tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 89

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Upanişads
act of an individual. A person is reborn, because he has to reap the fruits of his actions. Every action produces its effects and those effects, good or bad, are retained and they cannot be wiped out without being experienced in a fresh birth. Thus rebirth is caused by one's own actions. Good actions have good results and they have to be experienced in the form of pleasures; bad actions have bad results, which also are to be experienced in the form of suffering. In the Brh. Upanisad it is stated -- "Now as a man is like this or like that, according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be; a man of good acts will become good; a man of bad acts, bad. He becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds." The Chandogya Upanişad also supports the doctrine of Karma.? The body that the Soul assumes in the succeeding birth is determined by its actions in the previous life. The S've'tas'vatara Upanişad also supports this view. It says-"According unto his deeds (Karman), the embodied one successively assumes forms in various conditions."3 It becomes evident from the above passages from the various Upanisads that the Upanişadic philosophic thinkers believed that the determination of the kind of birth and body depends exclusively upon the kind of actions that one undertakes in the previous birth. The Self is free and remains for ever free, though it assumes numerous forms. The
1 BỊh. Up. 4.4.5. 2 Ch. Up. 5.10.7. 3 S'vét. Up. 5.11.
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