"The mind of men imprinted with karma moves with the five senses from
body to body. Atma (under the denomination of 'I') accompanies the mind.
"The mind (after death) thinks of such seen and unseen objects as the
karma of men places before it. It awakes (unto those objects, it thinks
of) and fades away (in respect of previous objects). The memory
(connecting the present with the past) dies away in consequence.
"When one loses all thoughts of one's body on account of close
application to another object (body), through some cause or other, that
utter forgetfulness is his death." (By karma, man gets after his
so-called death either a deva body, or a body of inflictions. In the
former case, it is through pleasure and desire and in the latter case,
through fear and sorrow, that the Jiva utterly forgets his former body.
That is the death of the Jiva who used to identify himself with the
former body and not the destruction of Jiva as of the body. _Sridhara_.
The Deva-body is the phenomenal basis of the Jiva in Svarga Loka. The
body of inflications is the astral or Kamic body, in Bhuta, Preta and
Pisacha Loka, where the Jiva undergoes inflictions. The Jiva identifies
itself with these new bodies or new states in such a way as to forget
completely its former physical body. The connection with the former body
is thus completely cut off in the mind. This is the death of the Jiva in
relation to its previous body.)
"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 application 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 childhood, 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
the tree 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 Atma follows
the actions of Buddhi. 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.
"Whatever others may say or do unto you, do not care the least about
that, but with single minded devotion restore self by self."