Cabin Baggage

Long before we reach the Biblical 'three score years and ten', we must begin to pack for the last voyage. Yet, this journey requires no possessions, no heirlooms. The only baggage we carry is the residue left after the lifelong consequences of our actions, thoughts and intentions are distilled. It truly belongs to us and travels with us beyond this life.

In Hindu philosophy, this distillate, called karm, is not discarded at death but accompanies the soul into rebirth. Gita assures us that spiritual effort is never wasted; what we cultivate in this life carries forward into the next. By contrast, the Abrahamic traditions reject rebirth, teaching, instead, that divine judgement shapes the soul's eternal destiny. In both views, however, the moral consequence of our lives determines what lies beyond.

The Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi offers a luminous perspective, 'What you seek is seeking you.' Our longing for truth, love, beauty or God is not accidental. It is the Divine reaching toward us, a reminder that the journey is reciprocal. So, how do we prepare for this inevitable departure? Not by clinging to possessions or achievements but by improving the quality of our being. We are carried by our karm until even that disappears, leaving only the seeker and the sought united as one. That is the lightest baggage of all.


Whatever our faith, the lesson is the same. A life marked by compassion, integrity and spiritual effort will stand us in good stead. In the afterlife or the next life, it is the richness of our soul that endures.