The word "death" is a great misnomer, for there is no death; when you are tired of life, you simply take off the overcoat of flesh and go back to the astral world.

The Bhagavad Gita speaks beautifully and solacingly of the immortality of the soul:

"Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; End and Beginnings are dreams! Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems."

Death is not the end; it is temporary emancipation, given to you when karma, the law of justice, determines that your present body and environment have served their purpose, or when you are too weary or exhausted by suffering to bear the burden of physical existence any longer. To those who are suffering, death is resurrection from the painful tortures of flesh into awakened peace and calmness. To the elderly, it is a pension earned by years of struggling through life.

For all, it is a welcome rest. May their souls rest in peace!