cycle of birth, death, and rebirth is going from
death to death. Second, the impure soul goes
from death to death in every second because of
its outward focus on illusion, the world of material
change, in which things decay and pass away and
which is therefore bound by death. Thus the life of
such a soul is also characterized by death.
The dead of Mitchell’s poem exemplify both
these meanings. They can be said to be still
attached to the world of the living and unable to
cut their ties to loved ones. Their desire is expressed
metaphorically in terms of an insatiable hunger
and thirst for the signs of the love they felt when
alive. Thus in the Vedic system, they would be apt
candidates for reincarnation and for conducting
an existence characterized by death.
What, in contrast, would be an existence
characterized by life? In the Vedic system, the
soul would be at one withBrahman, a state of
eternity that transcends time and space. Past and
future are illusory constructs that only exist in
time and space, so the soul that is one withThe palm of the hand(Image copyright John Keith, 2009 Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
The Dead