Look Within – Talks on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Venkatesananda

[Guest guest]

" Avyaktaadini bhutani vyaktamadhyaani bhaarata

 

Avyakta nidhananyeva tatra kaa paridevanaa "

 

`Beings are un manifested in their beginning, manifested in their

middle state, O Arjuna, and un manifested again in their end. What is

there to grieve about?'

 

You don't know what you were before you were born, and you don't

know what you will be after you die.

 

These two (from our present point of view) are major factors of our

life. Before I was born, I must have lived somewhere – either as a

cell somewhere or as a dog, a monkey, a donkey – I don't know

what it was.

 

I existed before I was born and I will continue to exist for ages and

ages after I die; yet why am I so terribly concerned with this short

period of time that I am supposed to be here?

 

" Vaasaamsi jirnaani yathaa vihaaya, Navaani grihaati naroparaani

 

Tathaa shariraani vihaaya jirnanyaani samyaati namaani dehi "

 

`Just as man casts off worn out clothes and puts on new ones, so

also the embodied self casts off worn out bodies and enters others which

are new'

 

Here again, Krishna almost suggests death may be good: it is not only

some thing inevitable, it may even be better!

 

Most of these people who are standing on the battle field are aged

people, and if you ask them they will tell you how many illnesses they

have – diabetes, lumbago, rheumatism and a million other ailments.

 

If you tell them " it's an old body, drop it here, you will get a

new one " probably they will appreciate it.

 

The dress is torn – leave it – you will get a new one.

 

It is only because we do not realise that a new life awaits us on the

other side of what is called death, that we are afraid of it, we wish to

resist it, to postpone it.

 

If I know that I have a better job awaiting somewhere else, I resign

this just now. I may not even wait to be thrown out.

To be continued..