The Upanishads approach suffering, death, and rebirth by tracing them back to a fundamental error: ignorance (avidyā) of the true nature of the Self (ātman) and of ultimate reality (Brahman. When consciousness identifies itself with the perishable body, the restless mind, and the shifting ego, it becomes entangled in desire, fear, and attachment. This misidentification turns the transient—roles, possessions, and experiences—into “I” and “mine,” and from this confusion arise sorrow and anxiety. Under the spell of this ignorance, actions are performed with clinging and aversion, and these actions generate karmic consequences that perpetuate dissatisfaction. Suffering, then, is not treated as an arbitrary punishment, but as the natural outcome of not recognizing the deathless Self that underlies all changing phenomena.

Death, within this vision, is not an absolute end but a transition in the ongoing journey of the empirical self. The Upanishads affirm that the ātman is unborn, undying, and untouched by the destruction of the body; only the outer form falls away. The individual, as conditioned by karma and desire, moves on when the body perishes, much as one might exchange worn-out garments for new ones. Death marks a change of state for this conditioned being, not a rupture in the continuity of the true Self, which remains eternal and unchanging. In this way, the fear of annihilation is gently undermined by the teaching that what is most real in a person cannot be killed.

Rebirth (saṃsāra) is described as the cyclical process of birth, death, and further birth, driven by karma and sustained by ignorance. Actions undertaken with attachment leave subtle impressions that shape future experiences and determine the circumstances of subsequent lives. As long as the Self is misconstrued as limited and separate, desire and fear continue to arise, and with them the karmic forces that necessitate further embodiment. This entire cycle is itself a condition of suffering, because everything within it is marked by change, loss, and limitation. The subtle continuity of the individual across lives persists until the root ignorance is dispelled.

The Upanishadic remedy for this predicament is liberation (mokṣa), attained through direct knowledge (jñāna) of the unity of ātman and Brahman. When it is realized, as expressed in mahāvākyas such as “tat tvam asi” and “ahaṃ brahmāsmi,” that the innermost Self is not other than the infinite reality, the basis for fear, craving, and bondage falls away. Actions may still occur, but they no longer bind, because they are no longer rooted in a mistaken sense of a separate ego. For one established in this realization, suffering may still appear at the level of body and mind, yet inwardly there is unshaken peace, and death loses its sting. With the dissolution of ignorance, the chain of karma and rebirth is broken, and the individualized consciousness is said to be resolved into the timeless, deathless Brahman.