Rest in Peace

Abstract

When a person passes away, all walks of life in the world irrespective of religion use generally a common phrase and send a condolence message saying “Rest in Peace” or “Atama Shanti” to the bereaved families. It implies that let the soul be in rest and peace. This profound mournful message has a lot of philosophical connotations. The general public conveys this message without understanding much of this inherent meaning. What is that place, where can he have rest and can he have eternal peace? Where is that place? Do all or a few pure souls go there?  If few souls go, what about others? If they go, will they come back or stay there permanently?  Does the birth and death cycle continue? What is the purpose of human life? These have been the metaphysical queries of many people.  These are well illustrated in Indian Vedic Scriptures such as Vedas, Puranas, Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatham, etc.  The Bhagavad-Gita spoken by the Lord Krishna and written by the Srila Vyasadeva is considered to be the fifth Veda.  The human form is very rare to obtain. Once obtained the human platform, it must be utilized properly to go to higher spiritual levels. The Lord Krishna says that the final destination to get a rest with peace is His Supreme abode in the transcendental world.  One who reaches there, he will not return to this material world. Only one out of a million people reach Him others will undergo the birth and death cycle in accordance with their karma. The soul carries the results of the bad and good karma which are determining parameters for the successive births. The purpose of all Vedic scriptures, spiritual and devotional activities are meant to detach from material enjoyment and escape from the material world and reside in the spiritual world. The metaphysical analysis of the body and soul, modes of nature, the passage of the soul to the Supreme abode and rest in peace in terms of Space, Energy, and Time domains are studied using the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatham. The analysis is systematically presented in this paper as a part of the research project to give a proper illustration for the condolence message "Rest in Peace". These concepts are different from that of sematic religions.