The body is packed with illusions that take us away from our true self. The senses and our untrained mind which craves for multitude varieties of desires, serve this delusional role. Our mind craves for the fulfillment of desires, while the senses enjoy them. Eating a delicacy gives pleasure to our tongue, hearing a good music gives pleasure to our ear, wearing fashionable clothes gives pleasure to our ego (Aham), and so on. The point is, though we may know that we are not the body/ mind/senses, we nevertheless keep spending our life in serving/gratifying them, while completely ignoring on “feeding” our true Self.
Though the electricity flowing inside an electric bulb cannot be seen, its existence cannot be denied; without it, the bulb becomes useless. The body is not aware of anything when asleep; yet we see dreams. Who is this being that witnesses the dreams while the body sleeps? Because clearly, the dream is seen by something/somebody else which is not the body, and this something/somebody is active even while the body sleeps. This entity is called the Soul / Atman, and is detached/different from the body.
In today’s society, a person takes birth, acquires education, does a job, gets married, bears children, feed his family, grows old and dies away. In this cycle, he almost entirely uses his total time to acquire resources (money, cloth, food, and other facilities/amenities) and entertainment for the fulfillment of his bodily needs. In this process, some may even resort to unrighteous/unfair means of resource accumulation. The thing to question is: For What? For Whom? Do we know its impending consequences?
The body is only a garment that we (our soul) wear. It can be regarded a waste of our time and resources when we keep ourselves over-indulged in decorating/gratifying this body. We may have developed six-packs, may wear fashionable clothes; but what about our true Self? Are we feeding it anything? Is it being developed? Or is it lying in a corner of our body, ignored, helpless and desolate? In spite of rescuing it, are we instead incarcerating it with additional layers of ignorance, greed, lust, desires and worldly attachments? It may be ailing for rescue, but do we hear its cry? This being which is so ignored is in fact, no other than, we ourselves. The body is mere illusion that keeps us (our soul) imprisoned inside it. In modern times, it appears that the body, armed with the enslaving powers of the senses and the misleading mind running into rampant thoughts like wild untamed beast, is well successful in barring us from knowing ourselves! Nothing can be more unfortunate than not knowing oneself. Every day, we say, “I”, “My name is Rajiv/ Amrit/ etc, I am an engineer/professor/doctor.” Is that really us? Have we lost ourselves in this Mahamaya (big illusory existence)? Is it not necessary that we identify with our Selves before it’s too late?
Imagine lying on a funeral pyre. Our body has lost its inability to inhale and exhale the “Prana” (life force contained in the oxygen). The Soul/Atman (our true Self) leaves the body. It flies out. It sees people gathered around its body crying; someone, staying at a distance, are speaking about how great “we” were, the nice works we did during our life, how nice a person we were, or vice versa. While all this is happening, the Atman (we) keeps hovering above the body; at first, he gets shocked to see someone else like him sleeping on the pyre. He feels lighter; no body, no bodily restrictions; he feels happy for a while to see that he can fly around, just as a kid would be temporarily happy to discover a new toy. He sees his cloth (the body that he wore) burning, and starts repenting; the body, which he thought to be his very own while living, is now reduced to ashes; he wasn’t really the body which he thought he was for all his life.
He spent his entire life serving/gratifying his body and senses, which are now non-existent. But again, he cries. Still now, he’s not free; he carries in his subtle body the layers of ignorance: greed, lust, his sense of ego, attachment to his family, relatives, property and possessions, unfulfilled desires, and the sanskaras/kusanskaras that he earned during his life. He waits for a new life. Being not free from the attractions/bondage of the aforementioned traits, he’s carried over to a new embryo. Just like air carries along with it the good/bad smell in the environment, similarly the soul clothed with various layers of aforementioned ignorance, enters into a new embryo with all his aforementioned sanskaras.
