BIRTH, DEATH AND REBIRTH
As far as we are the Cosmas, I had rendered our
mahāvākyas in your previous article, so I do not repeat. BUT WHAT IS LIFE
AND DEATH AS VIEWED BY OUR ANCESTORS IN VEDA VAKYAS?
2 The Hindu philosophy states that all people born on this earth are
certain to die and equally certain is the fact that all the dead would be
reborn. This concept is enunciated in 27th Sloka of the second chapter of
Bhagavad Gita. Its believed that there is a soul (Atman) in every live
being and that it goes through the cycle of birth-death-rebirth and
ultimately merges with the universe (Brahman). The second chapter of
Bhagavad Gita (Slokas 17, 20, 23, 24 and 25) states that the Atman cannot
be hurt, burnt or destroyed.
In Christianity, there is no antonym for “sin.” You can commit “sin,” but
can you commit what is opposite of “sin.” Hindus believe that a person is
capable of committing not only sin but also “punya or good karma” (“u” to
be pronounced as in “put” – “put it down”). Karma, by the way, means
“duty.” There is nothing good or bad about it, just as “duty” has neither
bad nor good connotation to it.
Why does the Atman (soul) go through the cycle?
It is because of the debts (obligations) it acquires during life. Every
time we perform a favor for some one (it need not be to people alone but
could be to animals, society, air, water or to the environment), we receive
an IOU (I owe you). Whenever we receive a favor from any one, we execute an
IOU. We steal something and may escape getting caught. All the same, we
signed the IOU. As we live from day to day and year to year, we execute so
many IOUs some in our favor and the rest in others’ favor.
Now you may be laughing. “Impossible,” you say, “how many IOUs are needed
to keep the score?”
In Hinduism, one’s actions are accounted for immediately upon death. A
person’s reward (positive or negative), as well as the next birth, is
decided, and the Atman is sent back to another birth to enjoy/suffer the
reward. The individual’s account is deleted.
Rebirth or reincarnation
According to Hindu scriptures, individual souls pass through many cycles of
births and deaths, and live upon earth as humans, animals and other living
beings until they are liberated from the bonds of Nature. Rebirth
facilitates the gradual progression of souls from ignorance to knowledge,
untruth to truth, darkness to light, and death to immortality. It gives an
opportunity to the souls to start a new on the path of liberation to use
the lessons learned in the past lives and work for their liberation.
Birth Death and Reincarnation explained as below
According to Hindu beliefs the material world is a personification of the
Lord of Death, known as Kala (Time). Death devours everything in this
world. Every living being and object in this world is food to Death. Beings
are caught in between the grinding teeth of this great devourer and none
can escape his hungry jaws. Death touches and destroys everything in the
object world when its time comes. However, it cannot touch the individual
Selves which are immortal and indestructible. Death is for the physical
body. The soul remains intact and escapes from the body to take birth again.
Soul's existence in the body
Each soul is enveloped inside a field (body) made up of the components
(tattvas) of Nature and permeated with the influence of gunas, namely
sattva, rajas and tamas. These three qualities are responsible for our
thinking and actions. In the body, the soul remains the witness
consciousness. It does not undergo any change, but it is enveloped by the
impurities of the mind and body. The soul's reflection in the qualities is
the ego. It assumes the soul's identity and acts according to its
predominant desires, which are caused by the predominant gunas present in
the body. Under their influence the ego or the being (jiva) becomes
attached to the objects of the world and experiences attraction and
aversion. Since the ego is a reflection of the self not real, and since it
acts according to desires and attachment, it indulges in desire-ridden
actions and becomes subject to the consequences of its actions. This is
karma. As the beings accumulate karma continuously, they are bound to the
cycle of births and continue their mortal existence birth after birth.
The main causes of rebirth
The souls are bound to the cycle of births and deaths mainly because of
desires and desire-ridden actions. The scriptures identify three main
reasons for the rebirth and suffering of the souls in the mortal world,
namely egoism (anava), attachments (pasas) and delusion (maya). Anava means
atomicity or the feeling of being small, distinct and separate from the
rest of creation. It stands for egoism, beingness or individuality, which
is responsible for selfishness, duality, and desire-ridden actions.
Attachments are the bonds we form with the objects and people in the world.
They hold us down and prevent us from achieving complete freedom from the
hold of Nature. Delusion or maya is mistaking the unreal for real and real
for unreal. One example is believing that the mind and body are the self,
and the objective world is real. In reality, both are impermanent and
unreal. The delusion prevents us from knowing the truth and finding the
truth. These three impurities produce karma and bind the souls to the cycle
of births and deaths.
