SRIMAD-BHAGAVATAM 7 CHAPTER 2 TEXT 44
suyajño nanv ayaṁ śete
mūḍhā yam anuśocatha
yaḥ śrotā yo ’nuvakteha
sa na dṛśyeta karhicit
TRANSLATION
Yamarāja continued: O lamenters, you are all fools! The person named Suyajña, for whom you lament, is still lying before you and has not gone anywhere. Then what is the cause for your lamentation? Previously he heard you and replied to you, but now, not finding him, you are lamenting. This is contradictory behavior, for you have never actually seen the person within the body who heard you and replied. There is no need for your lamentation, for the body you have always seen is lying here.
PURPORT
This instruction by Yamarāja in the form of a boy is understandable even for a common man. A common man who considers the body the self is certainly comparable to an animal (yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke. .. sa eva go-kharaḥ [SB 10.84.13]). But even a common man can understand that after death a person is gone. Although the body is still there, a dead man’s relatives lament that the person has gone away, for a common man sees the body but cannot see the soul. As described in Bhagavad-gītā, dehino ’smin yathā dehe: [Bg. 2.13] the soul, the proprietor of the body, is within. After death, when the breath within the nostrils has stopped, one can understand that the person within the body, who was hearing and replying, has now gone. Therefore, in effect, the common man concludes that actually the spirit soul was different from the body and has now gone away. Thus even a common man, coming to his senses, can know that the real person who was within the body and was hearing and replying was never seen. For that which was never seen, what is the need of lamentation?