How long does it take to move from one body to the next?

It varies a great deal. It can be instant, especially for someone who has lived a full life, because the next body is being shaped all along by our karma, desires, and state of mind. A very sinful person may be held back a while to receive the reactions to those sins, perhaps up to eleven months. A very pious person, pious but not spiritual, may rise to the heavenly planets first, where beings have subtle bodies rather than gross ones like ours, and stay until the good karma runs out, which can take thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. Animals are not bound by karma, so a soul in an animal body simply moves up to the next higher level of consciousness. Humans carry karma, because we know right from wrong, and with that knowledge comes responsibility.

Then how do we avoid taking another body at all?

That is the whole aim of Sanatana Dharma: to drop material desire, grow spiritual desire, and reconnect with the Lord so the soul returns home. The short answer is bhakti, loving devotional service. Connect with God in bhakti and it dissolves all karma, good and bad alike, links you to the supreme, and ends the cycle of bodies.

Does my last thought really decide my next body?

Yes. Krishna says the thought you hold at death shapes the body you receive. Think of a pet, and you may take a pet's body. A husband fixed on his wife at the end may take a woman's form in the next life. This is the way out: live with God in your mind all the time, so that your final thought is naturally of him, and the cycle loosens.

If the world's population grew from 2 billion to 7 billion, did the number of souls grow?

No. The souls are unlimited. Animals, plants, even an amoeba have souls. Anything that shows the six transformations (it is born, grows, multiplies, stays a while, ages, and dies) carries a soul. A rising human population only means more souls are reaching human bodies. As animals go extinct, those souls do not return to God; many take human birth instead, which is part of why human numbers climb as animal numbers fall. There is also a Kali Yuga angle: people now have less spirituality and fewer leave for the spiritual world, so more souls stay on inside the material world.

Why does the soul stay near the family until the eleventh or twelfth day?

Because of attachment, and the Garuda Purana describes it. We know only this body, never the atma, so when the soul is forced out it is confused. My body is still lying there, it thinks, and it tries to re-enter, hovering nearby. The weeping of relatives holds it back further. A self-realised soul, who knows it is not the body and has no real tie to those people, leaves at once. This is why the gyarvi and barvi ceremonies, around the eleventh and twelfth days, matter: they release the soul to move on.

The story of King Chitraketu.

The Srimad Bhagavatam tells of King Chitraketu, who had many wives but no child, and grieved for it endlessly. The sage Angira Maharaj came and offered a blessing: a son who would bring him great joy and also great sorrow. The king heard only "joy" and accepted. A son was born. The other wives, jealous that the king now gave all his love to the boy and the chief queen, poisoned the child. The king and queen broke down in grief. Angira returned, this time with Narada Muni, and asked why the kingdom was again in lament. "My son has died." Narada, by his power, called the departed soul back: "O jiva, enter this child's body again. Why did you leave so soon, causing such grief?" The soul entered, and its first words were a question of its own: "Which parents do you mean? I have had millions of parents across millions of lives. Which ones are mine?" That single answer lifted the family out of their grief. They saw it for what it was, the lament of ignorance. So when someone dies, the kindest thing we can do is not weep and cling, but help the soul move on by reading the Bhagavad Gita. This is why our tradition holds daily satsangs after a death, to steady the grieving family and to guide the departed soul.

Why are very young children buried rather than cremated?

Not because they lack a soul. Every child has one. If a child is born into a family of devotees and lives only a short time, the scriptures say it came to finish a last small piece of karma before returning to the spiritual world. As a rule of thumb, those who die under the age of five are buried, because until five the child's karma does not yet act on it; the parents carry that karma. The child is pure-hearted, much like a sadhu, and just as some sadhus are buried rather than cremated, so are these children.

Who Are We? The Atma, the Soul, and the Bhagavad Gita's First Teaching

Ask a person who they are and the answers come fast. A man. An accountant. Indian. Middle-aged. Bald. But is any of that really you? This lesson sets the single idea that the whole of Sanatana Dharma stands on: you are not the body. You are the atma, the eternal soul, and the body is only the suit you are wearing right now. Get this, and the rest of the path opens. Miss it, and nothing else will quite make sense.

Are you the body, or something more?

Here is the test the teachers use with schoolchildren, and it works on adults just as well. Three questions.

How big was your body when you were born? (Tiny.)
Do you have that same body today? (No.)
Are you the same person? (Yes.)

Sit with that. Your body has completely changed, yet you are still you. So you cannot be the body. You are something more than it. Science agrees on the first half: the cells of your body are replaced over roughly seven years, so the body you carry now is not the body you carried then. The label changed. The wearer did not.

What does the Bhagavad Gita say about the soul?

Krishna's very first teaching to Arjuna, before any talk of duty or yoga, is about the soul. He spends nineteen verses on it, from the twelfth to the thirtieth of chapter two. The setting matters. On the battlefield, facing his own grandfather Bhishma, Arjuna loses heart and refuses to fight. Krishna answers not with comfort but with truth.