How the soul escapes from the body
According to the Upanishads when a person is about to die, his senses are
withdrawn into the mind, the mind into the breath. The breaths (pranas),
together with the subtle senses (devas) then gather around the souls and
enter the subtle heart which is connected to the entire body through
various energy channels called nadis and nerve centers. At this state the
soul carries with it a small residue of the mind (karana citta) consisting
of dominant desires and tendencies as latent impressions (samskaras). They
become the blueprint for the soul's next birth. In the final stages when
the person becomes totally unconscious and loses sight of everything, the
soul along with the breaths, the subtle sense, the subtle bodies and the
residual mind travels upward from the heart through the upward breathing
channel (Udana) and reaches the head region. There through a subtle opening
in the skull, it escapes into the air and reaches the mid-region
(antariksha). Once the soul leaves the body, the person becomes lifeless.
The body is then cremated and its elements (mahabhutas) are returned to the
elements.
The journey of the soul to the next world
In the Brahmanda Purana, there are fourteen worlds/locka, which consist of
seven higher ones (Vyahrtis) and seven lower ones (Patalas), as follows:
Bhuloka, Bhuvar Loka, Swarga, Mahar Loka, Jana Loka, Tapa Loka, and
Satyaloka above, and Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Rasaataala, Talatala,
Mahaatala, Patala and naraka below. The same 14 lokas (worlds) are
described in chapter 2.5 of the Bhagavata Purana.
The ancient verses from the Vedas suggest that just as the humans use
animals as food, the gods use the humans, who enter the ancestral world, as
food. They feed upon their astral bodies and in the process cleanse part of
their karmas. The path by which they travel is known as the path of the
ancestors (Pitrayana) or the southern path (Dakshinayana). This path is
explained in several Upanishads, including the oldest, namely Chandogya and
Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. The following verse is quoted from the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (6.2.16), which explains the journey in some
detail: "Now, those who win the worlds by sacrifices, charity and austerity
they pass into the smoke, from the smoke into the night, from the night
into the fortnight of the waning moon, from the fortnight of the waning
moon into the six months during which the sun files southwards, from these
months into the world of ancestors, from the world of ancestors into the
moon."
The soul's existence in the ancestral world
The same verse from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad mentioned above describes
the existence of the souls in the ancestral world: "Upon reaching the moon,
they become food. There the gods enjoy them, just as the priests enjoy the
drink of Soma watching the moon wax and wane." The smoke mentioned here
denotes the impurity surrounding the soul. When the soul is enveloped in
impurities, it enters an impure world. The ancestral world is better than
the mortal world because the souls enjoy a better existence in that world.
However, still it is an impure world, compared to the world of the Sun. In
the moon you have light, but it is not as bright or pure as that of the
sun. Besides, the moon is subject to waning and waxing. Therefore, it is
not permanent either. There, the enjoyment of souls is similar to the
enjoyment of the domestic animals we keep in our farms. Compared to the
animals in the wild, the farm animals get food, water, shelter and
protection from harm. Yet, they are cared for because they provide us with
food as milk, ghee, and even the meat. For the gods, humans serve the same
purpose. In the ancestral world, they become food to gods. Their astral
bodies are gradually worn off as gods feed upon them and cleanse them
partially by ridding them of some of the impurities. They also become weak
as their descendants tend to forget them, or neglect them without offering
ritual food. When food is offered ritually to the ancestors, they use that
offering to build their astral bodies. When those offerings cease, they
become weak and gradually fall off the ancestral world.
The return and rebirth of the soul
As time goes by in the ancestral world, the souls lose their subtle bodies
partly because they are consumed by the gods and partly because they do not
get enough nourishment from their descendants who live upon earth. By
serving the gods, they also exhaust part of their impurities and sinful
karma. When they lose their bodies, it is time for the souls to return to
the earth. In the concluding part of the verse the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
describes the return journey. "Upon reaching the moon, they become food.
There the gods enjoy them, just as the priests enjoy the drink of Soma
watching the moon wax and wane. When that ends they enter into space, from
space into air, from air into rain, from rain into the earth. Then they are
again offered in the fire of man, and from there into the fire of a woman
so that they can go again to the other worlds. Thus, they keep rotating."
When the souls fall down upon earth, they enter the plants through water.
