Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

you conclude that you die to be born again and that you are born to
die again. This conclusion is not right. (...)
Similarly an individual having taken birth should try not to take birth
again. To be born to die and to die to be born again gets one caught
up in the wheel of time. Without a body, one cannot do anything in the
world. The body has a gross form and this gross form is only a means
to fulfil the main purpose of life. This body is as much responsible for
bondage as it is for liberation. They say that man’s mind alone is responsible
for man’s bondage and man’s liberation. This is not the complete
truth. Both body and mind are responsible for your bondage and
liberation. Without the body, you cannot recognize the nature of your
mind. Life, mind and intelligence become evident only while accompanying
the body. Therefore, you must use such a sacred body for the
purpose of seeing truth. Man is the most sacred of all the animals. To
be born as a man is an extraordinary gift. Therefore, man must use this
life of his in a purposeful manner. (35-173)
In this world many people die and you all see the dead bodies being
disposed of. In spite of the fact that people die and leave the world,
each individual thinks that he is going to be permanent. In spite of the
fact that this person sees so many people die, he still has the desire
to live forever and he genuinely feels that he alone is permanent. If you
ask yourselves whether this feeling is due to ignorance or lack of
knowledge and whether it is an illusion, you come to the conclusion
that to him, it is a very important truth. Within him there is a quality of
permanence and the Divine self that is indestructible gives him this
feeling of permanence. Man daily sees and experiences sorrows and
pleasures, which are quite common in this world, but he aspires to
have bliss. What does this signify? This signifies the aspect of Brahman
and this is the aspect of bliss in him. (36-36)
You have to understand the meaning of the words death and immortality.
You regard death as synonymous with all kinds of strength in the
body being lost. In other words, death is the passing away of life
strength from the body. If the life strength remains in the body forever,
you regard that as a situation of immortality. This is not accurate. It is
wrong to think of immortality as life being retained permanently in this
body. To be able to completely identify one's self with the aspect of
God and completely forget the aspect of the body is true immortality.
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