♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates?
Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work?
Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...
Want to work with Acharya Prashant?
Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...
~~~~~
Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 19.1.20, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Context:
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि |
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही || 22||
As after rejecting worn out cloths a man takes up new ones likewise after rejecting worn out bodies the embodied once, Unites with other new one.
~ Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta, Chapter 2, Verse 22.
~ What is a concept of rebirth and reincarnation?
~ What is relationship between Jivatma and prakriti?
~ What is definition and quality of Aatma?
~ Who is reborn?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates?
Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work?
Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...
Want to work with Acharya Prashant?
Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...
~~~~~
Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 19.1.20, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Context:
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि |
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही || 22||
As after rejecting worn out cloths a man takes up new ones likewise after rejecting worn out bodies the embodied once, Unites with other new one.
~ Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta, Chapter 2, Verse 22.
~ What is a concept of rebirth and reincarnation?
~ What is relationship between Jivatma and prakriti?
~ What is definition and quality of Aatma?
~ Who is reborn?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Acharya Ji Pranam.
00:10At the start of the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna explains Arjun
00:20the difference between the body and the self.
00:25And in verse 22 he says, As after rejecting worn-out clothes, a man takes up new ones,
00:38likewise after rejecting worn-out bodies, the embodied one unites with other new ones.
00:50Acharya Ji, this analogy has been widely used to explain how body is not the self and the
01:02same analogy also provides a nice model to grasp the concept of rebirth, but is it as
01:22simplistic as it appears?
01:27What is the essence?
01:31Do Atma and Soul refer to the same entity?
01:36If not, what is the difference?
01:42Chapter 2, verse 22, As after rejecting worn-out clothes, a man takes up new ones, likewise
01:51after rejecting worn-out bodies, the embodied one unites with other new ones.
02:04Who is the embodied one?
02:09Therein lies all the general confusion.
02:22The truth, the pure self, the Atma is formless, nameless, timeless and obviously bodiless.
02:47Also the embodied one in verse 22 obviously does not refer to the Atma, it refers to Prakriti,
03:03it refers to the Jeevatma and Jeevatma is not at all Atma, Jeevatma is not at all the
03:17Atma of the Jeeva, Jeeva's Atma.
03:26Atma simply means that which the Jeeva, being a Jeeva, thinks of as his Atma or his centre.
03:44The Jeeva, the person, being a person, being a mistaken entity, thinks of his ego, his
03:58I as his centre, so he calls the ego as the Atma, that is Jeevatma.
04:09Jeevatma does not have anything to do with Atma, so it is the Prakriti that moves from
04:23body to body, it is the Jeevatma that moves from body to body.
04:30In other words, it is the Prakriti that keeps giving rise to one body after the other and
04:45all bodies carry the central trait of the previous bodies, all bodies carry the central
04:57trait of the bodies that came before them, what is that central trait called?
05:03The ego, the I, so it is the I sense or the Prakriti or Jeevatma that keeps on donning,
05:22adopting one body after the other, it is that tendency to be that keeps assuming one shape
05:36after the other and that tendency to be is so keenly in search of its final association
05:50that even when it appears like being associated with one particular body, it is actually changing
06:00its association moment to moment, how?
06:08Because the body is constantly changing and because the mind is constantly changing, so
06:15really the I sense is moving from body to body every second, it is not that the I sense
06:30moves on to a different body only after the previous body has died, that which you call
06:41as the previous body, that which you call as one particular body is not a fixed or constant
06:48entity, it appears to be constant because the changes occurring in it every second are
07:00infinitesimally small, so we are not able to detect them, there is an illusion of continuity
07:07whereas there is no real continuity, look at your body as a scientist would look at
07:16it, how greatly it changes every day, where is the continuity and even more significant
07:26is the change in the mind every half an hour, don't we know that?
07:36And the I sense is associated with the body and with the mind and therefore it is adopting
07:42a new identity every new moment, right now it says I am happy, next moment it says I
07:52am angry, has it not moved on to a new mind?
07:58Has the I sense not moved on to a new mind, tell me, similarly if it says I am the body
08:05then right now it is I am body 1, then you go to sleep and when you wake up in that interval
08:14the body has actually undergone a substantial change, body 1 has become body 2, so you have
08:26changed your identity statement from I am body 1 to I am body 2, how is it different
08:31from saying now I am Ramesh, a few hours back I was Rajesh, but when you say Rajesh
08:42has changed to Ramesh it appears like a clear case of rebirth, right?
