The Brahmin continued to console and comfort her and said, "No one has ever come into the world to live and stay permanently. Death is inevitable to whoever is born. This body is perishable and cannot last indefinitely. The body is constituted of the five elements. When the elements mutually combine and take form, it is called a body. Man is enveloped by the covering of illusion, called Avidya i.e., nescience, in its earthy sojourn. As the body wears out, the soul discards it, as we discard old and worn out clothes, and dons a new body just as we wear new clothes. Man is really the soul which is immortal and he has no death in reality. It is the physical body that dies and drops off, but the core personality, the Atman, is deathless.
The Brahmachari continued his advice to the woman as follows. "Everything is pre-determined by destiny, by deeds of one's past life or lives. We have to accept events as they come and should try to understand and experience the higher truths. Though we cannot alter much the course of the Parabhda Karma, yet we should try to be righteous living, refraining from evil, brighter and happier future, i.e., for the next life at least. But the ultimate purpose of life is to realise the eternal Self and gain freedom from the cycle of birth and death forever. That is the real Sadgathi.
What a false attachment you are suffering from "for this son of yours! you weren't his mother in his previous life. You will not be his mother again in his next birth. That you were his mother this birth of his, is just incidental. Why mourn over his transient kinship, forgetting eternal truths?
"The life is a bubble. It will burst off at any time. How long it will last has been predetermined by destiny. It is futile crying over death. Now take your relatives take the dead body away for cremation and thereby help to speed up the Jivis ascent to higher births (Sadgathi). Don't bind it down here". But the woman was inconsolable. She said she did all the worship bid by Guru Nath. The sons were the gift to her by Guru Nath. How could God snatch away the gift he had given himself? She has been betrayed by Guru Nath, she complained " I will take the body of my child to the Guru Padukas and end my life also there", she said. The Brahmachari then told her, if her heart was so much set on her dead son's life, if she was feeling she could not live without him, she might take the body of the child to GuruSthan and place it near the Padukas and do whatever she wanted thereafter.
The woman and her husband came to GuruSthan along with the body of the dead child. She placed the body near the Guru Padukas and again broke into sobs. They sat down there. Meanwhile, as it was nearing sunset and as the woman remained so obstinate, the relatives and people who came to the death rites of the child left. It was night and the couple exhausted by the strain they went through the whole day, fell asleep at that spot only. In the night the woman got a dream. She saw Guru Nath coming near her and telling her "Mother! Do not grieve. Nobody will ever get disappointed who repose their faith in me. See! I am reviving your dead child. I am giving him longevity of life". The woman suddenly woke up. She was doubting whether it could be true. But Lo! as she looked at the child, the child was opening his eyes. She put her hand on the body. The body was warming up. Thinking she was still dreaming, to make sure, she woke up her husband. He was also wondering unable to believe anything. The boy started crying. "Mother, I am feeling very hungry. Give me milk atleast". Wonder of wonders! the woman's dry breasts started overflowing with milk. The woman hugged her son to her bosom's and suckled him with milk. The child became quite normal and healthy and was playful as he used to be.
The couple fell prostrate at the Guru Padukas, shedding tears of gratitude to Guru Nath. AT day break when the relatives and other people came there, hoping that the woman would have reconciled by then and would handover the body of the dead son for the rites, Lo! to their wonder, they saw the boy fully alive and playing and the parents fondling him with joy. They exclaimed "what a mighty power is Guru Nath and how merciful and compassionate he is!"
Thus ends the Twenty First chapter of Sri Guru Charitra describing the episode of "the revival of the dead child".
Glory to the All-merciful, the Omnipresent and the ever responsive Guru Nath!
The body is said to be a vesture (garment) which is the Jiva wears. When the vesture, is worn out, the Jiva discards the worn out, old vesture, in order to don a new one. That is how death and birth are explained. But then the question may arise - "a new born baby's body is not like a wornout cloth, yet we see some new born babies also dying. We see children and young also dying much before they become old and ripe in age and the bodies become decrepit in the natural course. They have not lived their full life span of life, to explain away that their bodies have been worn out and so soon after birth. Let us probe this a little deeper. Say, we have stitched a new garment but the cloth we have used for it is from some very old stock of material which has not been stored properly and has already been worn out. Then will our new garment last long? It will tear of in no time.
The body is like the temple of God. It has to be kept pure, unpolluted by vices. If such a god gifted body is misused with vices and drink, the damage they do to the body could persists in its subtler state even in the later birth/s of the Jivi. In the same manner as above, about the new garment being made out of wornout stock of cloth, the new body of the Jiva may be very young, but the subtle body material out of which it has been made may not be strong enough to last the full span of life. The damages and ravages of the body in the previous life of the Jivi, will have been perhaps to some extent and in a subtler way, carried forward to and is inherited by the new body, and especially so when one has died with excessive body attachment and obsession. And as a result, the new body may not be able to last long. It may even break down and fall off prematurely and may even at the very start of life itself.?
Let us try to keep the body pure. Let us not bind the Jivi with more and more births....Let us strive to earn for it's freedom from the thraldom of unending cycle of births and deaths by leading it back to its divine source, though moral rectitude, spiritual Sadhana, and more than anything else, by our total surrender at the Feet of the Guru.
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