Bhagavad-gita: The Timeless Sourcebook on Reincarnation

Many Westerners, in order to gain a deeper understanding about reincarnation (Transmigration of the Soul), are turning to the original sources of knowledge about past and future lives. Among all available literatures, the Sanskrit Vedas of India are the oldest on earth and present the most comprehensive and logical explanations of the science of transmigration, teachings that have maintained their viability and universal appeal for more than five thousand years.


The most fundamental information about transmigration appears in Bhagavad-gita, the essence of the Upanishads and of all Vedic knowledge. The Gita was spoken fifty centuries ago by Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to His friend and disciple Arjuna on a battlefield in northern India. A battlefield is the perfect place for a discussion about transmigration, for in combat, men directly confront the fateful questions of life. death, and the afterlife.


As Krishna begins to speak on the immortality of the soul, He tells Arjuna,

"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be."

The Gita further instructs,

"That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul."

The soul-here we speak of something so subtle that it is not immediately verifiable by the limited human mind and senses. Therefore, not everyone will be able to accept the existence of the soul. Krishna informs Arjuna,

"Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all."


Accepting the existence of the soul is, however, not merely a matter of faith. Bhagavad-gita appeals to the evidence of our senses and logic, so we may accept its teachings with some degree of rational conviction and not blindly, as dogma.


It is impossible to understand transmigration unless one knows the difference between the actual self (the soul) and the body. The Gita helps us see the nature of the soul by the following example.

"As the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness."


Consciousness is concrete evidence of the presence of the soul within the body. On a cloudy day, the sun may not be visible, but we know it is there in the sky by the presence of sunlight. Similarly, we may not be able to directly perceive the soul, but we may conclude it is there by the presence of consciousness. In the absence of consciousness, the body is simply a lump of dead matter. Only the presence of consciousness makes this lump of dead matter breathe, speak, love, and fear. In essence, the body is a vehicle for the soul, through which it may fulfill its myriad material desires. The Gita explains that the living entity within the body is "seated as on a machine made of the material energy." The soul falsely identifies with the body, carrying its different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. Just as an automobile cannot function without the presence of a driver, similarly, the material body cannot function without the presence of the soul.


As one grows older, this distinction between the conscious self and the physical body becomes more obvious. Within his lifetime a person can observe that his body is constantly changing. It does not endure, and time proves the child ephemeral. The body comes into existence at a certain time, grows, matures, produces by-products (children), and gradually dwindles and dies. The physical body is thus unreal, for it will, in due time, disappear. As the Gita explains, "Of the nonexistent there is no endurance." But despite all the changes of the material body, consciousness, a symptom of the soul within, remains unchanged. ("Of the eternal there is no change.") Therefore, we may logically conclude that consciousness possesses an innate quality of permanence that enables it to survive the dissolution of the body. Krishna tells Arjuna,

"For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time.... He is not slain when the body is slain."


But if the soul is "not slain when the body is slain," then what becomes of it? The answer given in the Bhagavad-gita is that the soul enters another body. This is transmigration of the soul. This concept may be diffcult for some people to accept, but it is a natural phenomenon, and the Gita gives logical examples to aid our understanding:

"As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change."


In other words, man transmigrates even in the course of one lifetime. Any biologist will tell you that the body's cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones. In other words, each of us has a number of "different" bodies in this very life. The body of an adult is completely different from the body the same person had as an infant. Yet despite bodily changes, the person within remains the same. Something similar happens at the time of death. The self undergoes a final change of body. The Gita says,

"As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones."

Thus the soul remains entrapped in an endless cycle of births and deaths. "One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again," the Lord tells Arjuna.


According to the Vedas, there are 8,400,000 species of life, beginning with the microbes, rising through the fish, plants, insects, reptiles, birds, and animals to the humans and demigods. According to their desires, the living entities perpetually take birth in these species.


The mind is the mechanism that directs these transmigrations, propelling the soul to newer and newer bodies. The Gita explains,

"Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his 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 influences our final thoughts at death. According to the quality of these thoughts, material nature awards us a suitable body. Therefore, the type of body that we have now is the expression of our consciousness at the time of our last death.