Overcoming Death

In ancient scripture, particularly in the Vedic and Hindu scriptures, we read of “overcoming death” or “putting death itself to death.” What is meant by this? Is our aim, or one of our aims, in spiritual development, to achieve immortality? Does it refer to the state of Nirvana, where the aspirant has gone beyond the necessary stages of reincarnation and has achieved perfection? Or does it simply mean that one aim of our development is to become so removed from conditioning, or comparisons of this versus that; so immersed in the quality of right now; so absorbed in God, in the universal Being, that death does not represent a threat of loss or extinction but merely another state of existence, neither good nor bad, nor sad, nor dreadful. Can we not progress to St. Paul’s question: “Death where is thy sting?”