Death is a Tax...

Death is a tax the soul has to pay for having had a name and a form.

Bowl of Saki, August 28, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

All that is constructed is subject to destruction; all that is composed must be
decomposed; all that is formed must be destroyed; that which has birth has
death. But all this belongs to matter; the spirit which is absorbed by this
formation of matter or by its mechanism lives, for spirit cannot die.

That which the soul has borrowed he must give back when it has done its work; it
was borrowed for a certain time and for a certain purpose. When the purpose is
fulfilled, when the time is finished, then every plane asks for that which the
soul has borrowed from it, and one cannot help but give it back to that plane.
It is this process which is called assimilation. Since man is born greedy and
selfish he has taken all things willingly, enthusiastically -- he gives them
back grudgingly and calls it death. ...

Death is nothing but the taking off of one garb and giving it back to the plane
from which it was borrowed, for the condition is this: one cannot take the garb
of the lower plane to the higher plane. The soul is only released when it is
willing -- or compelled -- to give its garb to the plane it has taken it from.
It is this which releases the soul to go on in its travel. And as it proceeds to
a higher plane, after its stay there it must again give its garb back and be
purified from it in order to go further. ... This knowledge also throws a light
upon the question of death. Death is not really death; it is only a passing
stage, it is only a change, as changing clothes.