Geethartha Chinthane - 111: What Doesn’t Exist Won’t Come, What Exists Won’t Go

“Na tvevāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
Na chaiva na bhaviṣhyāmaḥ sarve vayam-ataḥ param”
(Bhagavad Gita 2:12)

Watching a death scene in a play doesn’t make us cry, as we know it’s just a performance and not real. Similarly, in reality, birth and death are also not real. We think birth means something that didn’t exist has come into existence, and death means something that existed has ceased to exist.

However, what didn’t exist cannot come into existence, and what exists cannot cease to exist. What appears to come is simply arriving from somewhere else, and what appears to go is merely moving elsewhere. What doesn’t exist cannot arise, and what exists cannot vanish.

Neither you nor I are beings that die—we have existed from time immemorial. There’s no need to grieve because we never truly become nonexistent. If someone says the son is somewhere else, would we cry? Similarly, when someone dies, they are simply elsewhere. True grief would only arise if they cease to exist entirely—but that is never the case. Absence only means they’re not visible before our eyes.