by purujit dasa
BLOOD STREAM
yathā prakāśayaty ekaḥ
kṛtsnaṁ lokam imaṁ raviḥ
kṣetraṁ kṣetrī tathā kṛtsnaṁ
prakāśayati bhārata
O son of Bharata, as the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness.
Bg 13.34
There are various theories regarding consciousness. Here in Bhagavad-gītā the example of the sun and the sunshine is given. As the sun is situated in one place, but is illuminating the whole universe, so a small particle of spirit soul, although situated in the heart of this body, is illuminating the whole body by consciousness.
Bg 13.34 purport
The soul, according to the Vedic scriptures, is situated in the heart. From heart, blood is generated and blood spreads the consciousness all over the body. If I block the vein on my wrist, my hand becomes numb. So when the heart stops beating, the blood no longer distributes consciousness over the body and there’s death, or in other words, the body becomes numb forever.
According to the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, this atomic soul is situated in the heart of every living entity, and because the measurement of the atomic soul is beyond the power of appreciation of the material scientists, some of them assert foolishly that there is no soul. The individual atomic soul is definitely there in the heart along with the Supersoul, and thus all the energies of bodily movement are emanating from this part of the body. The corpuscles which carry the oxygen from the lungs gather energy from the soul. When the soul passes away from this position, activity of the blood, generating fusion, ceases. Medical science accepts the importance of the red corpuscles, but it cannot ascertain that the source of the energy is the soul. Medical science, however, does admit that the heart is the seat of all energies of the body.
Bg 2.17
Guest (3) (Indian man): Where is soul?
Jagad-guru: He is asking where is the soul.
Prabhupāda: Can you see? So soul is within the heart. When the soul goes away you cannot explain what happened. You say, "heart failure." So why the heart failure? The nerves and the bones and the muscle and the blood, everything is there, and still, you say that "It stopped. Heart failure." So just like machine is running but somehow or other stopped, but you do not know what is the cause of stopping. The cause is that the heart, when it goes away, then the machine stops.
Morning Walk -- December 5, 1976, Hyderabad
(to be continued...)
Write a comment
dub (Thursday, 07 February 2013 23:31)
when someone has an accident and breaks his spine the lower portion of the body becomes numb despite the blood flowing there. how can we explain this?
harekrishnamontreal (Thursday, 14 February 2013 16:35)
blood is not the soul. if i cut your finger and put it in garbage, the blood is still there, but you dont feel it. blood is just a vehicule. consciousness is coming from the soul