Verse	What Krishna teaches
2.11	"You mourn for what is not worthy of grief. The wise lament neither for the living nor the dead."
2.12	"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings. Nor shall any of us ever cease to be." We are eternal.
2.13	As the soul passes through childhood, youth and old age in one body, it passes into another body at death. The wise are not bewildered.
2.14	Happiness and distress come and go like winter and summer. Learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.
2.15	One steady in both happiness and distress is fit for liberation.
2.16	The body (the non-eternal) has no lasting existence; the soul (the eternal) never changes.
2.17	That which pervades the whole body is indestructible. No one can destroy the imperishable soul.
2.18	The body is sure to end, but the soul within it is eternal. Therefore do your duty.
2.19	Neither the one who thinks the soul kills, nor the one who thinks it killed, knows the truth. The soul neither slays nor is slain.
2.20	For the soul there is no birth and no death. Unborn, eternal, ever-existing, it is not slain when the body is slain.
2.21	How can one who knows the soul is unborn and changeless kill anyone, or cause killing?
2.22	As a person puts on new clothes and discards old ones, the soul takes a new body and gives up the worn-out one.
2.23	No weapon can cut the soul, no fire burn it, no water wet it, no wind dry it.
2.24	The soul is unbreakable, insoluble, everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable, ever the same.
2.25	The soul is invisible, inconceivable, unchanging. Knowing this, do not grieve for the body.
2.26	Even if you believed the soul is born and dies forever, there would still be no reason to grieve.
2.27	One who is born is sure to die, and one who dies is sure to be born again. Do not lament the unavoidable.
2.28	All beings are unmanifest before birth, manifest in between, and unmanifest again at the end. Why lament?
2.29	Some see the soul as amazing, some speak of it as amazing, some hear of it as amazing, and some cannot grasp it even after hearing.
2.30	The soul that dwells in every body can never be slain. So do not grieve for any living being.

Three teachings inside this stand out.

You change bodies the way you change clothes. When clothes wear out, you discard them without a tear. The body is the same. When it grows old and useless and the soul moves to a fresh one, that is not a tragedy. Handled rightly, it is a moment to rejoice, as long as the next body keeps the soul moving forward, a point for next week.

The soul cannot be killed, and it pervades the whole body. This is why Arjuna's grief was misplaced. He could end his grandfather's body. He could never touch the soul.

You are amazing, but borrowed. The soul is a wonder, and we are wonderful only because we are part and parcel of the supreme soul.

A note on duty. None of this is permission to harm another's body. Krishna is reminding Arjuna, a kshatriya, of his duty to protect dharma in that exact situation. Understanding the soul does not erase responsibility. It clarifies it.

To study these verses with their full meaning, read the Bhagavad Gita As It Is by Srila Prabhupada, whose commentary opens up who we really are. And on reincarnation in particular, the small and inexpensive book Coming Back gathers accounts from scholars across many traditions, not only Hindu ones.

How big is the soul?

Very small. The Svetasvatara Upanishad puts the size of the soul at one ten-thousandth of the tip of a hair. Take a single hair, take its tip, divide it ten thousand times, and that is the soul. It is incredibly small, and incredibly powerful. That tiny spark animates the body of an ant, a human, and an elephant alike. It sits not in the heart but in the region of the heart.

How many kinds of body can the soul take?

According to the Vedas there are 8.4 million species of life: aquatics, plants and trees, birds, beasts, and humans. A soul can take a body in any of them. Which one it takes depends on three factors, the subject of the next lesson.

Why is this the foundation of everything?

Because if you do not know you are the soul, you misuse the whole of life. Two pictures make it clear.

A glowing bird inside a cage, the soul within the body

The driver and the car. You operate the body the way a driver operates a car. The car only moves with a driver inside. A body can never run itself. It always needs the atma at the wheel.

The bird and the cage. If you do not know the atma, you behave like a person who polishes a birdcage and forgets the bird. You feed and groom the cage, the outer body, while the bird inside, the soul, is left starving. The soul does not die, since it is eternal, but it sinks into deeper and deeper ignorance.

We live inside the body and yet are different from it, using it for a while to act, to chase desires, and to meet the world. This distinction is the first thing a true guru teaches. Without it, we keep reincarnating into one unnatural body after another, never satisfied, because a permanent being is hunting for happiness in a temporary place.

The teachers give children a simple practice. Once a day, perhaps at the mirror while brushing your teeth in the morning, say to yourself: I am not this body. I am pure spirit soul, a servant of the supreme soul. Say it often enough and it sinks past thought into the way you see yourself.

What is the full nature of the soul?

Drawn from Krishna's own description, the soul is: eternal, changeless, indestructible, imperishable, and immeasurable. It neither slays nor is slain. It has no birth and no death, was never born and will never be born, is everlasting and primeval and immutable. It cannot be cut by any weapon, burned by fire, wet by water, or dried by wind. It is unbreakable and insoluble, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable, ever the same. It is invisible, inconceivable, and, in the end, amazing.

The sage Narada Muni summons the departed soul back to the child's body as the grieving king and queen watch

Key terms from this lesson

Term	Meaning
Atma	The soul; the eternal self that wears the body
Jiva	The individual living being, the embodied soul
Paramatma	The supreme soul, of which the atma is part and parcel
Bhakti	Loving devotional service; the way to dissolve karma and end rebirth
Subtle body	The finer body beings hold in the heavenly planets, unlike our gross body
Six transformations	Born, grows, multiplies, stays, ages, dies; the mark of a soul-bearing being
Gyarvi / Barvi	The eleventh-day and twelfth-day ceremonies that release the departed soul
Garuda Purana	The scripture that describes the soul's journey after death

What to carry forward

You are not the body. You are the atma, the eternal soul within it.
Your body has changed many times, yet you remain the same person. That is the proof.
The Gita's first lesson, across nineteen verses, is that the soul cannot be born or killed.
The soul is a ten-thousandth of a hair's tip, tiny yet powerful, seated near the heart.
Caring only for the body is polishing the cage and starving the bird.
Your last thought shapes your next body, so keep God in mind.
Do not weep a soul into staying. Read the Gita and help it move on.

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