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12 &13. 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.
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12 & 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.
Commentary by Jayaram V
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