Fear of Death: a Paradox for Believers in Reincarnation?

Abstract

It seems that fearing the death and believing in an almost endless cycle of rebirths is a paradox, but in India it is an actual attitude of the majority of religious local creeds. The painful ways in which death happens, the frightening netherworld in which the dead must be punished, the sad missing of one’s family and friends, the uncertainty of the new form in which the imperishable soul (ātman) might dwell in its new life, all these are the basic elements of such a fear. Therefore the solution can be seen only in nirvāṇa, i.e. to be extinguished or not to go any longer.