Samkhya Yoga - Part 3 - Body and Soul

Chapter 2 /part 3

Bhagavad Gita: Body and Soul

The Bhagavad Gita, in chapter2 /part2 showed the ignorance behind Arjuna's emotional attachment to "my" feeling. The rest is his sadness for killing 'my' peoples in the war. To remove this confusion Krishna reveals the truth about body and soul.

Krishna tells: I had never been non existent. You also had never been non existent. Even all those kings had never been non existent. Therefore we all are had been existed for ever. We all will never become non existent hereafter.

The Bhagavad Gita: Soul is ever existing and body is transitory:

We are all souls not bodies. So there is no death by the loss of our body. Consider that nothing is happened when the physical body is dead. In this way think that I or you or those kings have no death, so no birth. All are ever existing souls.

How it is understood that soul has no death or no change? We all pass through different stages of our life. First is the birth then childhood, youth and old age. In all these stages there is no change for the "I". It is the same "I" passed through all the different stages of life. We know that what all changes happened to the body, nothing is happened to the "I" or soul. All the changes happens only to the body.

We experience three states of existence throughout our life. The wake-up state, dreaming state and deep sleep state (jagrath, swapna, sushupthi). In all these states the experiencer is the same. The "I" which do various karma in wake state goes to sleep and have dreams. The same "I" further goes to deep sleep. How it is understood? We all say after a deep sleep that "I" slept well and nothing was known.

In above two cases a particular thing is staying unchanged and that is the consciousness or soul. Here we saw there is no change for the soul during life stages and during different states of existence. So there will not be any change for the soul when it looses the physical body.

Just like an individual passes through childhood, youth and old age, similarly the soul receives new bodies when existing bodies become dead. It can also be compared to wearing new cloths when old cloths are worn out. Similarly a soul accepts new body several times. A soul has to take birth one after another till it completes the cycle by clearing off the accumulated karma.

The Bhagavad Gita reveals the secret of body and soul:

The absolute consciousness (Brahma or soul) is the only ever existing truth. All things that are visible in this universe, including our body, are perishable or transitory. There are only two components for existence - that is conscious Brahma or soul and dead matter or body. The consciousness is ever existing (without change) and the matter is ever changing. Consciousness is the only thing that have the capability of knowing its own existence and knowing other things. Matter does not have this capacity of knowing anything. A matter or body becomes live only when it have the presence of consciousness. When the soul leaves a body then the body becomes dead. Matter is subject to evolution. It always undergoes changes that is birth, growth, decay and death. Consciousness or soul has no birth and no death, it is ever existent. The individual consciousness (jivathma) gives existence to an individual . Body or mind or intelligence cannot give existence.

The individualized consciousness (because of a body and mind) is called 'jivathma' or individual soul. So, for an individual even if the body (matter) is lost (death) nothing is happened to the soul. The existence of soul continues by accepting several new bodies till its cycle of existence ends by clearing off the accumulated karma. Who he knows this truth never worries in the loss of a transitory body. In this verse13 of the Bhagavad Gita, after explaining this, Krishna urges Arjuna to give up worrying and get up and get ready for the war.

In the Bhagavad Gita the circumstance or occasion that happens here is a battle field, but the principles revealed here is not only for a battle field but also for the real battle of living. So utilize these principles in life.

Chapter 2 /part 2 <<<<<  Go to                                      Go to >>>> Chapter 2 /part4