Let this knowledge which is inside of you awaken. See that the soul is eternal

Sankhya Yoga

Chapter 2, Verse 13

 

dehino’smin yathā dehe 

kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā 

tathā dehāntara prāptir 

dhīras tatra na muhyati

 

As the soul passes physically through childhood, youth and old age, so it  

passes on to the changing of the body. The self-composed man does not  

allow himself to be disturbed or blinded by this.

 

Krishna says, “It is unwise to suffer, thinking that by changing one’s body, everything is lost. Why are you grieving? Why are you sad about this? Childhood, youth, and old age don’t belong to the soul.” When are you growing up, what is growing? The body. Once you were a baby; maybe now you are in youth; later you will be in middle age; and later on, you will become old... some of you are already old now. But these changes are not for the soul. Your Atma is eternal! The Atma is still the same. For all which is created, change is only on the outside. The body changes. Nature, Prakriti changes. The soul itself never changes.

 

When the body dies, the soul goes and takes another body. The one who is unaware of this truth, the unwise, grieve over this transition from one body to another. The wise never do so. The one who is wise, “the self-composed man”, the one who is longing for Realisation, the realised one, sees the world completely differently. Krishna says, “Arjuna, you are realised. Don’t see the world in a low state of mind. Don’t be blinded by how everybody else sees the world. Let this knowledge which is inside of you awaken. See that the soul is eternal. Even if the soul moves from body to body, this eternity of the soul – that’s what is the Reality.”

Bhagavad Gita