Ahi nir-lvayanī nyāyaḥ (cast off serpent's slough)
After a serpent strips off its skin, he disregards it even though once it was part of his body.
In the same way, an intelligent man sees a difference between his own self and the material body he possesses. Once the body utterly stops cooperating with the soul, it is stripped off of the living entity, to be nothing better than food for worms. This is well known as death. The soul then continues on, taking up new body, just like snakes do, until the time when he realizes this to be unnatural to change the dead material bodies, since he is not snake-like. Then he becomes very serious about spiritual elevation, about finding true spiritual existence in practical permanent liberation from cycle of birth and death. It's practicality culminates in elegance of bhakti unto Śrī Hari. We ought to learn this lesson of detachment from snake species. The death will inevitably come. We will be confronted, if we are still attached to the material covering in the form of our body we are so fond of. It is advisable to ready for that moment by the mentioned process of bhakti unto Śrī Hari.
Comments