There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be.
Therefore, says the Teacher, put away this vain sorrow and shrinking, fight, O son of Bharata. But wherefore such a conclusion? This high and great knowledge, this strenuous self-discipline of mind and soul by which it is to rise beyond the clamour of the emotions and the cheat of the senses to true self-knowledge, may well free us from grief and delusion; it may well cure us of the fear of death and sorrow for the dead; it may well show us that those whom we speak of as dead are not dead at all nor to be sorrowed for, since they have only gone beyond; it may well teach us to look undisturbed upon the most terrible assaults of life and upon the death of the body as a trifle; it may exalt us to the conception of all life’s circumstances as a manifestation of the One and as a means for our souls to raise themselves above appearences by an upward evolution until we know ourselves as the immortal Spirit.
SRI AUROBINDO – ESSAYS ON THE GITA
The Compllete Works of Sri Aurobindo – Volume 19 – Chapter VII – Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department – Pondicherry – India