What embryo or what level of existence the soul (clothed with its layers of bondages) gets is determined by his Karma and the sanskaras developed because of it. Nature always endows “Jeev Atma” with a body that it can makes best use of; it depends on his level of conscience. To elucidate, say Mr. X wasn’t able to properly utilize the power of speech/tongue during his life. Say, he always criticized others, condemned good people, over-indulged in gratification of his taste buds, ate forbidden foods such as meat (obtained by killing), etc. Clearly, Mr. X was not able to make a purposeful use of his tongue for which it was given to him. As such, he might get a new body of some creatures that doesn’t have a tongue or cannot eat meat; or he may also be born as a human being with some tongue anomalies so that he won’t be able to misuse it again. This is a very complex process. But the Supreme Consciousness (Param Atma) is very adept in handling this task. Unfortunately, the soul has no control over which body it can choose. Being still imprisoned by the layers of bondages (greed/lust/desires, etc), it has not been able to realize its full power or potential; and hence keeps suffering its fate. The new body could be of that of a plant, animal, human being, or even a Super human being with well-endowed divine virtues that can lead them to Godhood; as said above, it all depends upon Karma.
Hence, death is only transmigration from one body to the next. Nothing else changes, because he still carries the same old sanskaras, his new life will just be a continuation of his old one and played upon by the fruits of his past Karma. Death brings no change in one’s destiny; the only thing that can change one’s destiny is Karma/deeds/actions. Even in the new life, the action of “Mahamaya” (= worldly attractions, delusions of senses, pursuit of sensual pleasure, jobs, career, education, and recognizing oneself as the mere body) continues, and one subjects himself to the cycle of birth-life- death.
So, where are heaven and hell?
Heaven is a state of joy, happiness and prosperity that comes in life. It comes as a result of one’s good deeds (punya). But this heaven is not permanent. Indra (one living happily in life) will be dethroned by the demons (his lust, greed, misdeeds, anger) once the fruits of actions of his righteous deeds (punya karma) are over. To get back to heaven again, he has to create a stock of good deeds (punya) again, i.e. he has to do tapasya/good deeds/punya karma. If he cannot do this, but rather gets misled by the demons (greed, lust, sinful acts) dwelling in him, he gets into Hell again. In Hell, he suffers. He will live in a state of deprivation; he won’t find joy, peace and happiness.
Hence, one shouldn’t be satisfied with the attainment of heaven, because it is short-lived. One should aim for “Brahma Loka”; here, the stay can be permanent and ever blissful in the form of “Sat-Chit-Ananda”. This Brahmaloka/ Nirvana/ Nirvikalpa Samadhi/ Kaivalya is attainable only while in this body through continued effort in the form of Sadhana/ Dhyan/ Japa/ Noble Eight-fold Path of Buddha/ or any other means of unwrapping the dross/ignorance layers of lust, greed, desires and attachments that cover our Atman.
Some glossary terms:
Aham/Ahankar/Pride/Ego: Aham is the sense of observing one as superior to others. Boasting, accepting praise, show-offs, extravagance, etc all boost our Aham or Ahankar; it inculcates in us a sense of “I”; we want people to notice us and praise us because of our Aham. If someone condemns us or says something, we get angry or upset, because the so-called called “Aham” gets hurt. On the path to self-inquiry, this “Aham” must be melted. When this sense of “I” is given importance, God/ soul become “He”/a stranger, someone other than “I” and consequently, there can be no merging with him in presence of this separating barrier. Spending too much money on marriages, buying a car because our neighbor bought one, spending 1000 rupees for a birthday party because our neighbor had spent 8000 on his son’s birthday, etc are all displays of one’s Aham/ego.
Greed: It is an enemy in the path of self-upliftment. Greed says, “Whatever I possess, whatever I earn and whatever I acquire, I will share it with no one; only my family and relatives will benefit from my possession. I want more, more and more”. Greed makes one a mere tiny creature whose boundaries are very small, like those of animals and insects who just care for themselves. It also leads him into unrighteousness.
Desires/ Kam/ Kamana/ Vasna- These refer to our various desires and wishes for- lust, money, material possessions, and so on. In contemplating about these desires or fulfilling them, a tremendous amount of energy is drained through our mind and body; people draining energy like this rarely see any benefit from spiritual practices (which entail converging the energy of our mind and senses on a particular aim/ Ista). A devotee who wishes to advance spiritually must conserve this energy through “Brahmacharya” (note: brahmacharya is more of a mental process, than physical). The pleasure that we derive from sense gratification comes after draining a lot of energy through our mind and senses. This can be compared to a dog’s sense gratification; the poor dog doesn’t realize that the pleasure it enjoys comes from its own blood that drips from its gums; no blood is coming from the bone itself that it’s chewing.
- From the works of Shri Ram Sharma; for detailed knowledge, refer to the original book at http://literature.awgp.org/englishbook/SpiritualityReligion/What_am_I/
