A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 3-7: Swami Krishnananda.
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Saturday, 13 Jan 2024 06:15.
Chapter 3: The Transmigration of the Soul:6.
Post-7.
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Now, the desire, even if it be for getting involved in one form only, arises from the universality of consciousness, so there is an impossibility of fulfilling any desire. There is a blunder that consciousness seems to be committing in wanting to achieve only something, to the exclusion of something else. All desires arise from the Universal Being but, because of the universality behind this desire, it is impossible to fulfil it. Unless you get everything you want, you will not fulfil your desire. But as you have already counteracted that possibility by wishing to be only something and wanting to do only something, you cannot fulfil your wish.
In this world, therefore, no one can fulfil their wish entirely. No desire of yours can be fully accomplished. There is a basic blunder at the very thought of fulfilling the desire because, on the one hand, it is impossible to fulfil it on account of the universality that is at the back of it; and secondly, there is an insistence of this part of the universality to be only something. So what happens? As this little body that is manufactured by the wish of consciousness to be individual finds it impossible to fulfil all its desires, it is cast off as a worn-out garment. When you find that an instrument is of no longer of any use, you throw it away and get a fresh instrument –to continue your work.
Thus, birth and death actually mean casting off the redundant sheath of the individuality for the sake of assuming a new sheath in order to see if the desire can be fulfilled through the new one, which is rebirth. Hence, rebirth – entering into a new body, the evolutionary process of becoming something else – is, again, a futile attempt to find the universal in the particular. The Universal is universal; the particular is completely different from the universal. Therefore, to be an individual, and wanting to be an individual for all time to come, and yet trying to fulfil all desires universally, is not a worthwhile attempt.
Who dies? This question is answered by the argument that the sheaths of the body are cast off, as the universal desire cannot be fulfilled by any kind of sheath that you put on, and so endless births and deaths take place. Therefore moksha, liberation, complete freedom of the spirit is not possible as long as you wish to be something and do something; but would you like to do everything? Nobody wishes to do everything, and also nobody wishes to be all things – the entire space, time and cosmos. It is not your wish, but this is the only solution. You are free only when you are all things and can do everything. Therefore, as everyone in the world can be something only and not all things, and also do only something, birth and death cannot be avoided.
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