BODY AND SOUL
In the sacred book of the Hindus The Bhagavad Gita written by
Shri Vyasa between 400 BCE and 200 CE, there is a lot of discussion between
Lord Krishna and his follower Arjuna who has been asked to fight against the rivals
of his clan comprising his kith and kin but he is hesitant because it will
cause their death.
In the discussion, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna about the perishability
of the temporary body and the eternal existence of the soul which only migrates
from one body to another and will always do so.
What follows is a short paragraph about our concept of the destined
death and the criminal act of murdering some
body. Its source is the notes in Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s
book on the Bhagavadgita first published in 1948. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888
-1975) was an Indian politician, philosopher and author. He had served as the second
President of India from May 13, 1962 to May 13, 1967.
The text of the aforesaid paragraph reads like this:
“The inevitability of death, however , cannot justify
murders, suicides or wars. We cannot desire deliberately the death of others,
simply because all men are bound to die. It is so that all life ends in death,
the progress is perishable, that nothing is permanent in the temporal sense of
the word. But in every perfect realization of life, the eternal becomes actualized
and the development in time is only the means to this essential aim.”
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G.R.Kanwal
17 July 2024
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