Contents
Shri Sankara's Gita Bhashya
(Sri Sankaracharya's Commentary on the Gita)
CHAPTER -2
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13. Just as childhood, youth, and old age, in this body, are (stages of experience) to the embodied soul, so also is the attainment of another body (after death). The wise man is not perplexed thereat. To the embodied soul i.e. the possessor of the body, in this, the present, body, just as i.e. in the same manner as are childhood, boyhood, youth, the middle stage of being a young man, and old age, the stage of decay due to the loss of youthful vigour - all these three stages being mutually different; on the disappearance of the first of these stages, there is no destruction of the soul; nor at the rise of the second stage is there a new creation of the soul. What then? Only the attainment of the second and the third stages by the changeless, single, soul is seen; so also is the attainment of another body, different from the (present) body, for the same un changing soul. The wise man, he who has the strength of spiritual knowledge, is not perplexed, does not fall into error, thereat, such being the truth. Apprehending that Arjuna might question as follows : Although there is no room for any delusion as to the destruction of the soul for him who understands that the soul is eternal, we nevertheless find in everyday life confusion of understanding that the soul is subject to cold, heat, pleasure and pain and also grief on separation from pleasure and association with pain- |
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