Just Atoms?

“For a materialist,” astrophysicist and novelist Alan Lightman writes, “death is the name that we give to a collection of atoms that once had the special arrangement of a functioning neuronal network and now no longer does so.”

But is that all there is to you and me?
Yogis vehemently assert there is much more.
And Krishna, master and controller of the entire yoga system and its ultimate goal, patiently elucidates, in Bhagavad-gita, the nonmaterial self.

The literary astrophysicist pushes onward, though. “Despite my belief that I am only a collection of atoms, that my awareness is passing away neuron by neuron, I am content with the *illusion* of life. I’ll take it. And I find a pleasure in knowing that a hundred years from now, even a thousand years from now, some of my atoms will remain on Lute Island [a summer retreat spot].”

Devamrita Swami