We live in curious times. There has probably never been a time when death has been so visible. We see it every day on the news, in movies, in TV shows, in video games, and on social media. We see wars, accidents, and tragedies. Sometimes it even happens that, when faced with someone in distress or a real-life tragedy, people reach for their phones to film the scene before even thinking about helping. Yet this constant exposure doesn’t seem to have made us any more comfortable with death. It’s as if it has become visually omnipresent, yet existentially distant. We see it all the time, but it’s almost always someone else’s death. We know it exists, but we keep on living as if it didn’t really concern us.

Maybe because Seeing death does not mean knowing death. It is not necessarily its physical proximity that frees us from fear. We can live alongside suffering, we can witness the deaths of many people, we can even work every day in places where people die, and still harbor within us a deep terror of our own end.

The tradition of yoga offers a very interesting interpretation of this mechanism. In the Yoga Sūtras, Patañjali discusses the five kleśa, the major causes of suffering: avidyā, ignorance; asmitā, the identification of the self; rāga, attachment; dveṣa, aversion; and finally abhiniveśa, the clinging to life, the deep fear of death. It is significant that abhiniveśayou reach the end of a sequence. Before the fear of death, there is a mistake in our understanding of ourselves.

If we don’t know who we are, we inevitably identify with whatever changes—our body, the role we play, our work, our relationships, our personal history, and the things we own. We then develop attachment to whatever sustains this identity and aversion to whatever threatens it. Death thus becomes the ultimate threat, because it seems to take everything away from us. From this perspective, the answer to fear is not simply to get used to the idea of dying. It is the transition from avidyā to vidyā, from ignorance to knowledge. And so the question inevitably arises: Who's dying?

The Bhagavad-gītā begins right on the brink of death. Arjuna is not sitting peacefully meditating on a mountain. He stands before the people he loves—his teachers, his family, and his friends—and faces the very real possibility of their death. His body trembles, his mouth goes dry, and he drops his bow. Kṛṣṇa does not respond by telling him that he should not suffer. Instead, He invites him to look more deeply into the nature of the person. In the second chapter of the Gītā, we find one of the simplest yet most profound images in the Vedic tradition: we were children, then adolescents, then adults, then the elderly. The body has changed countless times, and yet we continue to say “I.” What is the continuity that runs through all these changes?

According to the Bhagavad-gītā, this continuity belongs to the’ātman, to the spiritual dimension of being. The body changes; the ātman transcends that change. Kṛṣṇa also uses the image of clothing: just as a person discards a worn-out garment and puts on another, so too does the being leave one body behind and continue on its journey. This does not mean that death is irrelevant or that the pain of separation is an illusion. For those left behind, the absence is real. The body we embraced is no longer there; the voice we heard no longer answers. But the perspective changes radically: Death is no longer necessarily the destruction of the person, but the conclusion of a particular bodily experience.

If I am nothing but the body, death is my disappearance. If, on the other hand, the body is the vehicle through which I experience the world, death becomes a threshold. And it is at this point that one of the most beautiful stories in the Upanishads takes on a special meaning.

In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, we find Naciketas, a young man who appears before Yama, the Lord of Death. Yama grants him three wishes. Naciketas uses his third wish to ask a question that runs through the entire history of humanity: when a person dies, some say they continue to exist, while others say they no longer exist. What is the truth? Yama initially tries to convince him to choose something else. He offers him riches, a long life, offspring, power, and pleasures. But Naciketas refuses. He has understood something essential: everything Yama offers him still belongs to the realm of death. Even a very long life, sooner or later, comes to an end.

Naciketas, then He doesn't ask Death how to avoid dying. He asks Death what does not die.. And perhaps this is where one of the great spiritual functions of death lies: to challenge the hierarchy of the things we once considered important. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad distinguishes between preyas, what is pleasant, and śreyas, what is truly good and leads to a profound transformation. When we feel that time is infinite, we can keep putting off making this distinction. In the face of death, however, many things that seemed enormous suddenly become small, while what we had overlooked can become essential.

It is one thing, however, to reflect philosophically on death. It is quite another to lose someone we love. And here, the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam tells a story of extraordinary intensity—that of the king Citraketu. Citraketu deeply longed to have a son. After a long wait and thanks to the intervention of the ṛṣi Aṅgirā, the child was finally born. That son became the center of his life. But shortly thereafter, he died. Citraketu and the child’s mother were overcome with despair. Then Aṅgirā and Nārada arrived.

Their teaching does not consist simply of saying, “Do not suffer; after all, the ātman is eternal.” Such a statement, in the face of a parent’s grief, would be almost cruel. Spiritual knowledge does not automatically make us insensitive. Arjuna suffers. Citraketu suffers. The Scriptures do not hide this suffering. They transform it into a deeper question.

