Immortality – Fantasy or Reality?

A conversation between two friends…

Are we really immortal, or is it just a fantasy that we can live forever?

Jane: Are we immortal?

Kelly: No, of course not, don’t you see your grandparents dying?

Jane: Yes, I do see people dying and hear about it all the time, but let me ask you this. When your
grandparent’s body is lying in front of you ‘dead’ why do you cry and say my grandparents are
gone!? What do you mean they are gone? They are lying right in front of you.

Kelly: Yeah, but they are dead! They can’t move or talk; they aren’t breathing and their body starts
stinking and decaying!

Jane: Hmm, if your grandparents’ body is lying in front of you and they are gone, or ‘dead’, then who
really are your grandparent? It seems they are not their bodies!

Kelly: Well, I don’t know. If they aren’t their bodies then who are they?

Jane: Let’s go ask my uncle, he’s been practicing spirituality for a long time. I’m sure he’ll have an
answer.

Jane: Uncle, Kelly and I were just talking about immortality. What do you think about immortality?

Uncle: The idea that we can live forever has fascinated people since time immemorial. No one wants
to die, but we all see that everyone has to. We can observe that whoever takes birth dies, whatever
is created is destroyed and that all things have a manufacture date end expiry date. Like products,
our bodies also have a shelf life.

Since time immemorial people have tried to become immortal. To this very day, scientists are trying
to somehow discover the way to make the mortal man immortal. So far, their experiments have
brought them to discovering various anti-aging techniques, humanoid robots, organ replacements
etc, but all still very far from achieving immortality.

Let me tell you a story from ancient India of a man who was determined to become immortal. He
was a king who became so powerful that he conquered all other kings and became the emperor of
the world. His wealth and power were immeasurable. To be able to enjoy as emperor of the world
forever and to have no fear of any enemy, he went to the forest to perform severe austerities to the
demigods to attain the boon of immortality.

After many years of severe penance, the demigods, being pleased with him, asked him what he
wanted. Eagerly he announced, ‘IMMORTALITY’. However, he was denied this request by Brahma,
the chief demigod that he was praying to, because Brahma said that he himself was not immortal
and so he did not have the power to grant him immortality.

Being intelligent and cunning, the king said, ‘All right, if you cannot grant me immortality, then grant
me this. Grant me that I cannot be killed in the day or night, on the land or in the water, by man or
animal, inside or outside and by any type of weapon.

Brahma granted him all of this and then the king went back to his palace. His pride now increased a
hundred times. Everyone trembled in fear of his very sight. Thinking himself immortal, he wreaked
havoc in the world.

The cruel emperor had a son who was devoted to God right from the beginning of his life. This
infuriated his father who insisted that he accept him as God instead. His little five-year-old boy
refused to accept that his father was God and the emperor, being so cruel and shameless, tried to
kill his own little son; because he was devoted to God. Because of all his cruel deeds, God soon came
and killed this wicked emperor to save the emperor’s small boy. And he did so without breaking any
of the boons that Brahma had granted the emperor.

Like this emperor, there are many other atheists who deny God, think themselves to be independent
of God, or God Himself. Such people think that after much scientific study and research they will be
able to overcome the laws of nature, stop death, control disease, and freely travel throughout the
universe.

So, from the story of the emperor, Hiranyakashipu, we saw that he had all the wealth of the world
and unlimited strength and power, so much so that he could call the demigods down to grant him
his boon, but even he could not attain immortality. So, who are we in comparison? At the present
moment none of us are the emperor of this world. No one has the strength, power, intelligence and
wealth that Hiranyakashipu had. If he tried his best for immortality and failed, how can we hope to
achieve it in the same way that he tried? Hiranyakashipu tried to make his body immortal by defying
Gods laws. This is why he failed. Defying God’s Supremacy and thinking ourselves supreme and
independent is not the way to achieve immortality.

Kelly: But is there another way?

Uncle: If someone knows how to stop death, he would be immortal. So, let’s listen to what someone
who is immortal says about this. I have a nice book on my shelf there. Jane, will you bring it to me
please?

Jane: Yes.

Kelly: Ooooh, that’s a big book!

Uncle: This book was spoken more than five hundred years ago. It’s called the Bhagavad Gita. This
book was spoken on a battel field by Krishna to his friend Arjuna, who was also worried about death.

So, let’s see what Krishna says about immortality here in the second chapter, twelfth verse. Can you
read that Kelly? You don’t have to read the Sanskrit. That’s there because Krishna spoke the
Bhagavad-gita in Sanskrit, but we’ve got an exact translation here so you don’t need to worry about
the Sanskrit.

na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ

na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ
sarve vayam ataḥ param
Never was there a time when I did not exist nor you nor all these kings and never in the future shall
we cease to be.

- Bhagavad Gita 2.12

Uncle: Okay, so what did Krishna say about immortality? He gave us his answer right there, didn’t
he? He says that he, and all of us too are immortal! Hmmm, but what is his reason for saying this?
We see with our own eyes that people die, now due to the virus more than ever! So how can he say
we are immortal? Let’s read on and see if he explains!

dehino ’smin yathā dehe

kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul
similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a
change.

- Bhagavad Gita 2.13

Jane: Wow, that kind of makes sense.

avināśi tu tad viddhi

yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
vināśam avyayasyāsya
na kaścit kartum arhati
Know that, that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the
imperishable soul.

- Bhagavad Gita 2.17

antavanta ime dehā

nityasyoktāḥ śarīriṇaḥ
anāśino ’prameyasya
tasmād yudhyasva bhārata
Only the material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is subject to
destruction. Therefore, fight, O descendent of Bharata.

- Bhagavad Gita 2.18

na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin

nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is
unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.

- Bhagavad Gita 2.20

vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya

navāni gṛhṇāti naro ’parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī
As a person puts on new garments giving up the old and useless ones, the soul similarly accepts new
material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.

- Bhagavad Gita 2.22

Kelly: What an explanation he gives! He says we are something beyond our body. We are not our
body but our body is just like our clothes. He says we are the soul.

Jane: Kelly, that answers our question about why our grandparents’ bodies are lying their dead and
we say their gone. Because they are actually gone! They are the soul.

Kelly: Yeah, I don’t think our grandparents realized that.

Jane: Nah, not by the way they took care of their bodies as if they were the most valuable thing. I
mean, who doesn’t? I guess most people just don’t realize that their body is just a covering, like
clothes.

Kelly: Yeah, we’ve got to spread the news.

Thank you uncle, now we got our doubts answered. I want to read that whole book. If just a few
verses cleared so many doubts, I wonder what I’ll find in the whole book!

Jane: So, Kelly are we immortal?

Kelly: Of course we are! Although we see people dying all around us, actually they are not dying.
They’re simply changing bodies like they’ve changed bodies many times in this life from childhood,
to youth to old age and like they change cloths every day. Death is just a bigger change and more
extreme.

Jane: Right Kelly, so far we’ve found out that we are actually all already immortal. People just don’t
know it. We should go tell the scientists to stop wasting money on immortality research.

Kelly: Yeah. We are immortal Jane in that we, the soul, never dies. Why then do we, the immortal
soul, have to repeatedly change bodies by taking birth and dying? Like why do we have to go
through all of that and is there a way to stop it?

Jane: Good question. That will be our next discovery. Now its already late. Tomorrow we’ll go see if
uncle has an answer to that one.

To find out the answer to Jane and Kelly's next discovery as well as much more