The real goal of life is not the death of the ego but the death of the mind. So when Mohammad or Zoroaster or Jesus talked of being born once, or dying once, they meant the death of the mind. Mind is born from the very beginning — even before the stone age. This birth takes place only once and the death of the mind also takes place only once.

When the mind dies, the false ego is transformed into Reality. Real ego is never born and it never dies. Ego is always real, but due to the mind, the ego feels and acts as the limited and false “I.”

Now mind goes on taking bodies according to its good or bad impressions. This taking and shedding bodies is not the death of either the mind or the ego. After physical death, the mind remains, with all its accumulated impressions. It is the impressions which make the mind take bodies so that the impressions might be experienced in the process of being wiped out, while the ego remains a witness.

Even when you are fast asleep, the ego and the mind are still there. The impressions wake you up so that they might be experienced and in the process get wiped out. This phenomenon is also in a way the daily birth of the body. When one body is dropped, another comes up; although there is a certain time lag between the giving up of one body and the taking on of another.

In between, there are the mind-states of heaven, hell, etc. The mind has to die in this body; thus the Masters have chalked out different ways to attain this Man-O-Nash or annihilation of the mind during life…. The world and its activities are really worthless. Actions continue whether they are good or bad, and therefore the Masters have said, “Act in such a way that the actions do not bind you and impressions are not created.