(From the discourses of Pujya Sri Swamiji)

Compiled by Swami Datta Pada Renu

The Lord said, "Verily, O Arjuna, neither in this world nor in the next does he come to ruin, for, the doer of good, my son, never comes to a bad state" (40-IV)

This message of the Lord gives lot of encouragement and hope to all spiritual seekers. The pilgrim of the path of spiritual perfection is never lost. No one should desist from practising spiritual disciplines and doing good deeds with the thought that all the work done by them would be lost if they happen to die before attaining their aim of self-realisation.

The Lord, in this verse, gives a promise to all spiritual seekers that no one who does good will ever come to suffer destruction either in this world or the next. That means the good deeds done would never be lost. If a man dies in the course of performing a good deed, he will carry with him the impressions of his good work to his next life and he would be able to start the work from he had left it in his past birth. Thus a man doing good deeds never gets himself destroyed. It is sure that he would attain salvation in the present life or the next.

"The man who has fallen from the path of yoga attains to the worlds of the righteous and having lived there many years, is born in the house of the pure and the prosperous". (41-IV)

Our life is not what begins at birth and terminates at death. Life begins with oneÕs coming in to this world and after living the life in different bodies one after another ends with the attainment of the state of Brahman. Therefore, irrespective of the thought of getting the fruit in this life or not, one should perform good deeds for oneÕs elevation. Even if the present body falls off while doing a good work, the soul gets another body and the previous lifeÕs impressions of the work done remains unchanged with it. Hence there is no loss to mourn.

There are three kinds of bodies - the gross, the subtle and the causal. The gross body is the visible body made up of bones and flesh and endowed with the instruments of sensation like the eye and the ear. It is this body that perishes at death. The subtle body is mainly constituted of the mind and its impressions. The third body is the causal body, in which all the impressions of the mind and its powers remain contracted in a seed-form, which is the cause of oneÕs future birth.

The soul along with the subtle and causal bodies transmigrates with a new body in its next embodiment. This trans-migratory involvement ceases only when the soul gets salvation. Then, the subtle and causal bodies also perish.

Any action, whether good or evil. That is done by a man remains in his mind in the form of impressions and in his causal body in the form of a seed. These impressions decide his future birth. Therefore if a Yogi of good deeds dies before the attainment of spiritual perfection, by the sheer force of the good impressions (samskaaras)of his mind, he goes to the worlds of the righteous. After enjoying in those heavenly worlds for many, many years, he is reborn in a pure and prosperous home, where he finds the requisite environment which help him to make his further progress in the spiritual path quite easy. Right from his birth in that house, he hears the daily prayers and worship of gods done by his parents. He watches their good conduct and their selflessness and kindness towards all creatures. As he has with him the yogic background of his previous life, he finds it easy to imitate the good behaviour and conduct of his parents. On account of the righteous surroundings the latent impressions of his mind are reawakened and he is inclined to proceed further along the path of God-realisation.