What is death, and why is it frightening? Death can be understood as the end of life. The death of a person can be considered as a functional death when there is an absence of heartbeat and respiration. In some cases, when all brain activity ceases, it is known as a brain death. The two legal documents that mark our beginning and end in this world are our birth certificate and our death certificate.

I support the concept of an afterlife. If we exist in this world, there must be a beginning and an end, but also, there could only be a finite number of souls, so there must be an afterlife, or at least a process after death in this cycle of life. There must be a cycle of life, and so there must be something after death.

We are not born with the idea of death. Death is an experience of life that comes with time. Individuals may have different experiences of death (seeing other people die) but death as an individual experience is a universally lived experience. Death is the same for everyone. Death can occur at different time periods in an individual’s life (now comes the frightening part) and no one has knowledge about when it will occur. Every individual has memories of their life that are associated with every experience. When a person ceases to exist, so do their memories. Although, some memories of the individual are stored within the experience collections of other individuals who interacted with them through their lives. This memory that lives within another individual’s mind preserves the essence of an individual even after they are gone.

We have no definite proof that is empirical in nature. Mostly based on beliefs, and a finite number of superficial evidences, I explore the possibility of an existence beyond our lives in the physical world and consider the idea that there might be a profound connection between death and rebirth. I will be using the beliefs rooted in Hindu mythology, as evidence and reasoning. Hinduism is the oldest religion, and the story it follows has a lot of evidence for it to be doomed as chance or a mere coincidence. So, with the belief in this religion and the story it tells holds at least some truth to it, we are able to consider the ideas of afterlife and rebirth.

The Vedas and Upanishads are considered being extremely wise, and that all answers to any modern problems are planted within the scriptures of the Vedas. These scriptures explore a perspective of the afterlife that sounds the most reasonable to me. They traverse the cycle of life and death, of how one ages until inevitable death. And thus, it isn’t a chain of a process, but rather a cycle. Studying the patterns in nature suggest that everything is a cycle, whether it be the food cycle of beings eating one another to no prevail, or the nutrient cycle, which suggests nutrients being passed off to different beings and parts of nature before coming back in a full circle to the starting point. Basing the cycle of life on this theory suggests there are steps connecting death and birth with varying ideas of afterlife and rebirth.

Hinduism carries the idea that after one is dead, their body and soul are separated, where after the weeks long rituals take place, the soul finally finds peace and can ascend to the land of gods. This is when the soul attains moksha, or liberation. The soul could be reincarnated as well, just in a different form, and it is said that one will keep getting reincarnated until they have been in each form once. Another way to escape the cycle is by the idea of karma and dharma, placing actions and morals into the spotlight, emphasizing on their importance. Good karma could get one moksha, allowing them to break free from the cycle of birth and rebirth, which is known as the samsara cycle.

Hinduism believes that an individual can either attain moksha or liberation in this life (while the body is alive) or after the death of the individual. Jivan mukti refers to the idea of when a person is liberated while living. Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, serves as a great example of a jivanmukta. Videha mukti refers to the idea that an individual can be liberated after the death of their body (this presumes that the soul lives for an eternity even after the body perishes). They realize that there is no duality of a body and a soul, but everything that is there in this world is nothing but the Brahman (the ultimate reality). Thus, the self, too, is an embodiment of the universe.

The Vedas, being one among the most ancient scriptures of the world, were considered to be a part of the domain of shruti literature, which means that its contents were heard in the form of a divine revelation by God. This domain of literature can be contrasted with the smriti literature, which relies on the memory of sages for its contents. The two epics, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, belong to the smriti literature. Since the Vedas are a text of shruti literature, I believe in the authority of the vedas.

To conclude, death is an inevitable aspect of life. It raises questions about the philosophical nature of life, or so to say, the nature of existence and being and the meaning and purpose of life. Death is the conclusion of life that leaves multiple entry ways into discourses in philosophy