The Gita according to Gandhi 22

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

B. THE GITA VIEW 3. KARMA AND REBIRTH The law of karma here steps in, supplements heredity and makes it understandable and tolerable. When a man dies, we are told, the gross elements are dissolved, dust returneth unto dust, but the self with the subtle psychic elements remains, it seeks a new home, leaving the old which is broken up (XV. 7-8). The parents provide for this unknown guest a new home with a character of its own (VI. 41-42). The guest- whom the parents fondly called their child appropriates the home that it has deserved. Its new home, good or ill, is the result of its stock of punya or papa not the "things that took the eye and had the price", but all that the man was worth to God, in the language of the Gita, 'man's attachment to the gunas' (XIII. 21). It is through this home that he proceeds to work out his destiny. The effort lasts through a lifetime, the mortal coil is shuffled off once again, and the self with the psychic apparatus, altered, developed or deteriorated, as the case may be, goes out in search of fresh fields and pastures new.