Srimad Bhagavad Gita -Ramanujacharya 33

Srimad Bhagavad Gita -Ramanujacharya

Chapter-2 Sankhya Yogaḥ

mriyate vā kadācin nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ | ajo nityaḥ śāśvato’yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre || 20 || 20. The jīva is never born; it never dies; having been existent in the past, it will never cease to be [in the future]. Unborn, eternal, abiding and primeval, it is not slain when the body is slain. Commentary As the jīva is eternal for the reasons mentioned [above], and hence free from evolutionary changes, all the transitions of the insentient [body] like birth, growth, change and death, do not affect the jīva. The statement, 'It is never born, it never dies' is in the present tense, this means that birth and death which are presently being experienced by all embodied beings, do not [in fact] affect the jīvātman. The Statement 'Having been existent once, it will never cease to be' means that this jīva, having emerged at the beginning of a Kalpa will not cease to exist at the end of the Kalpa [ie., it will emerge again at the beginning of the following Kalpa unless it is liberated]. In other words — 'birth' at the beginning of a Kalpa in bodies such as those of Brahma and others, and 'death' at the end of a Kalpa as stated in the Scriptures, do not affect the jīva. Hence, the jīvas in all bodies, are unborn, and therefore eternal. The jīva is ever abiding, unconnected like matter is, with invisible modifications taking place. It is primeval;— this means that it existed from time immemorial; it is ever new ie, it is capable of being experienced always afresh.