Some of the plants are consumed by animals. When both the plants and
animals are consumed by men, they become part of their semen. This is
explained in the Chandogya Upanishad (5.10.5-7): "There upon, exhausting
the wealth of their karmas, they return again, by the same path by which
they go, to space, and from space to air. Having become air, they become
smoke; and having become smoke, they become mist. Having become mist, they
become clouds, having become clouds, they rain down. Then they are born as
rice plants and corn plants, as herbs and trees, as sesame and bean plants.
>From here on their escape becomes difficult. For whoever person may eat the
food, and begets offspring, he henceforth becomes like unto him. Those
whose conduct was pleasant will attain pleasant wombs, such as the wombs of
Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, or Vaisyas; and those whose behavior was evil, will
attain the wombs of the evil and the impure ones."
Other Vedic beliefs associated with rebirth
The Upanishads present several alternatives available to the souls after
their departure from here. Their journey to the ancestral world is the most
predominant idea. However, they also suggest that some souls may travel to
the world of gods alone and stay there. For example the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad (1.5.16) declares that the human life is obtained by son, the
ancestral world by sacrificial actions and the world of gods by knowledge
alone. The idea that the human life is possible only through son is based
on the early Vedic belief that a man is born again upon earth through his
own son. Before his death a father passes his knowledge and name to his son
through a transference ceremony. After death and after returning from the
ancestral heaven, he enters his son through water and is born again as his
son. Whatever knowledge he passed on before his death, he reclaims again
from his son. The tradition thus continues as his son, who is now his
father, is again born through him.
The Kaushitaki Upanishad (1.2) suggests that those who depart from here go
to the moon. In the bright half of the moon the moon deals with them
affectionately, but in the dark half of the moon it sends them back again.
When a departing soul reaches the moon, it asks him some questions. If he
answers properly, he is allowed to stay. Otherwise, he is to return to
earth to be born "again as worm, or as an insect, or as a fish, or as a
bird, or as a lion, or as a boar, or as a snake, or as a tiger, or as a
person or as someone else in different, different places, according to his
deeds, and according to his knowledge."
Is it possible to avoid rebirth?
The answer to this question is affirmative. It is possible to escape from
the cycle of births and achieve liberation through self-realization. For
that one has to practice renunciation, cultivate virtues, perform
obligatory duties selflessly, surrender to God and lead exemplary lives
pursing the highest knowledge, fixing their minds completely upon the Self
or the Supreme Self. Those who fill the minds and bodies with purity
(sattva) qualify to achieve liberation. The Upanishad describe the path by
which these immortal souls travel as the path of the gods (Devayana) or the
northern path. People who achieve liberation are forever freed from
mortality. They may become future gods, but do not return to the earth.
Difference between reincarnation and incarnation?
Incarnation (avatar) means a manifestation of God (Isvar) upon earth in a
physical form as a living being, human or animal. Reincarnation means the
rebirth of the individual souls upon earth. According to Hinduism, the
purpose of an incarnation of God is preservation of Dharma and continuation
of the worlds and their order and regularity. The purpose of rebirth or
reincarnation is also continuation of obligatory duties (Dharma) and
preservation of the social, moral and world order. An incarnation is a
self-willed divine act. The reincarnation of a soul happens because of
karma and past life impressions. It is not a willful act but a consequence
of previous desire-ridden action. It is believed that only Vishnu, the
preserver, incarnates upon earth. However, some of the incarnations
ascribed to Vishnu now were originally attributed to Brahma. The Puranas
describe nine incarnations of Vishnu so far. The tenth one will happen in
future at the end of Kaliyuga, when Vishnu manifests as Kalki and destroy
all evil beings.
Now B G answers all the Q&A as above:
Bg. 2.11
श्री भगवानुवाच
अशोच्यनन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे ।
गतासूनगतासूंश्च नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिताः ॥ ११ ॥
śrī-bhagavān uvāca
aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ
prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase
gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca
nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: While speaking learned words, you
are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament
neither for the living nor for the dead.
Bg. 2.13
देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा ।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति ॥ १३ ॥
dehino ’smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to
youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A
sober person is not bewildered by such a change.
Bg. 2.17
अविनाशि तु तद्विद्धि येन सर्वमिदं ततम् ।
विनाशमव्ययस्यास्य न कश्चित्कर्तुमर्हति ॥ १७ ॥
avināśi tu tad viddhi
yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
vināśam avyayasyāsya
na kaścit kartum arhati
That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible.
