Look Within – Talks on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Venkatesananda.

[Guest guest]

The seeing of the truth of the inevitability of death leads us to the

questions:

 

Who am I? What am I? What am I here for? What is life? What is this

world? How am I supposed to live?

 

All these questions come up for answer once the camouflage is removed.

 

The camouflage here is the beautiful declaration " I should not fight

– this war is evil because I will die and others will die " .

 

Krishna merely says Jaatasya hi dhruvo mrityuhu, `that which is born

must die', and dhruvam Janmamritasya cha `though they who die

will inevitably be born again'.

 

What does it mean?

 

It may mean all this theory of reincarnation etc., but this you see in

nature.

 

It may be a bit difficult for you and me to realise that this as a fact

of our existence, but quite apart from the theory of reincarnation and

transmigration etc, you see it in nature.

 

A tree grows – there is a fruit or seed and the seed falls down, the

tree comes up again – so that species has never been destroyed.

 

In the same way, even before a father grows old, one living cell from

his organism is taken over and made into another human being;

 

So that the offspring is a continuation of the father – the son or

the daughter is a continuation of the parents.

 

So, it is literally true that you have in you the living cell of adam

and eve. (you don't need any metaphysics for this).

 

It is literally and biologically true that the father and mother before

they die take out of themselves a cell and make a living being out of

it.

 

So, immortality is there right in front of us – we don't have to

meditate and go into a trance condition and see all these souls floating

around. (Soul may be nothing more than a cell, the intelligence in a

cell).

 

Immortality is a fact.

 

May be we are talking about the heredity, and not in the sense of the

reincarnation theory – that I am not born out of parents / was born

of myself and the parents only gave me the body.

 

I don't know. Why bother about all that?

 

The fact of immortality is there right in front of us.

 

" That which was born must die, and that which die is born

again " .

 

Nothing in the world is ever really and truly destroyed. Why are you

bothered about it?

To be continued..