Month of September has commenced in the year of Covid 2020, we are in a new phase of learning about fear, life, death and disease.

It would be wrong to think of death as cessation of life or life as beginning of living.  The fact of the matter is, there is no cessation of life,  as life goes on forever.  Death marks the cessation of embodiment or the loss of the outer covering or container for life.  This realisation of difference between life and death is very critical in the living of a meaningful life.

Life or Jiva or individual soul, has been a living entity since the beginning of creation, in fact even before the creation in the cosmic womb.  It will continue to last till the dissolution of creation, and even after the dissolution in the cosmic womb.

Appearance of the body with the living being at birth from the mother’s womb is a complex process of the  living soul setting gradually, acquiring the physical container made of flesh and blood over a period lasting about nine months and subsequent ejection from the mother’s womb.

Thereafter the living soul gets completely identified with the body container and believes that it is the body.

In fact the mating of the living soul and the body is a matter of destiny completely beyond its control.

As long as this temporary relationship lasts, the living soul thinks that it is the body and the bodily relations, parents and family are related.

After spending a lifetime, and undergoing comforts, discomforts, happiness, dismay, pain, pleasure, abuse, recognition from the world, as per the desserts of the living soul, this relationship comes to an end at the appointed time. The living soul discard the container and searches and obtains a new one.

A human body is said to be the most noble type of container, as it is the one which provides the instruments of knowledge and learning, which if used well, can lead

• to understand  the truth about life and death and
• To tailor one’s life to ensure that this whirligig or samsara,  the never ending circular journey of life  and death, could cease through proper knowledge

A critical component of such knowledge is the realisation that the living soul is completely dependent on the Supreme Lord, who is the self dependent principal in life.