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----- bhagap408.html
The birth of a Jiva is the acceptance of a body as one's own
self. It is even like dream or fancy. In dream or fancy, a man does
not know his present self as the former self The mind by its applica-
tion to a new body causes a birth into that body, and the ideas of
good, bad and indifferent crop up in self.
Though a father may have neither friend nor enemy, he is
affected by the connections formed by his vicious son, even so it is
with Atma". Growth and decay are happening every moment in the
body. But they are hardly perceptible owing to the extreme subtlely
of time.
The burning lamp, the flowing current, the ripening fruit, pass
through stages, as all beings also pass through the stages of child-
hood, youth and age. We say it is the same fire, it is the same water
(though the particles of fire and water are continually changing.)
So we say, it is the same man. The understanding and the words
of ignorant men are all confounding (for they speak and think
assuming that the same body continues). But even the ignorant
man does not acquire birth or death, by Karma engendered by self,
for the self is immortal and the notion of birth and death is itself a
delusion with reference to self. Fire, as an element lasts through
out the Kalpa. But it seems to come into existence or to become
extinguished. Fecundation, foetal state, birth, childhood, grown up
childhod, youth, ripeness, age and death are the nine states of the
body. These states of the body which is other than self are only
fancies of the mind (so far as self is concerned). Some accept them
as their own, by contact with Gunas and some reject them to some
extent (by discriminating knowledge). From the death of the body
inherited from the father and the birth of another child body, one
can infer the birth and death of his body only, he the knower not
being affected by either birth or death. The seer of the growth and
decay of the tree is different from there itself, so the seer of the
different states of the body is different from the body itself. One is
bound down to the wheel of rebirths, by want of discrimination.
One becomes Deva or Rishi by the action of Satva, Asura or man
by the action of Rajas and Bhuta or animal by the action of Tamas.
As a man seeing the performance of singers and dancers involuntarily
imitates them (in the mind) even so Atmd follows the actions of Buddhf.
The tree seems to move when the water is moving. The earth seems to
roll when the eyes are rolling. Births and rebirths are as unreal to
Atma as are dreams but they have an existence even as objects in
dream have an existence so long as the mind thinks of those objects.
[[408]]
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