The Gita according to Gandhi 25

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

B. THE GITA VIEW 3. KARMA AND REBIRTH Neither is there an abrupt end in the one case, nor a fortuitous beginning in the other. Death is but 'a sleep and a forgetting' and the individual self with the new birth wakes up in other physical environments to continue the old unfinished race towards the goal. This, being born again and again, is not "the Indian philosopher's bugbear", as Monier Williams called it; neither is it, as he thought, an escape from the quest of Truth. The doctrine was a direct product of the Indian seer's successful quest of Truth. It was a corollary of the discovery of the immortality of the soul and the indestructibility of matter. Man being ever-born endeavours to be one with God the never- born, and while each birth is a sad reminder oy the race yet to run, it is also a fresh opportunity to finish it. Each rebirth is a fresh school of discipline, a fresh prison through which to work out one's release. Does man then pass through various wombs according to his conduct here? Do those of foul conduct "enter foul wombs, either that of a dog, or a swine, or an outscaste" as the Chhandogya Upanishad says? One does not know. The Gita simply echoes the prevailing belief of the times. It of course changes the Upanishad phraseology and refers to three kinds of birth birth in spotless worlds, birth among men attached to work, and in gross species; or "going upward", "remaining midway , "going downward" (XIV. 15; XIV. 18).