पुनरपि जननं पुनरपि मरणं पुनरपि जननी जठरे शयनम् ।
इह संसारे बहुदुस्तारे कृपयाऽपारे पाहि मुरारे ॥भज गोविन्दं भज गोविन्दं गोविन्दं भज मूढमते ।
Punarapi jananam punarapi maraṇam punarapi jananī jaṭhare śhayanam.
Ih saṁsāre bahu-dustāre kṛipayāpāre pāhi Murāre.Bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, Govindam bhaj mūḍha-mate.
- Bhaj Govindam 21
Shankaracharya says that we are made to take birth again and again, ‘punarapi jananam’ and ‘punarapi maraṇam’ - we are born and we die again and again. It keeps happening. And we’re put into the womb, ‘jaṭhare’, of our mother-to-be.
That keeps happening. And we don’t have a choice. We do not choose our mother. We do not choose to be reborn or not. We have to be reborn because we’re under the bondage of our past karma. And we receive our next family according to that karma.
However, Bhagwatam says in regard to Shree Krishna:
अस्यापि देव वपुषो मदनुग्रहस्य
स्वेच्छामयस्य न तु भूतमयस्य कोऽपि ।Asyāpi dev vapuṣho mad-anugrahasya
svecchā-mayasyan tu bhūta-mayasya ko’pi.- Bhagwatam 10.14.2
‘Svecchā’ - you come through Your own free will. Shree Krishna comes just by deciding to come. That’s it. He’s not bound to come. He’s not bound by karma. No one decides for Him when He’s going or where He’s going. He decides,
“I’m going to take avatar.”
And He goes. He appears. So He comes of His own free will. But is He born like we are? Even though we appear, we appear nonetheless in our mother’s womb, inside that little growing body that becomes our body for this life. And then, after nine months, when it’s finished growing, we are born into this world from our mother.
Was Shree Krishna born in that way? He says in the Gita:
अजोऽपि सन्नव्ययात्मा भूतानामीश्वरोऽपि सन् ।
प्रकृतिं स्वामधिष्ठाय सम्भवाम्यात्ममायया ॥Ajo ‘pi sann avyayātmā bhūtānām īśhvaro ‘pi san.
Pakṛitiṁ svāmadhiṣṭhāya sambhavāmyātma-māyayā.- Gita 4.6
He says, “I am ‘aj’, meaning never born. Yet I take birth in this world, but My birth is not the birth you think it is.”
So how is it? He says,
“First understand one thing. He is avyayātmā.
What does this mean?
Shvetashvatar Upanishad says:
न तस्य कार्यं करणं च विद्यते ।
Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ cha vidyate.
- Shvetashvatar Upanishad 6.8
“He does not have a body-and-soul duality.”
This is a very key point. We have our true self, our soul, which inhabits this body, which is temporary. Krishna does not have a body. See, that’s why some people get confused. There are certain statements in the Vedas that say God has no body. It doesn’t mean that He’s not sakar (with form). He has a form, but He has no body. You know why? Because His soul is His body. To have a body, you need to have a soul-body duality, right? But He Himself is His body. So He does not have a body; He is His body.
We cannot say that I am not my body; I inhabit my body. But Shree Krishna is His body. So that’s avyayātmā. He is His body, and His body is Divine and eternal.