08:48The thing that was once Rajesh is now calling itself as Ramesh and you will say see rebirth
08:55has taken place, you will keenly agree, it will be a matter of excitement, but when the
09:03same thing happens within one particular body then you do not quite so eagerly accept it,
09:13I am body 1 becomes I am body 2, it is just that body 1 and body 2 are coincidentally
09:19carrying the same name, if you are Satyam then body 1 was named Satyam and body 2 is
09:26also named Satyam, it is just that Satyam 1 is very different from Satyam 2, we are
09:33not able to notice this because memory provides as we said an illusion of continuity, are
09:41you getting it?
09:47When you read verse 22 of chapter 2, never forget that the one that is transmigrating
10:01is not Atma, it is the Jeevatma and Jeevatma is nothing but Prakriti, Jeevatma is nothing
10:12but the I sense and Jeevatma is nothing in particular because the Prakriti is nothing
10:19in particular, Prakriti is no thing, no person in particular, Prakriti is you could say the
10:27principle that runs this universe, you could even say Prakriti is the set of principles
10:35that lies at the bottom of this universe, so Jeevatma also is no particular thing, do
10:41not try to visualize the Jeevatma as something in particular that is moving from body to
10:46body because we do have very popular pictorial depictions in which it is shown very loudly,
11:01very clearly that something gets out of a dying man's body and then enters into some
11:14other womb and then the thing inside the womb gets life, it is the Jeevatma that is
11:36common between one body and the other body but the Jeevatma is a principle not a thing,
11:45a principle does not quite hop from one body to the other, the Jeevatma is nothing in particular,
11:56so do not think that there is something called the soul residing in your body that gets out
12:01at the time of birth and enters some other body, nothing like that happens, that is a
12:05total misinterpretation of Vedanta and Bhagavad Gita and a lot of damage has occurred because
12:18people have been very mistakenly interpreting verses like 2.22 of the Bhagavad Gita,
12:26they have been interpreting it out of context, they have been interpreting it without using
12:33the broader light of the Bhagavad Gita itself and Vedanta in general, anything that is said
12:45in the Bhagavad Gita will obviously concur with and resonate with Vedantic literature in general,
12:54the Gita is a de facto Upanishad, some even say that the Gita is the essence of all Upanishads,
13:04if Gita is a de facto Upanishad, is Gita going to be saying something that goes against the
13:15essence of Upanishads, so this verse has to be read along with the other important
13:26verses and the Mahavakyas of the Vedantic literature and when you read them all together,
13:33when you read them all in a holistic way then you clearly see that there is nothing called a
13:43soul as far as Vedanta is concerned, there is the Atma and there is Prakriti and the I sense
14:01is one of the elements of Prakriti, what are their respective qualities, pay attention,
14:15the Atma has no qualities, it is nirguna, which means the Atma is never even born,
14:24how can it be reborn, that's one basic principle of Vedanta, the Atma is Ajat, Ajanma and Amar,
14:45never born, never died, doesn't take birth, never dies and somehow most people forget this
15:04basic axiom, they start saying, oh the Atma has taken rebirth but the Atma never takes even one
15:14birth, how can it take a birth, Atma doesn't take even the first birth, Atma is never born,
15:24so how can it be reborn, so keep Atma out of all this, when birth and rebirth and death are being
15:36discussed, Atma is not in question, in these equations Atma has to be kept totally aside,
15:45then what is it that takes rebirth, we will never forget this, it is Prakriti that keeps
15:56waving like an ocean, the Prakriti is an ocean that waves and every wave when it is rising is a
16:08birth and every wave when it is ebbing, dying is a death, are you getting it, so the material world
16:23arises from Prakriti and goes back to Prakriti, just as all bodies arise from the soil and go
16:29back to the soil and then from the same soil more bodies arise and then they again go back to soil,
16:34it is Prakriti that takes birth and rebirth and we said Prakriti is nothing in particular,
16:45so there is nothing in particular that is taking one body and then moving on to the next body,
16:53we will have to totally drop this bad idea that there is something that survives even
17:05after a person has died, we harbor this kind of a notion that something in a person will
17:13survive his death and that surviving something will then move on to the next body, another body,
17:20no, nothing like it, nothing in a particular person is going to survive his death,
17:26all that you are will be totally destroyed with death, what will survive your death,
17:32that which was there even before your birth and that is the principle,
17:37the principle that gave you birth will survive your death as well, the name of that principle
17:44is not Atma, the name of that principle is Prakriti, Atma is a mere witness,
17:51it keeps witnessing the entire birthing and rebirthing game of Prakriti, Atma neither
17:59takes birth and is nor ever subjected to death, Atma is a mere witness, a perfect non-doer,
18:09in front of the Atma, I am just modeling it a bit, in front of the Atma, Prakriti is playing
18:19its entire game, what's happening in the game, rise and fall, rise and fall, what else can happen,
18:24any game consists of only a rise and a fall, in various ways, pick up any game,
