Words of wisdom

It would be futile to hold on to who you are at this moment on terms of body and mind.(People are baffled by which self they are going to take to heaven because either they imagine an ideal self going there, or a self they have attached to their imaginations. At some level we all know that there was never an age that felt ideal, however.) Life needs to be fresh. It needs to renew itself. If you could beat death and remain just who you are - or who you were at the time of life you consider the best - you'd succeed only in mummifying yourself.
You are dying at every moment so that you can keep creating yourself.
Death can be viewed as a total illusion because you are dead already. When you think of who you are in terms of I, me and mine, you are referring to your past, a time that is dead and gone. Its memories are relics of a time passed by. The ego keeps itself intact by repeating what it already knows. Yet life is actually unknown, as it has to be if you are ever to conceive of new thoughts, desires and experiences. By choosing to repeat the past, you are keeping life from renewing itself.

Deepak Chopra, "The Book Of Secrets"