It's a slim book, about 130 pages. The general idea is that the soul is what we are and the body is just a vehicle, the soul is immortal and the bodies change like we change clothes, we could end up in any kind of life (fish, plant, insect..depending on our karma), human life is the one form where you can transcend the cycle of life and death, what is on your mind when you die is what you are reborn as.
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The mystery of Consciousness - Swami says that Consciousness is distinct from and superior to matter composing of the physical body.
The body is a vehicle for the soul through which it may fulfill its myriad material desires.
Body moves from childhood to old age, similarly the soul moves from body to body. Body changes, soul remains.
According to the Vedas there are 8.400,000 species of life - microbes, fish, plants, insects, reptiles, birds, animals, humans and demigods.
Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits the body...that state he will attain without fail in his next life.
Everything we have thought and done during our life makes an impression on the mind and the sum total of all these impressions influence our final thoughts. According to our thoughts we get a suitable body.
Those who do not enquire about their non-physical nature are compelled by the laws of karma to continue in the cycle of birth, death, rebirth - as different species.
The human body is the only loophole through which the materially conditioned soul can escape.
A soul fortunate enough to obtain a human body should seriously endeavour for self-realisation.
Human body works because of the living force withing. The body is always dead. Concern yourself with the active principle - the soul.
So ham - I am the active principle
Aham Brahmasmi - I am not the material body, I am the Brahman
The body may be different but the soul remains the same.
If one is a God-realised soul, he is not afraid of anything.
In dreams our body lies in the bed and we go elsewhere. When we dream we act in different bodies and in different locations.
Pure consciousness does not need a body.
To get first class experience you must get a guru.
The goal of life is self-realisation or God-realisation.
To live eternally, with full knowledge, bliss, we must get out of the body. The human body is not perfect. Seek perfection.
You are not a body which also has a soul. You are a soul living in a temporary body.
Soul is present in the heart of the living entity. The energy of the soul is spread all over the body and this is known as consciousness.
In heart transplants, conception, the soul must enter the body.
God is a very great soul, living entity is a very small soul.
The book gives three stories from Srimad Bhagavatham
- Citraketu who craves for a son and who loses him and understands the principle
- King Bharata who renounces everything and while in the jungle gets attached to a deer and becomes a deer in his next life
- The brahmin Ajamila who gives up a righteous life, marries a prostitute and is about to be taken away by yamadutas to hell when he utters the name of his son 'Narayana' twice and is rescued by angels
Some reincarnation principles
- Our life is just a flash in time
- You can get a body of your choice
- Death means forgetting your last life
- The soul takes a human form first
- Your thoughts create your next body
- You can be born as a man or woman depending on your thoughts in the last life
...
It is an interesting book and I find myself looking at my body differently now. Also being aware of my thoughts.
The soul in a human body stands at an evolutionary midpoint - can choose degradation or liberation
To liberate oneself
- Chant
Hare Krisna, Hare Krsna
Krisna Krisna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama,
Rama Rama, Hare Hare
- Study the Gita and the Srimad bhagavatam
- Eat vegetarian food
- Offer food to Krisna
- Contribute to help propagate the Krisna Connsciousness
- Don't engage in illicit sex
- Associate with people who are trying to break free of this cycle
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