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“Everything that has a beginning has an end.” We are born, therefore we have to die. There are no exceptions to this law. No one can live forever in this material world. The inevitability of death is something we all have to deal with.

How will we meet death? Unconscious, shot full of painkillers, our life processes regulated by machines? Violently in an auto accident, a plane crash or war? Or peacefully, happily, gratefully and gladly? There is another saying: “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” In other words, we will probably die pretty much the same way we live our life.

In the material conception of life, youth is wonderful, and old age and death are horrible: nectar at the beginning and poison at the end. This is because the material conception of happiness is based on sense gratification. In youth, there is ample facility for sense gratification, but this gradually dries up with age, until at the end, there is no material sense enjoyment at all, only suffering.

However in the spiritual conception of life, the real source of enjoyment is the spirit soul. Just as the soul is the source of the life energy that powers the body, the soul is also the source of all pleasure and enjoyment. In material consciousness, this enjoyment seems to be coming from the senses, but the real source is the soul.

Have you ever been in love? When you are in love, you experience great happiness and pleasure just from thinking of the beloved. Even when you’re not together, you feel pleasure from your love. This pleasure is coming from the soul, and the proof is that the pleasure is present even when physically separated from the beloved.

Of course, in material life, love eventually loses its transcendent sparkle and becomes mundane. Why? Because we mistakenly identify the beloved as the source of the love we feel. As soon as our beloved misbehaves or otherwise fails to meet our expectations, we cover our warm loving feelings with judgment, which can even turn into hate. Just see the delusory quality of the material conception of life.

Actually the love we get so much pleasure from is coming from our real self, the soul. In spiritual life, our beloved is Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Since He is perfect in every way, there is never any reason for our love to end. In fact, unlike an ordinary person, the more we get to know Him, the more our love for Him increases, because He is a bottomless ocean of good qualities.

Thus by loving Kṛṣṇa, we can experience the wonderful pleasure of transcendental love in any condition of life: young, old, healthy or diseased. Even on the brink of death, we can bask in the warm rays of spiritual love and be comforted by Kṛṣṇa’s personal presence. Instead of the greatest tragedy, death can be the greatest triumph: permanent liberation from material existence and suffering.

But to achieve this, we have to live our life in such a way that we cultivate spiritual love from the beginning. This may be a little inconvenient when we are young, but youth is the very best time to begin spiritual life. In India it is said, “A saint in youth is a saint in truth.” The older we get, the harder it is to change and develop spiritual habits. Therefore begin your spiritual life wile you are still young, even though it is difficult.

Most people expect young people to be engrossed in material enjoyment—especially other young people. So to ignore the opportunities for the material happiness of youth to cultivate spiritual life often seems odd, against the grain, especially to your peers. Material happiness is available now, the logic goes, so one should take advantage immediately.

But in spiritual life, the enjoyment is at the end. Or rather, one’s spiritual pleasure just keeps on increasing regardless of one’s material situation. Everything spiritual is eternal and unconditional. Self-realization has nothing to do with one’s material situation. So Kṛṣṇa advises us in Bhagavad-gita:

yat tad agre visam iva
pariname ’mrtopamam
tat sukham sattvikam proktam
atma-buddhi-prasada-jam

“That happiness which in the beginning may be just like poison but at the end is just like nectar, and which awakens one to self-realization is said to be happiness in the mode of goodness.” [Bhagavad-gita 18.37]

In the pursuit of self-realization, one has to follow many rules and regulations to control the mind and the senses and to concentrate the mind on the spiritual self. One must regulate eating and sleeping, become celibate and give up all kinds of sense gratification.

All these procedures are very difficult, bitter like poison, but if one is successful in following the regulations and comes to the transcendental position, one begins to drink real nectar, and one enjoys transcendental life in association with Kṛṣṇa. ‘Nectar’ in Sanskrit is amrta, which also means immortality. In the next verse, Kṛṣṇa says:

visayendriya-samyogad
yat tad agre ’mrtopamam
pariname visam iva
tat sukham rajasam smrtam

“That happiness which is derived from contact of the senses with their objects, and which appears like nectar in the beginning but poison at the end, is said to be of the nature of passion.” [Bhagavad-gita 18.38]

A young man and a young woman meet, and the senses drive the young man to see her, to touch her and to have sex. In the beginning this may be very pleasing to the senses, but at the end, or after some time, it becomes just like poison. They are separated or there is divorce, there is lamentation, there is sorrow, or even death of one or both. Such is the inevitable course of happiness in the mode of passion.

Happiness derived from a combination of the senses and the sense objects is always a cause of distress and if possible, should be avoided by all means. Why? Because we are spirit souls, and any contact with the material senses is inharmonious with our real nature. We are meant for eternal transcendental happiness, perfect enjoyment in relationship with God, Kṛṣṇa. So the temporary, imperfect enjoyment in this material world can never make us happy. And finally:

yad agre canubandhe ca
sukham mohanam atmanah
nidralasya-pramadottham
tat tamasam udahrtam

“And that happiness which is blind to self-realization, which is delusion from beginning to end and which arises from sleep, laziness and illusion is said to be of the nature of ignorance.” [Bhagavad-gita 18.39]

One who takes pleasure in laziness and in sleep is certainly in the mode of darkness, ignorance; and one who has no idea how to act and how not to act is also in the mode of ignorance. For the person in the mode of ignorance, everything is illusion. There is no happiness either in the beginning or at the end. For the person in the mode of passion there might be some kind of ephemeral happiness in the beginning and distress at the end, but for the person in the mode of ignorance there is only distress, both in the beginning and at the end.

So by Kṛṣṇa’s grace we have free will, and we can choose how we will live. In the same way, we also choose how we will die. We always have the existential choice to select activities in the mode of ignorance, passion or goodness. From that existential choice, everything else is determined as a consequence, even our death.

If we choose to live in ignorance, then there is really no happiness, only a futile attempt to escape suffering through intoxication, sleep and laziness. If we choose passion, then a little transient happiness may be there in the beginning, but there will be poison and defeat in the end. If we choose goodness, and follow the rules and regulations of pious life, religious life, and walk the spiritual path, then we can expect to experience ever-increasing spiritual pleasure.

So what will it be? The choice is up to each and every one of us. Nectar in the beginning and poison at the end? Or a little poison in the beginning, and then ever-increasing immortal spiritual nectar at the end?

Next: The Gate of Liberation