Why Are We Placed In This World If We Have To Eventually Leave It

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.22)

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वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरो ऽपराणि
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्य्
अन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही

vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya
navāni gṛhṇāti naro ‘parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī

Friend1: The passing of someone close to you is not easy to deal with.

Friend2: What is it, exactly? Just the loss itself? You are sorry for what they went through? The tragedy of the situation?

Friend1: Everything and more. To me, it’s the weirdest thing that we will never be able to talk to them again. No contact whatsoever.

Friend2: They have moved on to another place. As Shri Krishna discusses in Bhagavad-gita, it is like taking off garments and putting on a new set.

Friend1: That is comforting to know. I am relieved that they are okay, as a person. Nothing can kill the soul. We should remember that every single day:

न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्
नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतो ऽयं पुराणो
न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे

na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin
nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ‘yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre

“For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.20)

Friend2: It has to be remembered. It has to be lived.

Friend1: How do you live that, though? The other thing I have trouble dealing with is the fact that someone was here for so long, affected my life, and then suddenly left. It doesn’t have to be someone I met personally, either. It could be a person on the radio who hosted a show for over thirty years.

Friend2: An attachment develops.

Friend1: Now I will never hear from them again. What kind of sick game is this? Why did they even come into my life if they had to one day leave?

Friend2: This is a harsh reality that every person has to face.

Friend1: What are the answers? God is just mean? He takes pleasure in this morbid series of events?

Friend2: I think you know the answer.

Friend1: It is difficult to stay calm and rational during times like these.

Friend2: Since the soul cannot be destroyed, since the individual continues to move on to someplace else, there must be a reason for the recognition of the pattern.

Friend1: What do you mean?

Friend2: Only the human being can conduct the review which you just did. Only the human being laments in this way, thinking of the permanent severing of the relationship. Contrary to what you might believe, this unique ability in the human being is not for the purpose of torture.

Friend1: Then what is it for?

Friend2: For understanding the urgency associated with the human birth. We will be compelled to move on. The people we know today, one day we will never have contact with them again. The same applies to their attachment to us.

Friend1: Yes, and so that is torture.

Friend2: The human experience is for a higher purpose. Understand God. Find eternal living. The soul is already indestructible, but find a way to live with a body-spirit combination that is not subject to death.

Friend1: Is that possible?

Friend2: Shri Krishna says it is. God the person is our lone permanent connection. He is within everyone through the expansion known as Supersoul. I can always find a best friend in God. He never abandons the individual.

Friend1: Okay, but say that I find God and know Him within this lifetime, won’t I forget everything at the time of death? Don’t I lose my previous identity?

Friend2: You don’t lose the connection. That is the meaning of yoga, which is tied to consciousness. Purify the consciousness in the human birth. That is the primary objective. Help others to do the same. Leave a lasting impression with your temporary association. Work in such a way that others will be liberated, that they will no longer fall into the land of birth and death, which is full of misery and despair.

In Closing:

Hopeless feeling now,
To move forward how.

Forever they left,
Of their association bereft.

Like cruel and sick game,
Why ever to this world came?

Blessed for this pattern to see,
Eternal friend inside of me.