08.20: Death is a nightmare from which we have the power to wake up

The Bhagavad-gita (8.20) directs our attention to another realm of existence that is free from the mortality that mars our material realm. We find the thoughts of our mortality hard to stomach because our insides recoil and rebel at the prospect of annihilation of our existence. We try to evade the death sentence that hangs on our head by trying to do something that will guarantee us a place in the history books, hoping thereby to live on in the memories of people. However, time destroys relentlessly the memories, the people and even the history books.

The Gita shows us a more realistic way out of the death sentence by illuminating us with a more complete self-understanding. Gita wisdom explains that death is a nightmare that we suffer only as long as we remain asleep in the materialist conception of life. As soon as we wake up by the power of divine sound, we become aware of:

1. Our spiritual identity as invincible souls who can’t even be touched, leave alone destroyed, by anything material – even death.

2. Our spiritual glory as the beloved children of the all-attractive Supreme, who is forever inviting us to a life of eternal love with him in his supreme abode.

Thus by informing us that that immortal realm is our original home and ultimate destination, Gita wisdom gives a realistic direction for our search for immortality in a world of mortality.

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Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is