FW: can someone throw light on soul-related info

[Guest guest]

Harsha [harsha (AT) cox (DOT) net] Friday, May 14, 2004 2:00

PM'advaitin'RE: Re: can

someone throw light on soul-related info

Dear Krishnamurthyji:

It is wonderful to have the light of eloquence shine on us through

you. I assume that you are either just about to start your trip to

India or have reached there.

In Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna tells Arjuna about past lives and says

that, "I remember them all but you have forgotten them."

So based on this we can say that memories of past lives are not

destroyed and some people maybe able to recall them as a matter of

accident, birth, or the practice of yoga.

Buddha also mentioned that past lives can be remembered.

We can assume that even when the physical memory may be destroyed when

the brain is destroyed the subtle part of the mind with the memories

as a potential seed moves on and has the potential to grow a new

brain which can access former memories.

I will pass this on to HS where there is an interest in such matters as well.

Love to all

Harsha

V. Krishnamurthy [profvk ] Friday, May 14,

2004 12:28 PMadvaitinSubject: Re: can

someone throw light on soul-related info

advaitin, sudhir raikar <comrade_suds>

wrote:> Dear Sadanand sir,> Namaste. I wish to thank you for the

encouragement and accept my condolences also. Sir, it is so

captivating, this wish that mom should still be around to share

moments of joys in store for me. > Till what time does the soul

remain so till it enters another womb? And what are the thoughts like

during this period?Does it have recollections of the past life? > >

Regards> Sudhir>Namaste, sudhirjiMay God bless you in your attempt to

understand the after-life! We have to be clear of two things. Thr

brain of man is physical. The mind of man is subtle. Brain is totally

under the field of human understanding; one day or other we will know

everything about the brain. On the other hand, to fully understand

the mind one needs the help of the scriptures.It is the mind that

carries the imprint of the tendencies, called vAsanAs. But the memory

part gets destroyed when the brain is destroyed. So what we carry into

our next lives is the store of vAsanAs. We don't remember any of our

past lives. It is good that we don't so remember! If only we

remembered all our past wives and past husbands of our past lives --

God forbid! What a chaos will it be!However the Bhagavatam in its

description of the experience of the foetus in the womb gives certain

information about how the entire panorama of our past lives presents

itself before us and how we, in that moment of revelation, decide

that we shall never more get embroiled in the worldly distractions

and how we make a determination to work, in the oncoming life-span,

only for spiritual salvation that will rid us of all future births.

But, continues the Bhagavatam, the moment we come out of the mother's

womb, we forget all that and are born with all our vAsanAs clinging to

us like leech -- and then, we all know what happens.Your question

about how long the soul has to wait for its next opportunity to take

a body -- is a very legitimate question and to this question the

Kanchi Mahaswamigal once replied: It depends; it could be as

immediate as the moment of death, it could be as long as even a few

yugas. Kuchela's wife (of the story about Sudhama-Kuchela of

Krishna's time in Dwapara yuga) later -- after becoming rich by the

miraculous blessings of the Lord -- became too egocentric and puffed

up with richness; her next birth took place in Shankara's time

(Kaliyuga) when she was so poor that when boy Shankara came to her

house for the ritualistic begging (uncha-vritti) she had nothing to

offer him except a rotten Amalaka; and that is when Shri Shankara

made an extempore recitation of KanakadhArA-stavam.PraNAms to all

advaitinsprofvk