About Death - Sri Ramana Maharishi

25/02/2017

I
The dead are fortunate.

It is only those who are left behind who feel miserable.

It is our constant concern to bear the burden of this body and look after its needs.

Day in, day out, this is our occupation — bathing, eating, massaging our legs, and so on — no end to it.

When we die it takes four persons to carry this body and yet we carry it about constantly without even stopping to think that we are doing so.

We can easily lift a heavy stone under water, but as soon as we take it out we find how heavy it is, and in the same way we don’t feel the weight of the body as long as a chaitanya or life force permeates it.

II.
Deathlessness is our real nature, and we falsely ascribe it to the body, imagining that it will live for ever and losing sight of what is really immortal, simply because we identify ourselves with the body.

It says in the 'Upanishads' that the jnani looks forward eagerly to the time when he can throw off the body, just as a labourer carrying a heavy load looks forward to reaching his destination and laying it down.