A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 3-4: Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, 29 Dec 2023 06:20.

Chapter 3: The Transmigration of the Soul:4.

Post-4.

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Apart from that, there is a metabolic process going on in the body. Anyone who knows physiology will know what metabolism is. The anabolic and catabolic processes combined are called metabolism. There is a continuous change taking place in this body. On account of the attachment of consciousness to these processes that are taking place from moment to moment, you are unable to know that these changes are occurring in your body. You now have become something else from the condition in which you were many years back as a little baby or a child. There is a difference between your babyhood long ago and your adulthood just now, but you do not perceive this difference because of the continuity of an undivided consciousness which you really are.

An iron rod is made up of little particles of iron. If it is heated until it becomes red hot, the particles cannot be seen; only the radiance, the red heat, is visible. In a similar manner, every limb of the body, from the fingertips to the toes, appears to be a completeness. The whole body feels the touch of a little toe or a little finger, due to the fact that there is a consciousness pervading this entire organism. If this divisibility of consciousness were not to be there, every part of the body would look disjointed. One hand would not know the existence of the other hand, and one limb would not cooperate with another organ of the body. But every little cell and part of the body, every little limb, goes on working in such system, method and harmony that you feel that you are one integrality, one whole. “I am coming,” you sometimes say. Who is coming? Is the nose coming, are the ears coming, are the legs coming or are the hands coming? Which is coming? It is a consciousness that is actually making this statement: “I am coming.” And the movement of the legs and the seeing of the eyes and other activities of the limbs are effects that follow from the order that is issued by this integral consciousness.

Actually, consciousness cannot die. The concept of the death of consciousness is itself invalid. You can imagine that you are not there, but you cannot imagine that you are not thinking in that fashion. The denial of a thing also implies a consciousness of the denial of that thing. You may abolish the consciousness of anything in this world, but you cannot abolish the consciousness of the fact that you are trying to abolish it. So there is some consciousness at the back of all things.

Sri Krishna starts his gospel by saying the Atman is immortal. 

"Na tv eva 'ham jatu na 'sam na tvam neme janadhiph" (Gita 2.11): 

“We were never non-existent at any time – neither you nor I, nor these kinsmen called the Kauravas. They have always existed, and shall ever exist. Non-existence of the basic entity of individuality is unthinkable. The people you refer to, and yourself also, are actually embodiments of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be perishable; it cannot be temporal; it cannot pass through the process of evolution. That is to say, it cannot be one thing now and another thing afterwards.”

To be continued

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