Mokshadharma Parva — Death is only a change of form

Bhrigu said The living creature, or what is given, or our other acts, are never destroyed. The death of a creature is only a change of form. The body alone is dissolved.

The living creature, though it depends upon the body, is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. It is not seen after the destroyed. It is not seen after the destruction of the physical body just as fire is not visible after the consumption of the fuel with which it was lighted.

Bharadwaja said If there is no destruction of the living creature like that of fire, I say, fire itself is not visible after consumption of the fuel (that ignited it).

When the supply of a fuel is stopped, the fire is put out, and as far as I know, is destroyed. What has no longer any action should be considered as destroyed, for it proves its non-existence and which no longer occupics any space.

Bhrigu said, It is true that after the consumption of fuel fire is no longer visible. It mixes with space because there is no longer any visible object wherein it can abide, and hence it cannot be perceived by us.

Likewise, upon renouncing the body, the creature lives in space, and cannot be seen for its extreme subtility as is the case with fire.

It is fire or heat that kceps us the vital airs called Prana and the others. Know this heat is called life or the living agent. The heat which keeps up vital airs, is extinguished for the suppression of breath.

With the extinction of heat, the body itself loses aniination. Falling down, it it is metamorphosed into earth, its ultimate destination.

The breath that exists in all mobile and immobile objects mingles with space, and the heat which is in them follows that breath. These three (viz., space, air, and fair), mingle together. The other two (viz., water and earth), exist together in the shape of earth.

There is wind where space is, and there is fire where is. They have in reality no forms, and become endued with form only in embodied creatures.

Bharadwaja said If in the bodies of all living creatures there are heat, wind, earth, space, and water, what then are the sins of the living agent? Tell me these, O sinless one.

I wish to know the nature of the life that exists in the bodies of living beings,composed of the five principal elements, engaged in the five principal elements, engaged in the five acts, endued with the five senses and animation.

After the dissolution of the body which is a compound of flesh and blood, a mass of fat, sinews and bones, that which is the living agent is not seen.

If this body, composed of the give elements, has no life, who or what then is that which feels misery on account of either physical or metal pain?

The living agent hears what is said, through the ears. It is, again, the fact, O great Rishi, that the same agent hears not when the mind is elsewhere engaged. It appears, therefore, that what is called the living agent serves no purpose.

What the living agent sces with eyes acting in unison with the mind, the eye sees not, even when lying before it, if the mind elsewhere engaged.

Then again, when it is asleep, that agent neither sees nor smells, nor hears, nor speaks, nor feels the perceptions of touch and taste.

Who or what then is that which feels joy, becomes angry, or sorry and suffers tribulation? What is that which wishes, thinks, feels hatred and utters words.

Bhrigu said The mind, like the body also, is made of the five elements. Therefore it is useless regarding the acts mentioned by you. Only the soul sustains the body. It is he that perceives smell, taste, sound, touch, forin and other properties.

Permeating all the limbs, that Soul witness the acts of the mind possessing five attributes and living within the body composed of the five elements. It is he who feels pleasure and pain, and when separated from him the body does not feel them.

When one has no perception of form or of touch, when there is no heat in the fire of the body,—when the animal heat is gone,-the body, being renounced by the Soul, meets with destruction.

The whole universe is made of water. Water is the form of all embodied creatures. In that water lives the Soul which is seen in the mind. That Soul is the Creator Brahman who exists in all things.

When the Soul is endued with ordinary attributes, it is called Kshetrajna. When freed from those attributes, attributes, it is designated Paramatman or Supreme Self.

Know that Soul. He is full of universal benevolence. He lives in the body like a drop of water in a lotus.

Know well what is called Kshetrajna and which had universal benevolence. Goodness, darkness, and ignorance are the three attributes of the living agent.

The learned hold that the Soul had Consciousness and has the attributes of life. The Soul works and makes everything to work. Persons cognisant of the Soul say that the Soul is different from life. It is the Supreme Soul that has created the seven words and makes them works.

There is no destruction of the living agent even when the body is dissolved. Men shorn of intelligence say that it dies. That is in fact false. All that the living agent does is that it goes from one body to another. What is called death is merely the dissolution of the body.

It is thus that the Soul, covered with various forms, goes form to form, unseen and unnoticed by others. Persons endued with true Knowledge witness the Soul by their keen and subtile intelligence.

Living on restricted diet, and with heart purged of all sins, devoting himself to meditation, a wise man succeeds every night, before sleep and after sleep, in sceing Soul by the help of his Soul.

The king, effulgent, like fire living within the mind is called the living agent. It is from that Lord of everything that this creation has originated. This is the conclusion of the enquiry into the origin of creatures and the soul.