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Commentary by Jayaram V
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12. Never was there a time when I was not, nor you, nor the lords of men, nor will there ever be a time hereafter when we all shall cease to be.
13. Just as the soul in this body passes through childhood, youth and old age,
so does it pass into another body; the steadfast one is not deluded. |
One of the most fundamental and profound ideas of the Vedanta is contained in
these two verses. These two verses sum up briefly the eternal nature of the soul
and the idea that the soul reincarnates as naturally as the body passes through
the different phases of childhood, youth and old age. One of the most singular contributions
of Hinduism (if at all it can be called a religion in the most limited sense) to
the world's body of thought is the concept of reincarnation of soul and the cycle
of births and deaths
The creative process inherent in Nature cannot enact its evolutionary scheme
unless life on earth is limited in scope and repetitive in nature. It requires for
its success a central principle, a core consciousness capable of assimilating experience
and evolving itself into some predetermined state or into the very original state
from where the very process of creation started. Birth gives an opportunity to the
soul to make a fresh beginning to achieve its long-term goals, while death enables
it to review its previous activities and plan for a new phase of life on earth.
Birth and death are the doors through which the soul has to pass repeatedly till
it achieves required degree of purification for a perfect union with the Universal
Soul. They are the means by which the soul cleanses and refines itself until it
becomes completely divine in nature to fulfill and complete the cycle of divine
creation.
Life on earth is not just a mere expression of some blind and unconscious energy
working for its own whimsical and aimless wandering. It is difficult to accept finite
life as the evolutionary product of finite Nature or as interplay of some ignorant
molecules coming together by accident and initiating a process of life beyond the
comprehension of ordinary intellect. There is an overwhelming evidence to suggest
that universe is a well organized and self regulating system that is capable of
conceiving and implementing a grand universal programme of creation, maintenance
and destruction in cyclical and repetitive manner.
It is convincing to accept life as a product of gross energy refining itself
into pure consciousness in successive phases of reality till it goes beyond the
laws of mutability and destruction. The process of creation in order to fulfill
its very purpose has to ensure that finite life evolves itself into an eternal divine
life. How this transformation is achieved, whether in an instant or through successive
phases of life and death, are the subject matter of all religious speculation and
also the cause of much religious diversity. Vedanta supports the latter opinion
that regards the transformation as a gradual process and subject to the laws of
karma, a self-correcting mechanism.
Bhagavadgita Chapter 2 Verses 1- 21
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