Observations placeholder

The Bhagavad Gita [translated by W J Johnson]

You utter wise words, yet you have been mourning those who should not be mourned, the truly wise do not grieve for the living or the dead.

There never was a time when I was not, or you, or these rulers of men.  Nor will there ever be a time when we shall cease to be, all of us hereafter.

Just as within this body the embodied self passes through childhood, youth and old age, so it passes to another body.  The wise man is not bewildered by this.

But contacts with matter… give rise to cold and heat, pleasure and pain.  They come and go… they are impermanent and you should endure them.

…..

For the non existent there is no coming into existence, for the existent there is no lapsing into non existence; the division between them is observed by those who see the underlying nature of things.

But know that on which all this is stretched is indestructible.  No one can destroy this imperishable one.

Just as a man casting off worn out clothes takes up others that are new, so the embodied self, casting off its worn out bodies, goes to other new ones.

………..

And even if you believe that it is regularly born and regularly dead, you should not grieve for it

Death is inevitable for those who are born; for those who are dead, birth is just as certain.  Therefore you must not grieve for what is ineluctible.