Gita 15.08 The essence of growth is evolution in our conception of life

Transcript

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शरीरं यदवापनोति यच्चाप्युत्क्रामतीश्वरह गुहित्वैतानिसय्नाति वायुर्गंधानिवाशयात शरीरं यदवापनोति in this body have you attained a body and then यच्चाप्युत्क्रामतीश्वरह having given up the body यच्चाप्युत्क्रामतीश्वरह the soul, who is the controller because the soul directs or chooses the direction of the transmigration which body it will go to गुहित्वैतानिसय्नाति वायुर्गंधानिवाशयात so it accepts and gives up वायुर्गंधा just as smoke, just as wind carries fragrance with it wherever it goes so Krishna has in the previous verse 15.7 talked about how the soul is struggling in material existence बनःशश्थानि न्रियानि प्रकृतिस्थानि कर्षति along with the mind and the senses the soul is suffering so here it states that the mind is actually how the soul suffers is described and what role the mind plays in it is also mentioned that the soul carries conceptions of life in its mind now the essence of growth is changing the conception of life if you consider what is the difference between a child and an adult a child thinks that life is meant simply for playing whereas an adult understands it is all meant for Krishna it is all meant for actually if the adult is a devotee understand that life is meant for Krishna for attaining Krishna, growing towards Krishna even if the adult is not a devotee the adult has some higher purposes I want to develop a career I want to have a family I want to be responsible for taking care of my children so this is an understanding which enables us to move towards Krishna if we direct it spiritually this maturation essentially means we change our conception of life we evolve in our understanding of what life is meant for without such evolution we won’t be able to persevere even if we move onwards we will stay caught in mundane things and we will end up becoming overpowered by our worldly desires so the evolution of conception happens even naturally to some extent from childhood to adulthood but it still is a more evolved conception in terms of material conception only so we are seeing long term a child sees only the immediate pleasure of playing an adult sees a more long term pleasure or a more long term purpose in terms of what is to be done in life but even the adult doesn’t see far enough in the long term the adult sees that life is they think in terms of middle age and then old age but not beyond death so spiritual growth means our conception of life grows from the material to the spiritual it grows long term to not just the end of this life but beyond this life to the next life and what we carry with us right now we carry with us is consciousness to the extent that we have our consciousness with us that we move onwards in our life and to the extent our consciousness is distracted we move on but we don’t move on purposefully or productively and the whole process of spiritual growth is meant to help us grow in our consciousness to help us understand and assimilate the reality that we at our core are spiritual beings and we are meant for a life of eternal love with Krishna and to the extent first this becomes at least an intellectual conviction and then this becomes the driving purpose of life then it will become personal realization which we will get by our steady practice of bhakti so the soul goes from one body to another body when it is driven by the mind and senses it simply goes from one misconception to another it thinks in say a hog’s body that stool will give me pleasure in in a vulture’s body it thinks that corpses will give me pleasure and in this way the soul has different ideas based on the body of what will give it pleasure and none of the pleasurable objects are easy to get all of them require effort, all of them require labor, all of them require struggle and competition and suffering and thus it’s best to not indulge in, it’s best to become detached from them and that detachment comes best when we cultivate attachment to Krishna by practicing bhakti so the soul gets one body leaves another body the important thing is this transmigration process what goes on Krishna has talked earlier in 2.23 that how the body is like a dress so there he said that the body is like a dress which is given up so 2.23 talks about what is given up when the soul goes from one body to another and this 15.8 talks about what is carried on when the soul goes from one body to another so what is carried on is one’s conception of life now if we live our life in the light of spiritual knowledge then that conception evolves so the the direction of the post-mortem journey will depend on the conception of life acquired before death this theme is of course been referred to in the 8th chapter when Krishna said that that whatever state of being we remember at the time of death whatever state of being that is what we will attain whatever is our consciousness at death that is the state of being we will attain in our next life so this conception being carried over from one life to another and this conception often being misleading and destructive that is what is talked about here in this verse and we move onwards from one body to another and especially in the human body we have the opportunity to elevate our conception to acquire a more complete conception of life to the extent we strive and endeavor to acquire that conception to that extent we progress and we move towards eternal life through this temporary life that evolution of our conception of life till we understand Krishna’s love and feel inspired to reciprocate with that love that will be talked about in future verses especially towards the end of this chapter in the next verse Krishna will talk about how the mind plays a central role that we will discuss in our next talk