Prabhupāda Says:
He reasons ill who says that Vaiṣṇavas die,
When thou art living still in sound!
The Vaiṣṇavas die to live, and living try
To spread the holy name around.
[Nārada Bhakti Sūtra – Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura]
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In Sanskrit, a pure devotee’s birth and death are referred to as avirbhava (appearance) and tirobhava (disappearance). Death doesn’t seem the right word when speaking of a pure devotee of the Lord. Ordinary people die, but a pure devotee leaves the body and this world and enters the eternal spiritual world. We celebrate the pure devotee’s tirobhava as a glorious event.
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Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, written in honor of the great chanter and teacher of the holy name Srila Haridasa Thakura: “He reasons ill who says that Vaishnavas die, When thou art living still in sound!”
This indicates that pure devotees live on in their teachings. So in that sense, too, they never die. We find this idea applied to anyone who has left behind something “immortal,” such as a literary or an artistic creation. But the sound by which pure devotees live on in this world is not a temporal creation but an eternal sound transmitted through them from the spiritual world. As Srila Narottama Dasa writes, “The sound of the glorification of Krishna is a gift from Goloka Vrindavana, Lord Krishna’s eternal abode.” If we immerse ourselves in that liberating sound, we won’t die either. As Prabhupada once said, at the end of our time in this body we’ll close our eyes, and when we open them, we’ll be with Krishna.
—Nagaraja Dasa
Excerpt from