No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.
********* Bg. 2.20
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचि-
न्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः ।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो
न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे ॥ २० ॥
na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin
nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come
into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is
unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body
is slain.
Bg. 2.22
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि ।
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा-
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥ २२ ॥
vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya
navāni gṛhṇāti naro ’parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī
As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly
accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.
Bg. 2.26
अथ चैनं नित्यजातं नित्यं वा मन्यसे मृतम् ।
तथापि त्वं महाबाहो नैनं शोचितुमर्हसि ॥ २६ ॥
atha cainaṁ nitya-jātaṁ
nityaṁ vā manyase mṛtam
tathāpi tvaṁ mahā-bāho
nainaṁ śocitum arhasi
If, however, you think that the soul [or the symptoms of life] will always
be born and die forever, you still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.
TEXTS 42-43: Men of small knowledge are very much attached to the flowery
words of the Vedas, which recommend various fruitive activities for
elevation to heavenly planets, resultant good birth, power, and so forth.
Being desirous of sense gratification and opulent life, they say that there
is nothing more than this.
TEXT 46: All purposes served by a small well can at once be served by a
great reservoir of water. Similarly, all the purposes of the Vedas can be
served to one who knows the purpose behind them.
TEXT 47: You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not
entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the
results of your activities and never be attached to not doing your duty.
TEXT 48: Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment
to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.
TEXT 67: As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the
roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man’s
intelligence.
TEXT 68: Therefore, O mighty armed, one whose senses are restrained from
their objects is certainly of steady intelligence.
TEXT 69: What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the
self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the
introspective sage.
TEXT 70: A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires –
that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is
always still – can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to
satisfy such desires.
TEXT 71: A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who
lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and
is devoid of false ego – he alone can attain real peace.
TEXT 72: That is the way of the spiritual and godly life, after attaining
which a man is not bewildered. If one is thus situated even at the hour of
death, one can enter into the kingdom of God.
THEN, BIRTH AND DEATH IS GOING AROUND THE WALL AND COMING OUT OF THE NEXT
DOOR WEARING ANEW SHIRT. AS LONG AS INTERESTED IN A KAMYA KARMA, THIS WILL
HAPPEN SUBJECT TO BEING SATVA TO THAMASO GUNA WHEN EVEN REBORN AS ANIMALS
ETC. ALL KNOWLEDGE LEADS TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF MUKTI WHERE THER EIS NOO
REBIRTH; BUT THAT KNOWLEDGE WHICH DOES OT LEAD ONE KINDLY BUT ONLY SUBJETED
TO EGO, IS OF NO USE. PERISHABLE IS THE BODY ALONE. HENCE TIRUVALLUVAR SAID:
உறங்கு வதுபோலுஞ் சாக்காடு உறங்கி
விழிப்பது போலும் பிறப்பு. (௩௱௩௰௯ - 339)
Urangu Vadhupolunj Chaakkaatu Urangi
Vizhippadhu Polum Pirappu
Death is like sleep, And birth an awakening from it.
இறப்பு எனப்படுவது ஒருவனுக்குஉறக்கம் வருதலைப் போன்றது, பிறப்பு எனப்படுவது
உறக்கம் நீங்கி விழித்துக் கொள்வதைப் போன்றது. (௩௱௩௰௯)
K RAJARAM IRS 26725
On Sat, 26 Jul 2025 at 09:09, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar**Incarnation, discarnation and reincarnation or birth, death and
> rebirth*
>
>
> *There are seven octillion (Seven followed by 27 zeros) cells within me.
