Sharing Sanjivani (Sanjivani - Life Saving Herb)

Chapter 15 Should we retreat?

(15)   Should we retreat?

Lord Krishna starts his advice by explaining him the theory of oneness of living soul with almighty. When a person thinks in duality that he is a body and not soul, he thinks that Almighty who lives within his body and in the form of a soul and who is a part and parcel of the universe, both are different. He carries the cross of all his deeds in his life time. A person or a JIV here thinks that I am a body and other relatives are my own blood and bones. I have collected wealth for them. I have made home for them .I have done this thing and that things. His ‘I’ shows ego of a person. Really speaking, everybody is a mortal thing and it has to die one day. When the body is not our property how do we think that it is ours? Anything is if it is under our control or possession, it would not live with us forever. But we have to abandon our body so it is not under our control and it is not our property. It is made of five elements and it has to be destroyed as every mortal thing destroys. The thing which remains with us life after life and births after births is our soul because it is immortal so to think physical body as our property is our mistake. Here Lord Krishna told Arjun that when a body dies you did not die because you are not a body. You are a part of Almighty; you are a soul which cannot be destroyed

You have taken many births and I was with you  all the time as you are a part of my universal form .When a body feels joy and sorrow, pain and gain, fear and strength ,a soul is free from everything. Body is in a physical form so it feels everything, while soul have no feelings. When a person makes his conscience free from the illusion of physical substance of the body and know his spiritual being soul, he would enjoy his life on the earth. To think about body is an animal instinct. Only a man has power of thinking but when he himself thinks about him as an animal only then it means that he has no power of knowledge

Physical body is untruth and a spiritual soul is a truth. A knowledgeable person should not think about physical body because he knows that physical body changes its form with every death. While spiritual soul remains the same. Every soul has many births and after every birth nobody knows how many births would a soul take until he reaches salvation. And death is considered as a sleep of a soul and after every sleep when a soul wakes up; it is a new birth in a new body. Hence past, present and future cannot affect a soul’s existence ,it can destroy only body.

A physical body with mind, intellect and ego and will power takes different forms and shapes .It is destroyed but as we can see only our present and forget about our past births .We think whatever is visible to us in this physical world is truth. When in reality this physical world is constantly changing. Nothing remains steady. Whatever visible to us would be destroyed one day? It is related with its birth, life and death just as a physical thing are related with creation, Existence till dead line and decayed. While a soul is immortal when we think that God is there it is an acceptance of supreme authority of Almighty and while we think I am there, it is non-acceptance of God and pampering our foolish ego as doer or creator of events and happenings around us. We can divide time in past, present and future, again in hours, minutes and seconds but Almighty is undivided. He is omnipresent all the time in all ages, in every living and non-livings. The timeless theory states that we have millions of births and deaths since the world originated. In that sense physical body was created before, it is now in the present tense in the form of ‘Arjun’ while soul is one. A body has to be destroyed but the authority of the soul would be everlasting. You are here because the supreme authority wants you to perform your role on the battle field. You will die when the supreme authority will decide. In the meantime from your birth to your death, you are supposed to perform your duty and role as supreme authority of Almighty decides.

You are free to make choice of selecting your roles. You can choose good or bad road to travel your life journey. But you are not the director of the script of your role .The God is the director  and your own past deeds and decision to follow right or wrong path every now and then writes the script of your role and future. Just as sky changes every now and then your soul changes body after every birth according to your past deeds.

A body has to suffer from various stages in life from birth to death. It has childhood, youth and the old age but soul that bears the different body visible to all make changes every second within the body even when body is sleeping or awakening. It shows that growth of the body is under the control of God. If we have to take our breath by our own we may forget to breath while occupied in other urgent task but all the system of body as our nervous system, our respiratory systems work day and night without asking or waiting for our permission.  A physical body changes its shapes, sizes, features we accept it as a ‘Growth’ of the body and never complain about it but when a soul changes body into various living bodies, we cannot accept the change as ‘death’ of that original body naturally. As it is natural for physical body to die with a growth from childhood to old age it is natural for soul to change the old body (role on the earth) when the allotted task or the prescribed role on the earth is carried out or finished so as we have to accept growth of the physical body ,we have to accept change of the soul normally just as various stages of life as various births on the earth.

             We can recognize and understood the growth of the physical body with the help of knowledge of science because we are taught about it in our schools. But we did not know different births of the soul because we are not taught it in any schools. When we see changes of physical body we think that we are awaken but we cannot see changes of spiritual soul, it is known as a ‘sleep’ of a soul. Hence life is compared to a dream. The philosophy says that life on the earth is a sleep under the illusion and delusion created by great God. Do we want to awake from the sleep?

            Let’s listen to the call of Lord Krishna….