If one is truly serious about achieving the ultimate goal of human life by perfecting his spiritual inquiry, he must adopt a life style that is conducive to the cultivation of self-realizing knowledge. This life style can be beautifully summarized in the phrase 'simple living and high thinking'. Here simple living is in relation to maintenance of the body, and high thinking is in relation to the aim of one's intellectual pursuits.
As a person puts on new garments, giving up old and useless ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up old and useless ones. Throughout one's life the body is slowly but surely deteriorating, coming closer and closer to its end. When that body is no longer able to accommodate the soul, the nature provides the soul with another suitable body according to his previous actions. As the embodied soul continuously passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at the time of death. One who understands this fundamental truth of