The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita - 9.2. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Thursday, May 27, 2021. 7:34. AM. 
Chapter 9 : The Majesty of God-Consciousness - 2.
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The Bhagavadgita does not go into great details in this subject, as much as we have in the Upanishads, for instance. There is a brief statement of the exit of the soul. 'The departure of the soul from the body,' is the way we describe things generally, as if we are encaged in this body and we are not this body. As a person may leave his house, we, the real individuals lodged in this tabernacle, leave it one day in order that we may enter a new house which is already constructed for us by the architect who is paid for by God Himself; and already the house is built, the foundation is dug and the entire structure is complete even before we leave this body. Such wondrous mechanism operates in the universe.

But where do we go? – is a crucial question. "Where do I go, and where does anything go?" We will not be taken to that place which we have not desired in our mind, or rather which does not follow as a natural consequence of our thoughts, feelings and actions. The Bhagavadgita will tell us at another place that the consequences of our deeds are not entirely in our hands. And the deed so-called is not merely what we do with our hands and feet, but also what we think and feel and will; all these are actions, perhaps they are real actions. Our deep-seated longings are our actions, more than what our feet do or hands do. And many times our longings are different from the shape taken by our physical activities. Social conditions and many other factors prevent inward longings from manifesting themselves in outward form, and we live a repressed life. But this repression is something like burying a seed in the ground, which will sprout itself forth one day when there is rainfall and a conducive atmosphere is manifest.

Anything can happen to the soul after death. One can be reborn into this world, one can rise to a higher level, a higher region or superior plane of existence, and if we are to follow the trend of the thought given to us in the Upanishad, one can go to heaven and hell also. One can go to Brahmaloka, one can move along the Uttaramarga or Dakshinamarga, the Aksharadipatha – the path of light, or the path of smoke – as the Bhagavadgita puts it. We need not go into minor details of these eschatological studies. The point that we may bear in mind is that we have to be very cautious in thinking, feeling, and willing. We should not be fools when we start thinking through our minds, under the impression that we are masters in this world. No individual can be a supreme master here, because of the very fact of a different type of relationship that seems to obtain between ourselves and the whole creation into which we had a peep when we studied the cosmological processes. 

But, however, we are given a solacing message in the end – "Whoever contemplates the Supreme Being, God Himself, that soul will enter God." There is no need of exit – that soul, which is in permanent communion with the Supreme Master of the Universe, the Sovereign of the Cosmos, the Absolute, Parabrahma, Ishvar – that consciousness which is in union by yoga with the Eternal Reality will melt into the ocean of existence, here and now. Atra brahma sama?nute(Katha 2.3.14); na tasya pr??? utkr?manti (Brihad. 4.4.6): There is no movement of the prana in any external direction to such a soul, and there is no Uttaramarga, Dakshinamarga or any kind of marga – it is a dissolution of the drop in the ocean, there itself, at the very location of it. Such a liberation is called Sadyo-mukti – instantaneous liberation.

To be continued ....

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