Learning the Science of the Soul
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dānta   (or   Śārīraka  )  sūtras , which were compiled by Śrīla Vyāsadeva. The   Vedānta-sūtras   are the topmost Vedic literature, and they contain the nucleus of basic inquiries about the transcendental subject of spiritual knowledge. Yet although Śrīla Vyāsadeva compiled this great treatise, his mind was not satisfied. Then he happened to meet Śrī Nārada, his spiritual master, who advised him to describe the identity of the Personality of Godhead. Upon receiving this advice, Vyāsadeva meditated on the principle of  bhakti-yoga , which showed him distinctly what is the Absolute and what is the relativity, or  māyā . Having achieved perfect realization of these facts, he compiled the great narration of the   Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  , or beautiful   Bhāgavatam  , which begins with actual historical facts concerning the life of Mahārāja Parīkṣit.
The   Vedānta-sūtra   begins with the key inquiry about the Transcendence,  athāto brahma-jijñāsā : “One should now inquire about Brahman, or the Transcendence.”
As long as a man is in the full vigor of life, he forgets the naked truth of  death , which he has to meet. Thus a foolish man makes no relevant inquiry about the real problems of life. Everyone thinks that he will never  die , although he sees evidence of death before his eyes at every second. Here is the distinction between animalism and humanity. An animal like  a goat  has no sense of its impending death. Although its brother goat is  being  slaughtered, the goat, being allured by the green grass offered to it,  will stand peacefully waiting to be slaughtered next . On the other hand, if  a human  being sees his fellow man being killed by an enemy, he either  fights to save his brother or leaves , if possible, to save his own life. That is the difference between a man and a goat.
An intelligent man knows that death is born along with his own birth. He knows that he is dying at every second and that the final touch will be given as soon as his term of life is finished. He therefore prepares himself for the next life or for liberation from the disease of repeated birth and  death .
A foolish man, however, does not know that this human form of life is obtained after a series of births and deaths imposed in the past by the  laws  of nature. He does not know that a living entity is an eternal being,  who has no birth and death . Birth, death, old age, and disease are external impositions on a living entity and are due to his contact with material  nature  and to his forgetfulness of his eternal, godly nature and qualitative  oneness  with the Absolute Whole.
Human life provides the opportunity to know this eternal fact, or truth.