Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 11.22.40
Mukti· LiberationBirth Is Identification With a New Body
“O most charitable Uddhava, what is called birth is simply a person’s total identification with a new body. One accepts the new body just as one completely accepts the experience of a dream or a fantasy as reality.”
What the purport teaches
- Birth means the spirit soul’s total acceptance of a new material body as oneself. It does not mean that a new living entity has been created.
- This identification goes beyond affection for the bodies of relatives or friends. One accepts one’s own body as completely as a dreamer accepts a dream as real.
- Bodily identification and the blind acceptance of bodily relationships as permanent form a prolonged dream. In this condition, one imagines oneself separate from the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Try this today
Notice one bodily label you use for yourself and pause to remember that accepting a body does not create the spirit soul.
Ask yourself
Where do I treat a bodily identity or relationship as permanent?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.