Nārada allows the jīva that had inhabited the child's body to reappear. And when she is asked to return to her parents, the response is shocking: In which of my many lives were these people my father and my mother? The person Citraketu called “my son” had a story that went far beyond the brief role he had played within his family.

This teaching could easily be misunderstood. It does not mean that relationships are false or that we should not love. On the contrary. Love is real, but the role is temporary. Father, mother, son, husband, wife, friend: these are precious ways in which two people come together for a part of their journey. The problem isn’t loving too much. The problem arises when we confuse love with possession.

Perhaps one of the hardest lessons death teaches us is precisely this: to love without possessing. When someone dies, we can no longer continue the relationship in the way we were accustomed to. We can no longer encounter that person through that body, that voice, or those habits. But this does not necessarily mean that the person has been annihilated. From the Vedic perspective, the jīva He continues on his path. For those who remain, however, the work of grieving begins: slowly learning to transform the relationship without denying the love.

The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam then introduces us to another key figure: Mahārāja Parīkṣit. Parīkṣit is cursed: he will die within seven days from the bite of the serpent Takṣaka. And here something extraordinary happens. He does not use the power of his kingdom to pretend that nothing is happening. He does not try to frantically fill his last days with pleasures. He leaves the kingdom, goes to the banks of the Ganges, and asks the sages an essential question: What should a person who is about to die do?

Parīkṣit says he has seven days. We don't know how many we have.

This simple difference could profoundly change the way we live. If we knew for certain that in seven days we would leave this body, how many things would suddenly lose their importance? Which arguments would we put aside? Who would we call? With whom would we want to make amends? Who would we thank? What would we finally stop putting off?

Parīkṣit spent those seven days listening to Śukadeva Gosvāmī, immersing himself in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. His preparation for death was first and foremost a’orientation of consciousness. And this brings us to another fundamental teaching of the Bhagavad-gītā. In Chapter 8, Kṛṣṇa explains that the state of consciousness at the moment of death is of particular importance. What we remember at the end is connected to what we have cultivated throughout our lives.

This doesn't mean that it's enough to say a spiritual word in the last five seconds. It means almost the opposite. Death doesn't happen out of the blue. At a time when many of our usual structures are crumbling, what we have deeply built within ourselves tends to emerge. For this reason, in the tradition of yoga, preparing for death means preparing throughout one’s life: cultivating mindfulness, prayer, remembrance, detachment, service, and a relationship with the Divine. Learning to let go, even today.

From this perspective, death can also become a stage of development, not because dying automatically makes us more spiritual, but because it represents a threshold. Consciousness leaves one state and moves toward another. And that is precisely why the way we accompany a person who is dying takes on such great importance.

Modern medicine can do extraordinary things to treat illness, relieve pain, and prolong life. But there is also another question, one that is not merely medical: How do you provide spiritual support to someone when it is no longer possible to heal them? For family members, this is often one of the most difficult times. We feel helpless. We can no longer “fix” the situation. We can’t stop what’s happening.

Yet Just because you can't get better anymore doesn't mean you can't do anything anymore.

We can be there for them. We can listen. We can create a peaceful environment. We can pray. We can recite a mantra or the Divine Name, when that resonates with the person. We can help them not feel alone. Above all, we can learn not to hold them back simply because of our own fear. In this sense To accompany means to be there.

The rites that follow death also serve a profound purpose. They are not meant only for the person who has left their body. They are also meant for those left behind. The rite gives form to something that otherwise risks being nothing but chaos. It allows us to say goodbye, to pray, to perform a gesture, and to journey through grief together. When faced with the death of someone we love, we often feel completely powerless. The ritual reminds us that we can still participate; we can still offer something. It gives the living something to do when it seems like there's nothing left to do.

Maybe that's why the title Sister Death It is so powerful. Not because we should wish for death or pretend that separation doesn't hurt. But because a sister is part of our family. Death has been with us since birth. We don't know when we will encounter it personally, but we know it is part of the human condition.

So the question becomes: Can we learn anything from her?

Death puts our priorities into perspective. It reminds us that time is precious. It teaches us that we cannot hold on to everything. It forces us to distinguish between who we are and what we own. It invites us to love without turning love into possession. And above all, it constantly poses a question to us: Who am I, really?

Perhaps death becomes a teacher of life precisely when we stop viewing it merely as the opposite of life. When we realize that remembering death does not mean becoming more gloomy, but more present. More capable of saying what needs to be said, of letting go of what needs to be let go of, of recognizing what truly matters.

Learning to die means, ultimately, learning to live. And learning to live means learning to love without possessing and to let go without ceasing to love.

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Here are some excerpts from my remarks at the intercultural meeting held at the Abbey of Pontida.