the body is just our outward dress, which we keep changing so many times within this very life time, we become fearless and cheerful. At death, we simply change bodies, just like we change dresses.
All forms of distress and fear we experience in life are due to identification of our selves with the body. When we mistake the outer dress which is the body for our selves, we immediately identify our selves with all the pains and pleasures which actually affect only the body. The four basic problems of birth, death, disease and old age affect only our body and not us, the soul. As Lord Krishna says in the Gita, “nainam chindanti shastrani nainam dahati pavakah, na cainam kledayanty apo na shosayati marutah - The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.”
Just to understand that I am not this body but an eternal soul, never to be destroyed, constitutes the first stage of liberation. This is the beginning of spiritual life. In fact, the goal of performing various asanas in yoga is to understand that one is not the body. The purpose of deep study of the Vedas is also to understand this. One who realizes this is not affected by the four problems of material life as well as by the three kleshas or impositions of sufferings by material nature. The three kleshas are adhyatmika klesha or sufferings imposed on us due to our own mind and body (like sickness, mental agony etc), adhibhautika klesha or sufferings imposed upon us by other living entities (like our enemies, insects like mosquitoes etc), and adhidaivika klesha or sufferings imposed upon us by nature (like natural calamities, excess heat or cold etc). A person who no longer identifies himself with the body is not affected by these miseries.
And when one advances further in one’s understanding, to realize that as a soul, his original constitutional position is to serve the Super Soul, Sri Krishna, one achieves complete liberation and comes to the stage of true, eternal, unlimited, unending happiness. The simple and easy path to this is to study Lord Krishna’s teachings in the Gita and to chant His holy names, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Chanting Krishna's holy name gives us the realization that we are not the body without having to undergo the various yogic postures or having to undergo deep scholarly study of the vedas. In Kali yuga, this is the only recommended process for spiritual life.