What will happen when we die?  will we be annihilated? Or is there something permanent within us?  If yes, how to know it?  All these questions are beautifully dealt with by a very experienced scholar, Dr. Leta Jane Lewis.  Dr. Lewis is a professor emerita from California State University, USA, and the author of The Ultimate Love Affair :A Vedanta Handbook.

My friend made a very profound statement one day.  He said, 'The one thing we can be sure of is our consciousness.'  Because of consciousness we know that we exist.  As Swami Vivekananda succinctly put it, 'This is the first act of consciousness - I am'. Without consciousness we would have no knowledge of our mental, physical, and spiritual selves; we would have no knowledge of the external world in which we live and function; our senses would be useless and we would be incapable of the simplest thought.  Swami Shraddhananda makes a beautiful comparison: 'Consciousness can be compared to light because like light it reveals things.  Death frightens us because we fear that with the cessation of vital activity we will lose consciousness and face total annihilation.

© Prabuddha Bharata (June 2001) published by Advaita Ashrama, 5 Delhi Entally Road, Kolkata 700014. Website : www.advaitaonline.com.  Reprinted with permission.

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