EVOLUTION OF THE FORMS OF JIVA

EVOLUTION OF THE FORMS OF JIVA AND THE SAD PREDICAMENT OF THE EMBODIED JIVATMAN

    “Thou art woman, Thou art man; Thou art youth and maiden too. Thou as an old man totters along on a staff; it is Thou alone who, when born, assumes diverse forms. Thou art the dark-blue bee; Thou art the green parrot with red eyes; Thou art the thunder-cloud, the seasons and the seas. Thou art the beginning-less and all-pervading. From Thee all the worlds are born.” [Yajurveda, Svetasvatara Upanishad, Part I, Chapter IV, 1-4]

    “He, the One and Undifferentiated, who by the manifold application of His powers produces, in the beginning, different objects for a hidden purpose and, in the end, withdraws the universe into Himself, is indeed the self-luminous-May He endow us with clear intellect! That Supreme Self is Agni (Fire); It is Aditya (Sun); It is Vayu (Wind); It is Chandrama (Moon). That Self is the luminous stars; It is Hiranyagarbha; It is water; It is Virat.” 

  “I know this un-decaying, primeval One, the Self of all things, which exists everywhere, being all-pervading and which the wise declare to be free from birth. The teachers of Brahman, indeed, speak of ‘It’ as eternal.” [Yajurveda, Svetashvatara Upanishad, Part I, Chapter III, 21].

 “The Self is identified with desire alone. What it desires, it resolves; what it rsolves, it works out; what it works out, it attains.”

  “He who desires is reborn. But the man who does not desire is not reborn. Of him who is without desires, who is free from desires, the objects of whose desires have been attained, and to whom all objects are but the self- the pranas do not depart.Being but brahman, he is merged in brahman.”

  “He who knows the Self is liberated. The knowledge of the Self liberates a man from desire, fear, and death.”

  According to the Upanishads, “Liberation is not the result of the Knowledge of the Atman; it is that knowledge. It is not affected by the Knowledge of Atman; but this Knowledge is itself Liberation in its fullness. Desire is death. Desirelessness is Liberation. He who has realized himself as brahman, infinite and all-pervading, he who sees the whole universe in himself and himself in the universe, cannot desire anything.” “What can he crave who has attained the fulfilment of all desires?”

    Therefore, as long one is living, nobody would understand the ‘hereafter’; one may even return from death but would not remember what happened in the gap! There are many accounts of people who have had ‘near-death experience’ and some having some sort of ‘out of this world’ experience.

The Sad predicament of the embodied soul, jivatman-Step by step to kaivalya

What Happens to the Atman After Meeting Death: 

   Well then, Gautama, I shall tell you about this profound and eternal Brahman and also about what happens to the atman after meeting death. Some jivas enter the womb to be embodied as organic beings and some go into non-organic matter-according to their work and according to their knowledge. He, the Purusha, who remains awake while the sense-organs are asleep, shaping one lovely form after another, that indeed is the Pure, that is Brahman and that alone is called the Immortal. All worlds are contained in Him and none can pass beyond. This, verily, is That. As the same non-dual fire, after it has entered the world, becomes different according to whatever it burns, so also the same non-dual Atman, dwelling in all beings, becomes different according to whatever It enters. And It exists also without. As the same non-dual air, after it has entered the world, becomes different according to whatever it enters, so also the same non-dual Atman, dwelling in all beings, becomes different according to whatever It enters. And It also exists without. [Yajur Veda, Katha Upanishad, Part Two, Chapter II, 6-10].

  Let’s remember the fact that the jiva that takes an elemental body may appear in any form anywhere on this earth. Further, the jiva taking repeated births may appear iIt exists also without. [Yajur Veda, Katha Upanishad, Part Two, Chapter II, 6-10].n its next life in any form, anywhere without any restriction, whatsoever. It may continue to work to fulfil its desires in the subsequent births, too. Hence, Varaha Mihira may be reborn as Galileo, who in turn, may be reborn as Tyco Brahe, Keppler, and Newton, or Stephen Hawking or a cat or a dog. Nothing prevents the jiva from taking repeated births with new names and forms. Bhaskara may be reborn as Columbus, Magellan, or Vasco da Gama, provided his desire is to physically go round the earth and see for himself the nature of this world which he could not do in the previous birth! Ultimately, neither there is birth nor death, but transformations of matter and spirit! 

   What prevents anybody from taking birth anywhere is a matter of its (jiva’s) desire and attachments, vasanas, only, and nothing else. The Jiva may move freely since it has no bodily restrictions. Hence, all our understandings are based on sheer ignorance of the reality of existence.