SATYARTH PRAKASH - THE LIGHT OF TRUTH

Weekly Sermon by Acharya Vedshrami, Resident Priest, Greater Atlanta Vedic Temple

English Translation by Raj Bhalla, PhD

Question: Are the souls in human and animal bodies alike or do they belong to different species?

Answer: The souls are the same. But they are pure or impure according to their good or bad deeds.

Question: Do the souls of men go into bodies of animals and vice versa; and do souls of men go into souls of women and vice versa?

Answer: Yes it does. Soul follows the laws of Karma. Whatever you sow, so shall you reap. When sin predominates over virtue in a man, his soul goes into the bodies of lower animals and the like, and when virtue predominates over sin in a soul, it is born as a good and learned person. When sin and virtue are equal, the soul is born as an ordinary man. When the punishment for excessive sins has been suffered in animal lives, the soul comes back to the body of an average man.

When the soul leaves the body, it is called death, when it again takes a body, it is called birth. Soul never dies, only the physical body does. Soul is merely migrating from one body to the next. When the soul leaves the body, it goes to Yamalaya or the abode of Yama. Here Yama does not mean the God of death. We shall discuss this point more in the eleventh chapter. In the Vedas, Yama is another name of the Air, “यमेन वायुना”. So the soul goes to the atmosphere. Thereafter the Great Judge - God - embodies that soul according to the nature of its deeds done in the previous life. Guided by God it enters the body of some living creature with air, water, food, drink or through any one of the openings of the body. Having entered it, it gradually reaches the reproductive element and thereby establishes itself in the womb, and is thus invested with a body and eventually born. It is clothed with a male or a female body, just as it merits a male or a female one depending upon its deeds.