Srimad Bhagavadgita Sadhaka Sanjivani -Swami Ramsukhdas
Chapter 14
Appendix:—Every human being has the feeling that he should live alive and never die. He wants to be immortal. His desire for immortality proves that in fact he is immortal. Had he (the self) not been immortal, he would have not desired to be immortal. For example if a person feels hungry and thirsty, it proves that there are such things (food and water) by which his hunger and thirst may be satisfied. If there had not been food and water, he would have not felt hungry and thirsty. Therefore immortality is self-evident—`bhutagramah sa evayam' (Gita 8/19). When a man (the self) in spite of being immortal, ignoring his discrimination, assumes his identification with the body viz., he assumes "I am the body", then he is in dread of death and desires to be immortal. But when he attaches importance to his discrimination and accepts the fact "I am not the body because the body is ever mortal while I am ever immortal," then he realizes his axiomatic immortality. The Self, ever being uniform, perceives the modifications and changes of the body. Therefore a striver instead of attaching importance to modifications and changes, should attach importance to the beingness of the Self (which is ever existent) and to his immortality. This verse is the gist of the fourteenth chapter. |
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