"That's all that death is, what we call death. The body moves back to matter, to the earth; and the soul, if it still has desires, longings, starts seeking another womb, another opportunity to fulfill them. Or if the soul is finished with all desires, with all longings, then there is no longer any possibility of its coming back into a bodily form – then it moves into eternal consciousness.

"Moving into eternal consciousness is a very paradoxical phenomenon: one is not and yet one is. A dewdrop slipping into the ocean is no more, in a sense – as a dewdrop it is no more; the boundary that made it a dewdrop has disappeared. But in another sense it is more than it has ever been; it has become the very ocean, its boundary has expanded to infinity, its boundary has exploded into the unbounded.

"A man like Buddha becomes the universal consciousness, yet – and this is the paradox – his individuality is not lost, his consciousness is not lost.

"So, Ram, I cannot say that death is eternal sleep. On the contrary, it is eternal awakening. Poets have been telling you down the ages: 'Death is eternal sleep, don't be afraid.' They themselves know not, they are simply giving you consolation. But what can the difference be between real death and eternal sleep? Have you ever thought about it? If sleep is eternal it is death. If it is never going to be broken then where is the difference? A corpse and an eternally asleep man are exactly the same. If the sleep is going to be forever and forever, it is death.

"The primitive people are far closer to the truth: they say that sleep is a small death. They are right, because for a few hours you become completely oblivious to the world, to others, to yourself, to your body. You become completely disconnected for a few hours, then you are reconnected again. It is a small death. Sleep is a small death but not vice versa: death is not eternal sleep; if it were then what would the difference be, Ram?

"If you simply want to console yourself that, 'I will be eternally asleep in death,' that's another matter."