All of the Saints and Sages, who have propounded practice as essential and Time as its hindrance, ultimately agree that the perfection from the practice is a Pure Mind. And further that the mind is everything and precedes all states and conditions. A genuine understanding of this reveals the secret behind the problem of birth, aging, illness and death. Religion, if practiced correctly, does not guide man towards a spiritual preparation for death, but rather towards a transformation into eternal life before death. 

It is not the ravages of Time’s “rough handling” that are at the heart of the problem of the cycle of life and death; it is our mental reaction to it. Time has been ordained to have dominion over our physical condition. Its dominance over our mental condition is a matter of our own choice. The peace and purity of mind that can be achieved through abhyasa and vichara is founded on solid experience within the depth of meditation.

 The state of samadhi in deep meditation gives us experience in a timeless world. The constancy of this experience solidifies our ability to remain merely a witness to the movement of aging and illness. In reality, we are now experiencing a very vivid timeless state, and our spiritual heart, wherein our divine Self resides, is supremely attracted to it. We know by experience and the promptings of God’s grace that if we cultivate this, if we befriend this, it will draw us into Itself. By further practice we will make this our best friend, one who never betrays.

 Therefore we will carry this keen and lively awareness and experience of stillness and peace right to the door of death. At that moment we are steady in wisdom (sthita prajna). 

We will not be ravaged and overcome by death. We will calmly understand that the body is no longer habitable, and we will consciously step out of it as if we were stepping out of one room into another. The body will go the way it came, unto dust. We will go the way we came, unto God.