State of Mind

[ancient_paztriot]

Here's one for you theist.

 

SB 10.1.41

Having experienced a situation by seeing or hearing about it, one contemplates and speculates about that situation, and thus one surrenders to it, not considering his present body. Similarly, by mental adjustments one dreams at night of living under different circumstances, in different bodies, and forgets his actual position. Under this same process, one gives up his present body and accepts another [tatha dehantara-praptih].

 

PURPORT

Transmigration of the soul is very clearly explained in this verse. One sometimes forgets his present body and thinks of his childhood body, a body of the past, and of how one was playing, jumping, talking and so on. When the material body is no long workable, it becomes dust: “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” But when the body again mixes with the five material elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether—the mind continues to work. The mind is the subtle substance in which the body is created, as we actually experience in our dreams and also when we are awake in contemplation. One must understand that the process of mental speculation develops a new type of body that does not actually exist. If one can understand the nature of the mind (manorathena) and its thinking, feeling and willing, one can very easily understand how from the mind different types of bodies develop.

 

The Krsna consciousness movement, therefore, offers a process of transcendental activities wherein the mind is fully absorbed in affairs pertaining to Krsna. The presence of the soul is perceived by consciousness, and one must purify his consciousness from material to spiritual, or, in other words, to Krsna consciousness. That which is spiritual is eternal, and that which is material is temporary. Without Krsna consciousness, one’s consciousness is always absorbed in temporary things. (more to purport)