Being Is Not Lost In Death

“Just as in dreams, you wake up after several new experiences, so after death another body is found. Just as rivers lose their individuality when they discharge their waters into the ocean, and yet the waters evaporate and return as rain on the hills and back again through the rivers to the ocean, so also individuals lose their individuality when they go to sleep but return again according to their previous innate tendencies. Similarly, in death also, being is not lost.”

“How can that be?”

“See how a tree grows again when its branches are cut off. So long as the life source is not destroyed, it will grow. Similarly, latent potentialities withdraw into the heart at death but do not perish. That is how beings are re-born.”

~ Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

• Osborne, Arthur (2002). The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words. Tiruvannamalai: Sriramanasasram