Gita 02.22 – The dress metaphor redefines death not as a miserable termination but as a welcome transition

Thank you. One of the most well-known verses in the Bhagavad Gita, it talks about how the body is like a dress for the soul.

Vasamsi, this Vasamsi is dress, jheerani, jheerani is to grow old, yatha vihaya, as vihaya, one gives up, as one gives up old clothes, navan ingrihanati, new ones one accepts, naro aparani, similarly, naro, this is a person does that, aparani, one accepts other clothes, one gives up the old clothes and accepts new clothes, satha, similarly, sharirani vihaya, jheerani, similarly, the soul gives up the body, vihaya, jheerani, when it grows old, anyani, sanyati, and accepts another body, navani, dehi, which is a new body. So, till now, Krishna has been talking about how the soul is indestructible amidst the changing of the body. Now, the question may come up, then what exactly is the relationship of the soul and the body? Krishna has talked of various things, first he has talked about the body being like the accommodation of the soul, where it is just dehino asminyatha dehe, so the body is like the residence of the soul, and then in yena sarvam vidam tatam, in 2.13, 2.17, he has talked about how the soul pervades the body.

So, in that sense, the soul is different from just a tenant who lives in a house. A tenant lives in a house, a tenant stays in one place, but the soul lives in one place, but the soul pervades, the tenant doesn't pervade literally. Tenant may be aware, but tenant's presence doesn't pervade like that.

The way the soul's presence pervades through the energy of consciousness. So, occupancy, pervasion, and now, another metaphor Krishna is using over here, another way in which Krishna is explaining the relationship between body and the soul, he says it's like a dress. Now, the dress metaphor actually emphasizes many things, conveys many things.

First is, the dress is in one sense, is external to the person. The person remains the same even when the dress changes, and the dress itself is changeable, and not only changeable, it is actually essential to change the dress, because the dress does grow old, and you cannot keep wearing the same dress lifelong. So now, what exactly is there in the in the significance of this metaphor? The significance is that actually, Krishna is telling Arjuna, if you see twice he uses the word Navani, just as new dresses are taken off, similarly new bodies are taken off.

So, Krishna is now giving a further positive spin to the whole process of reincarnation, the whole philosophical point of the difference between the body and the soul, by explaining that the soul is going to get a new body, just like a person gets a new dress. So, the now, Dāchārya and Prabhupāda also explains that, actually the new body will be a better body, if a person has done proper karma. So, just as a person gets a new dress based on the paying capacity and the desire, similarly we get a new body based on our desires and our paying capacity, which is our karma.

So, though Bhishma and Drona botched up things on a few occasions, they didn't protect Draupadi, they have sided on the side of the Kauravas, but overall they have lived lives of great virtue and because of those virtuous lives, they will get elevated bodies, they will get new, better bodies. Now they have got old bodies, which are getting worn, and so they will get actually a better deal. So, Arjuna did not lament for this transmigration and even if Arjuna says that, oh, but I will lose them, but then that loss is inevitable sooner or later.

So, just as we don't take the changing of dresses very seriously, similarly we don't have to get agonized and traumatized by the changing of the bodily dress. When we know that the soul is eternal, then knowing that the soul is simply getting a new body helps us calm ourselves down. Now, of course, there are many other issues involved over here.

Normally, when we get a new dress, it's not that with the new dress we change our location, but the process of transmigration involves the soul usually changing the location. Very rarely does the soul born in the same place, in the same family, soul changes location and the people with whom that soul has been related, those people and the soul and that person basically, their link gets severed and sometimes and usually it is irreversibly severed. So, that will also cause grief.

So, grief is natural, but the grief, the magnitude of the grief and the nature of the grief vary depending on our understanding of the person. So, if we think the person is just a lump of matter and the person is irreversibly destroyed, then, both for the person who is going to die, the idea that my existence is going to end permanently, it's decidedly not just scary, but horrifyingly unbearable idea and for the persons who are around, the loud ones, the existence is going to end. You know, the nature and the magnitude of the agony by that prospect of the utter end of existence is far greater than when we understand that, oh, this person is going elsewhere.

This person was here and is now going elsewhere, depending on the karma. So, when we understand this, then we can actually minimize the agony and trauma and view death not as a termination but as a transition and at the transition, we get something positive to do, both for the person who is dying and for those around. Now, if we think that the person's existence is ending, then what little can we do? Maybe just bring some emotional closure, express love, and try to make the make the end as pleasant, of course the end will not be pleasant, as less unpleasant as possible.

But when we know that the end is not the end, when we know that actually the person is going to another life at another level, then we can help that person prepare for that life by helping that person have a better consciousness at the moment of death. That whole profound science of how we get a destination depending on our disposition will be talked about Krishna in the 8th chapter, especially 8.56 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in fact the 8th chapter itself which the Prabhupada title is Attaining the Supreme, so we will discuss it at that time, but for us the point is that when understanding that that is not a termination but a transition opens a lot of positivity in the preparation up to death in the dealing with death so that both the person can try to elevate the consciousness, the person who is dying and others can also help to elevate that consciousness so that way what Krishna is offering is not just a positive spin but is actually giving us a perception of the positive reality positive spin would mean that actually we are just looking at the reality positively or somebody is just presenting it in new words so that it seems more positive but what Krishna is offering is actually the perception of the positive reality that the soul has a life beyond death and we all can help that soul have a better life beyond death and in that sense just as we help our loved ones to have a better life in this life, we can help them to have a better life in the next life and Krishna tells Arjuna that you know you will be helping your loved ones, Nishma and Drona to have a better life in the next life because you will be accelerating their transition, that transition is inevitable but you will be accelerating it, their transition from old bodies to new bodies, from bodies which are worn and torn although of course they were Kshatriyas and they were quite fit but still the effects of age were there on their bodies also so from bodies which were bearing down to bodies which would be much better and in this way through the metaphor of the changing of clothes, Krishna encourages Arjuna to not only give up lamentation but to actually see the inevitable conflict and its results positively Thank you.