No matter what death brings, the soul will never be destroyed. Because of this, it is important to do all you can in life to make your situation, and that of others, better.

The soul is immortal. You may sleep for a little while in that change called death, but you can never be destroyed. You exist, and that existence is eternal.

The wave comes to the shore, and then goes back to the sea; it is not lost. It becomes one with the ocean, or returns again in the form of another wave.

This body has come, and it will vanish; but the soul essence within it will never cease to exist. Nothing can terminate that eternal Consciousness.

The Consciousness of the dying finds itself suddenly relieved of the weight of the body, of the necessity to breathe, and of any physical pain.

You forget all the limitations of the physical body and realize how free you are.

For the first few seconds there is a sense of fear – fear of the unknown, of something unfamiliar to the consciousness.

But after that comes a great realization: the soul feels a joyous sense of relief and freedom. You know that you exist apart from the mortal body.

A sense of soaring through a tunnel of very peaceful, hazy, dim light is experienced.

Then the soul drifts into a state of oblivious sleep, a million times deeper and enjoyable than the deepest sleep experienced in the physical body.

The after-death state is variously experienced by different people in accordance with their modes of living while on Earth.

Just as different people vary in the duration and depth of their sleep, so do they vary in their experiences after death.

Every one of us is going to die someday, so there is no use in being afraid of death.

You do not feel miserable at the prospect of losing Consciousness of your body in sleep; you accept sleep as a state of freedom to look forward to.

So is death; it is a state of rest, a pension from this life. There is nothing to fear. When death comes, laugh at it. Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson:

You can not die.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, – act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.