18:32it will always involve something rising, something falling, something rising, something falling,
18:37something going left, something going right, which means opposite forces at play,
18:43which means the game of duality, Prakriti is constantly playing the game of duality,
18:49in the game of duality, one side is called birth, the other side is called death,
18:57Atma is not playing that game, Atma is merely watching and enjoying that game,
19:03enjoying not by the way of consumption, enjoying by the way of non-interference,
19:12non-association, dispassion, Atma has nothing to do with anything,
19:19it will not have anything to do with one body, neither will it have anything to do with another
19:26body, get rid of this notion that the Atma resides in the body, the Atma does not reside in the body,
19:35nothing resides in the body except its material constituents, and all the material
19:45constituents are reduced to ash and vapor, when the body is incinerated,
19:53are you getting it, what survives the body, let's revise the principle,
20:07the Prakriti principle survives the body and Prakriti will take rebirth just as the ocean
20:17gives rise to one wave after the other, and the essential element of all waves remains the same,
20:24similarly the essential element of all births remains the same, what is that essential element
20:32called, that which is very interested in taking birth, that which is very interested in associating
20:39with somebody, what is it that is so lonely that it desperately keeps wanting to associate
20:46with somebody, that is called the I-sense or ego or Ahamriti, it has to associate with this,
20:53it has to associate with that, it has to associate with this, all these sequences
21:00of successive associations can be called as rebirths, I associated with you and then I
21:09broke off and then I associated with him, this can as well be called as a rebirth,
21:16I was saying I am something with respect to you and now I say I am something with respect to him,
21:25so I am Rajesh has changed to I am Rakesh, isn't it a rebirth, I am Rajesh has changed to I am
21:34Rakesh that's a rebirth, but rebirth is not how we generally think of it, that's all a very childish
21:44fantasy, unfortunately in India we have lived for too long with that kind of a misinterpretation
21:50and a very fantastic kind of imagination, we must give it up, all the myths regarding one
22:01fellow dying and then taking birth in the next village have to be totally junked,
22:07all that is sheer nonsense, propaganda. Pranam Acharya ji, the example which you
22:16gave, the example of sea and wave, I heard it many times but I find it difficult to understand.
22:23It means that from the same pool a lot of beings keep rising and then they fall back into the same
22:36pool, when they rise then they assume a particular name, a distinct personality,
22:45when they go back to the same pool then they again become anonymous, turn into nothing,
22:55when they rise then they start getting counted as persons, after they are gone their essence
23:09still remains but the personality is lost, when birth happens then you feel happy and you say
23:17now the person has come into existence, the person has risen from the soil, when he goes
23:24back to the soil then it is not the soil that has been destroyed, it is the personality that
23:30is gone, from the same soil something else will rise, another personality, so the soil keeps
23:41rebirthing again and again. Acharya ji, you have explained the Prakriti that goes through cycle of
23:53birth and rebirth and that Prakriti is violent and that is ego that takes birth and rebirth.
24:00So I never said Prakriti is violent, there is no violence in Prakriti as such,
24:08it is just movement, Prakriti moves in its own predetermined ways, there is no violence there,
24:17for violence there has to be a choice to be non-violent, Prakriti has no choice,
24:22in Prakriti there are just set patterns that keep repeating and also keep evolving,
24:28so there is no violence really in Prakriti, a lion attacking a deer is not really violence,
24:40but a man killing a deer might be violence because man had a choice.
24:48Acharya ji, can we say that fear is a Prakriti that goes from one entity to another entity?
24:58Fear is Prakriti's way, one of the tools that are given to the person to ensure that the person is
25:13able to successfully complete his lifetime. In Prakriti, fear exists as a tool to support life,
25:25animals too are afraid, even plants are afraid, but when they are afraid their fear is for their
25:39physical survival or protection, Prakriti has given them this tool, have fear and you will survive.
25:46Man too finds some utility in the tool of fear, but for man fear often becomes problematic because
26:02fear is constituted to protect only your little self which consists of the body and the mind,
26:11fear is not designed to liberate you from body and mind, the quality of fear is designed to
26:24protect your existing little self, somebody should not hurt my body, somebody should not
26:30hurt my ego or prestige or fame or notions, that's fear. But fear never says I should not
26:44miss out on liberation, man is never afraid of missing out on liberation because fear in the
26:53way has not been designed to have liberation as an object, the object of fear is always the little
27:03self, the mind and the body, that's what you are always afraid about, Prakriti has not designed
27:11fear to have liberation as the object, as the end and that's why fear is not good for those
27:27who are looking to have an evolved consciousness, those who want freedom from littleness and the
27:39mundane traps of life, fear is not good for them.