> Ten times their number, there are bacteria. I am a gigantic living system,
> continuously aging or preparing to become the object of entropy and from
> there may be again to syntropy. Each cell within me is a gigantic Universe
> or very big system. Each bacterium is a living organism, a huge system,
> with its own DNA. I am a system with billions of systems embedded within
> me. Ken Wilber calls each component a Holon, a component which again is a
> composition or system. There simply is no indivisible piece of what we call
> matter, an illusion. We are all holarchies, systems within which there are
> layers of sub-systems or holons. Actually when you can see everything in
> the invisible spectrum also, you will find only various ever changing
> fields of energies and you cannot find yourself or the dog, cat, table,
> earth, Sun or anything, the three dimensions misleads, the
> I,We,You,Thee,He,She,They and It. Your basic concepts and the resulting
> understanding changes totally.*
>
> * If you can see everything-atoms, particles etc at the most fundamental
> level, then you see only micro processes in fact the processes of
> consciousness, and you cannot see the I, We, You, He, She, They and It. You
> cannot find yourself and may be you may not be able to even conceptualize
> yourself, being taken over by the processes.*
>
> *AS IT IS YOU ARE A SYSTEM OF ENERGY FLOWS AND INTERACTIONS AND
> TRANSFORMATIONS.THE ULTIMATE ENERGY OR FORCE BEHIND THESE TRANSFORMATIONS
> IS THE EVER CHANGING PATTERNS OF THOUGHT WHICH WE CALL
> CONSCIOUSNESS.BIRTH-DEATH CYCLE IS VOYAGE OF THE CHANGING CONSCIOUSNESS.*
>
> *The idea of matter is the paralysis of consciousness in a very passing
> and temporary situation. It may approximately be likened to a still
> photograph.( the brief frozen space-time). Ken Wilber gave a new meaning to
> the word kosmos which Pythagoras originally meant for cosmos.*
>
> *“So I would like to reintroduce the term, Kosmos. And, as you point out
> the Kosmos contains the cosmos (or the physiosphere), the bios (or
> biosphere), psyche or nous (the noosphere), and Theos (the theosphere or
> the divine domain).”(Ken Wilber in A brief History of Everything)*
>
> *What actually is destruction? Matter gets broken into pieces, pieces into
> molecules, molecules into atoms, atoms into energy particles, particles
> into energy flows, and then into the vacuum...We also call this the
> entropy. But entropy is matched by syntropy, may be the many, many, many,
> big bangs of contractions. Now are there layers of consciousness? Do we
> move from one illusionary system to another illusionary system? My present
> consciousness is the collective symbiotic holistic operation of the
> trillions of cells and bacteria within me. I am a dynamic and gigantic
> system.*
>
> *“Many cosmologists have a materialistic bias and prejudice: the physical
> cosmos is somehow supposed to be the most real dimension, and everything
> else is explained with ultimate reference to this material plane. But what
> a brutal approach that is! It smashes the entire Kosmos against the wall of
> reductionism, and all the domains except the physical slowly bleed to death
> right in front of your eyes.”(Ken Wilber)*
>
> *What we actually see is a mental construct, not reality. The eyes
> collect, just 00.0035 per cent of the electromagnetic spectrum, sends them
> to the visual cortex which misleadingly models objects in three
> dimensions—length, breadth and height by making the entire remaining—the
> gigantic remaining, invisible balance of the totality. We are actually
> BLINDED.*
>
> *The reality is we live in emotions, thoughts, the vibrations of
> consciousness etc only, BECAUSE WE BASICALLY LIVE IN IGNORANCE AND
> UNCERTAINITY AND CONTINUOUS GUESSING.TO <http://GUESSING.TO> CREATE SOME
> SENSE OF SECURITY WE HOPE THAT THERE IS THE PROCESS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.
> But an electron itself is both a particle and can become a wave when needed
> or simply become beyond mathematics. No emotion can be measured in terms of
> length, breadth or height, the measuring scales we devised on the basis of
> the VIBGYOR prison. Emotions are waves, forms of electromagnetism.*
>
> * According to Einstein we all actually are moving at the speed of light.
> When a body moves at the speed of light it loses its physical
> dimensions—the length, breadth and height and only one dimension time
> remains. We are in reality only in the time dimension or in the wave
> dimension of volumelessness. Can we tell a particular time without
> reference to an event? You cannot.It may the event on the clock or some
> other happening. So our consciousness and events and units of time points
> are synonyms. TIME IS ANOTHER NAME FOR CONSCIOUSNESS, or electromagnetic
> waves.*
>
> *You make your own flow of consciousness by means of yoga, meditation,
> concentration etc*
>
> * or *
>
> *by resorting to technology and handing over the entire observation to
> machines. The latter we call science. Science education means in actual
> practice dragging the very unwilling boys and girls into the techno path.
> But machines make our organs redundant. We die but do not know that we died
> because of limb and organ redundancy.*
>
> *Yoga, concentration, meditation etc are needed to save the boys and girls
> from the path of the techno death. Techno death is de facto disconnection
> from nature by the use of cars, computers etc.*
>
> *These gadgets take us to the Trisanku land, neither birth nor death.*
>
> *Birth is the beginning of the process of the syntropy of a system, a
> dynamic system. Death is transfer of that system to the next higher plane
