Are we eternal?
A weird question indeed!
How can we be eternal? We took
birth, we have grown and as per nature’s law we shall cease to exist. So
definitely we am not eternal.
Over 5000 thousand years ago this vital question was
answered by Supreme Lord Shri Krishna to Arjuna in the battlefield of
Kurukhestra.
Lord says in BG2.12 “Never was
there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the
future shall any of us cease to be.”
We can’t understand our eternal nature through our own
endeavour or mental speculation or so called scientific research. We can
understand our eternal nature only by accepting the word of the Supreme Lord,
who is in complete knowledge. The above statement clearly establishes the fact that
we are indeed eternal. Most importantly we are distinct individual beings
and we never lose our individuality. We are eternal just like the Supreme Lord and
always distinct from the Lord.
We as a soul are eternal made up of spiritual elements sat-cit-ananda
(Eternal, Full of Knowledge, and Bliss) and the outer covering within which
the soul resides, the body is made up of five basic physical elements – earth, air,
water, fire and ether. As the body is made up of physical elements, it is bound
by the laws of nature, it degenerates and vanishes while the Soul made of
spiritual elements never ceases to exist.
Lord states in BG2.13 that the eternal soul passes from one
body to another, the body grows from boyhood to youth and then to old age and
then when the body is no more usable the soul leaves the body at the moment of
death. The most sober person, who is aware of this reality is not bewildered by
such a change.
Life indeed is a journey, a journey of self-realisation and
NOT self-indulgement. Interestingly, transmigration of soul from one body to
another (through 8.4 million body species) is an infinite loop of - birth, disease, old
age and death – also known as miseries of life. This profound knowledge of distinction between eternal soul
and perishable body is the foundational step of learning Krishna Consciousness
(or God consciousness). As Srila Prabhupad famously said ‘we are not this body
we are spirit souls’.
We are eternal soul, fact established.
But how do we get out
of the miseries of life? Are we just programmed to loop around infinitely
from one body to another and bear the miseries of life? Or is there an exitway?
The Supreme Lord has answered that too.
(too be continued…)
