A common space for harmonic peacemakers

VIII: 19

Chapter 8, Verse 19

“Thus the infinity of beings

Which live again

All powerlessly disappear

When the night of darkness comes.

They do as they must.”

Swami Shivananda:

Ignorance, desire and action are the three knots that bind the person to this individual existence. Desire is born of ignorance. A person exerts to obtain and enjoy the objects of his desires. During this activity, he favors some and injures others through the force of love and hatred or attraction and repulsion. Therefore, he becomes caught in the wheel of worldliness or transmigration, taking birth again and again to reap the fruits of his own actions. He comes forth repeatedly and dissolves through the force of his own Karma.

In order to create dispassion and a longing for Liberation, Krishna explains how all beings come into being again and again on account of their actions caused by desire born of ignorance.

Paramahansa Yogananda:

Esoterically, the cosmic cycles refer to the inner microcosmic universe of a person’s astral body, which governs his individual evolution. The spiritual eye, which receives its light and energy from its connection with the divine center of consciousness in the thousand-petaled lotus (Sahasrara) at the top of the head is the Sun of the microcosm.

In twelve-year cycles, a person slowly advances in his spiritual evolution.

For those who reject the indignity of mortal encumbrances on their immortality, and who seek Liberation, the Lord sends His Avatars to show the way to hasten salvation. The sincere Yogi, according to the degree of his past-life spiritual attainments and present merit, may achieve Liberation in three, six, twelve, twenty-four, or forty-eight years, or in only one or a few additional incarnations.