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Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana: Book 11: Chapter 22: Verses 33-42
The controversy whether the Self as distinguished from the body exists or not is the result of not realizing the Self. Though meaningless (inasmuch as it is capable of being set at rest by Self-Realization) it does not cease in the case of men whose mind is turned away from Me, their real Self. Uddhava submitted : Tell me, 0 Protector of cows ! how men whose mind is turned away from You take and (then) give up corporeal forms, high and low, in conformity with actions performed by themselves, 0 Lord ! (in other words) how the omnipresent Self could pass from one body to another, how actions could be ascribed to the actionless, and how birth and death could be attributed to that which is beyond birth and death. It is a thing which cannot be easily conceived by men of poor understanding; for, generally speaking there are none in the world who are conversant with this topic, deluded as people are (by Your Maya).
The glorious Lord replied: United with the five senses (as well as with the five organs of action and the five subtle elements), the mind of the Jivas, consisting as it does of latencies of Karma, travels from one body to another; and the soul, though distinct from it, follows it (identified as it is with that mind). Being under the sway of Karma (destiny which determines the nature of future existence), the mind contemplates (at the dying moment) objects (actually) seen or heard of (promised in the Vedas and brought to the forefront by the said destiny) and, being reborn in the midst of those (contemplated) objects, gets insensible to his present surroundings. The memory (too of his present life) ceases thereafter. When through deep attachment for (identification with) a new body the mind no longer remembers the previous body, this complete forgetfulness of a Jiva (about the body with which he was identified till the last moment), brought about by some reason (or other in the shape of the Prarabdha which kept him tied down to the previous body having been exhausted) constitutes his death (in relation to that body). And the wise declare the birth of a Jiva to consist in completely identifying himself with a particular body just as a dream and a reverie consist in one's identifying oneself with the body appearing in a dream or a reverie, 0 giver of plenty l Just as the Jiva identified with the present body no longer remembers the preceding one, the dreaming soul or the soul drowned in a reverie no longer remembers (the body of) a preceding dream or a preceding reverie; nay, he visualizes his self, though old (existing from before) as if it had newly come into existence. Due to the coming into existence of a body (the seat of the ten Indriyas) or due to the appearance in another setting of the mind (which forms the background of the ten Indriyas) a threefold distinction (in the form of the mind, senses and body) appears in the (one) Self (the only reality), as a result of which the Self becomes the occasion for internal and external differences, just as a Jiva assumes a number of undesirable bodies in the course of a dream and appears manifold or just as a man begetting a number of wicked children, though one, assumes different relations with reference to the friends and enemies etc., of those children and appears diversified. As a matter of fact, 0 dear Uddhava, (the bodies of) created beings come into existence and perish every moment by action of Time, whose velocity is too subtle to be perceived; and it is due to this subtlety that their appearance and disappearance in quick succession every moment are not seen.
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