Today we’re commemorating Mahaprayan Divas. Prayan means to depart. Maha means a significant departure, an important or Divine departure. (Divas means day) But let us understand something about the deeper meaning behind this.
You see, this whole shrishti, this whole manifested universe has a nature.
सम सरति इति संसारः गच्छति इति जगत्।
Sam sarati iti samsarah, gacchati iti jagat.
What is ‘sansar’? It is a Sanskrit word for ‘this world’. ‘Sam sarati iti’ is that which keeps changing from one state into another state. It’s always evolving or devolving or doing something. And the word ‘jagat’ is another word we use for ‘this world’, ‘gacchati iti’ - it’s always moving. Nothing is static or stationary in this world. Everything from a macro scale, galaxies and clusters of galaxies and super clusters of galaxies are all in motion, right down to a cellular level. Our cells are always in motion. Everything in them is moving. To an atomic level, we know that an atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. And those electrons are in constant motion. Everything in this world is moving and everything in this world is changing from one state to another.
From day it changes to evening, then to night, then to early morning, then to morning, then day again. Everything is constantly changing. And one of the reflections of this nature of the world is that everybody who comes into this world also must leave this world. “Jo ayega, so jayega - shrishti ka niyam.” (“जो आएगा, सो जाएगा. सृष्टि का नियम।). This shrishti is a product of maya. So of course, that law applies to the souls under maya, all of us.
पुनरपि जननं पुनरपि मरणं पुनरपि जननी जठरे शयनम् |
इह संसारे बहु दुस्तारे कृपयाऽपारे पाहि मुरारे ‖ 22 ‖Punarapi jananaṃ punarapi maraṇaṃ punarapi jananī jaṭhare śhayanam.
Iha saṃsāre bahu dustāre kṛipayā’pāre pāhi murāre.भज गोविन्दं भज गोविन्दं गोविन्दं भज मूढमते. ‖ 1 ‖
Bhaj govindaṃ bhaj govindaṃ govindaṃ bhaj mūḍhamate.- Adi Shankaracharya, Bhaj Govindam
Jagadguru Shankaracharya says that souls take birth after birth. They are born, then they die, then again they enter into the womb of another woman who’s going to be their mother, and again they take birth, and again they die, over and over and over again. Thus, we maya-bound souls come and go from this world over and over and over again.
However, this law of shrishti also applies to Divine personalities who come in this world. Not that they are bound by maya. God Himself even subjects Himself to this law of the nature of the world, even though He is completely beyond the qualities of maya, beyond the reach of maya. And any soul who attains him also goes beyond the reach of maya.
And yet, when those souls, those God-realized souls, come in this world, and when God Himself comes in this world, they also stay for a limited time. They also say,
“Okay, it’s a material world, I came in this world, I’ll go as well.”
