Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

Emily Dickinson

The mystery of death holds both fear and fascination. On the one hand we fear death – death of the body and death of the ego; to some, death is the extinction of all that we hold dear in the world.

But, if we live not only for worldly possessions, we come to feel that maybe there is more to life than this physical being. The Seers and mystics proclaim that death is but a transition: a chance for renewal and rebirth. Death is an end for the body; but for the soul, death is merely the process of discarding its worn-out garment and moving to something higher.

Death is not the end
Death can never be the end.

Death is the road.
Life is the traveller.
The Soul is the Guide

Sri Chinmoy

“They will come back – come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls ?”

Rudyard Kipling

 Sri Aurobindo on death

“Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride
The soul must take to cross from birth to birth,
A grey defeat pregnant with victory”

– Sri Aurobindo, Savitri

To understand the perspective of a Seer poet on death, I recommend the Debate of love and death in Savitri by Sri Aurobindo. It is a beautiful and thought provoking dialogue between Savitri and death – between human mortality and the divine.

References

[1] Because I could not stop for death

[2] Quotes on Death

[3] The Sack of the Gods R.Kipling