The age old yogic teaching as taught at the Australian School of Meditation and Yoga is that death is when the body and self become separated. the body dies and the self lives on.
Socrates had a very good yogic understanding of how the self is only temporarily inhabiting the body, Even at the time of his passing away he was able to instruct his students as to their real identity.
Socrates was a very wise Greek philosopher from the 5th Century BC who was put on trial for his uncompromising and rebellious words and behaviour. To the great disappointment of his students and well wishers he was condemned to death. Just before he was to take the poison which was to kill him one of his students asked him how he would like to be buried. Socrates jokingly replied that they could bury him however they liked but they must first get hold of him and take care that he did not walk away from them! He then went on to explain to his students that the Socrates whom they would soon see as a dead body was not the same Socrates with whom they now talked and knew and that when his body died he would be leaving and going somewhere else. This knowledge, Socrates hoped, would greatly reduce their suffering at his death and be as great a comfort to them as it was to him.
Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul.
Bhagavad-gita 2:17
