Death: An inconvenient truth?
Sutapa Das: Life is like a game of chess – whether you’re the king, queen or pawn, at the end of the game everyone ends up in the box. Unless, of course, you get cremated. Morbid? Depressing? Dark? Though discussions on death are not usually number one on our conversation list, I was invited to the Southbank Centre a few weeks ago to speak on the topic “what happens next?” In an auditorium filled with coffins and somber lighting, I shared some thoughts on the logic of life after death. Living in a community of devotees, such concepts are seamlessly woven into daily life; birthdays are “appearance days,” my room-mate from Slovenia is “western bodied,” death is the “disappearance day,” and when someone expires we say they have “left their body.” Atma (the soul), samsara (its journey through material bodies), karma (the law which governs that transmigration) and yoga (the means of escape), are four pillars of the Vedic worldview. Comprehensive, consistent, and entirely logical.