The Harvesting of Souls & the Sanskrit Texts

V. Susan Ferguson, Contributor
Waking Times

Are we indeed living in the end of a Cycle of Time, facing a day of reckoning in the Twilight of the Kali Yuga, a PRALAYA meaning ‘Dissolution’ in Sanskrit. The acceptance of this possibility leads to the fear-loaded question of the Harvesting of Souls. The archaic phrase ‘harvesting of souls’ is in fact specious, wrong and misleading. There is only the One. There is only one Soul. We all share the same Soul, the Oneness.

“I am the same in all beings.” [Bhagavad Gita IX.29]

We exist individually as spirit or astral bodies that transmigrate, moving from one material body to another by the law of magnetism. Like attracts like. Our actions, thoughts and consciousness create the subtle or spirit body over hundreds of life times. In Sanskrit the subtle body is called the SHARIRA. Seers and psychics can easily see this body and read its condition.

The word harvesting is also misleading. No one can ‘take’ you or make you do anything unless you yourself have generated a consciousness that resonates with a particular force, a waveform that would then magnetize you into its similar frequency. Therefore a deeper understanding of the mechanics of this process will relieve you of fear and help you to realize why it is imperative to generate a high consciousness at every moment.

The Subtle Body

As you incarnate in Time and Space, you build a subtle body – also termed as the spirit or astral body. In Kashmir Shaivism is called the puryashtaka rupa [Sanskrit]. Like the physical body, the subtle body contains a complex nervous system.

These “nerve currents are called Hita Nadis [Sanskrit] and they are very fine in structure, finer than even the thousandth part of a hair. Through these very fine, subtle nerve currents pass the serum of the essence of the human individual…” [Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, translated with commentaries by Swami Krishnananda and available online].

These subtle nerves store the impressions of our lives and our thoughts. Every thought, every experience is stored in this the subtle body that carries our individual consciousness from one life to another. This individuality is only a temporal ‘appearance’ for beneath all forms of multiplicity is the One, the eternal Real.

It is this aggregate, this cumulative consciousness that determines our next incarnation. Inevitably, inexorably we become that which our actions and thoughts, our own individual consciousness has self-created, self-generated. We alone are responsible. We are drawn to the external holographic manifestations of our own thoughts. There is no one to blame. It is all our doing. We are each a portion of the Oneness playing in Time and Space — like everyone else.

The eternal, imperishable, immutable Oneness assumes a temporal ‘appearance’ in a fragment of Its Self as the individual. When we are born we move into a new physical body and when we leave, meaning die, we do so in this subtle body. The subtle body is our data-collecting vehicle. It carries the five senses and the mind, the impressions (samskaras) of our experiences as “the wind carries scents.” [Bhagavad Gita XV.7 & 8]

Like attracts like!

From an understanding of the subtle body, we realize that no one can ever actually ‘take’ or harvest our soul. Our own consciousness has built the subtle spirit body. We will be magnetized to the-where-and-what it resonates with. Like attracts like – that simple!

Location is determined by your consciousness

Consciousness determines everything. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that the god worshippers go to the gods, the god worlds; those who worship the ancestors go to them, the ancestral realms; those who sacrifice to the spirits go to the spirits (bhutani), the shaman worlds; and those who Know and Become the One merge into That. (BhG IX.25)

There is nothing wrong in any of these forms of worship. However, these approaches are only “partial manifestations of the highest reality.” [Abhinavagupta, Bhagavad Gita VII 21-23]

The Invisible Realms

In previous Cycles of Time, we were not limited to the five senses and we were aware of these off-world realms now invisible to most of us.  As individuals we have played in these realms before. We may have bonds with them. If we humans were created by off-world beings, then it is only reasonable that they will want to salvage what is rightfully theirs – family DNA. However it is up to you to decide what you want and where you want to arrive.

Are the ETs Enlightened?

The so-called extra-terrestrials are merely the inhabitants of the Myriad Realms. They may have grand technologies and may be very pretty, but are they enlightened? If they were enlightened would they be in these phantasmal realms? If they are not enlightened, if they do not have the understanding of the One, if their consciousness has not reached eternal Wisdom, if they have not Become the One – then why do we need them?

The Oneness pervades All. However, these Myriad Realm beings in their countless phantasmal hierarchies do not want us to know that we too are the very Soul permeating this entire universe. Why trust these myriad spirit guides, ETs, etc. if you have no idea who or what they are? You would not walk up to any stranger on the street and give your life over to them, would you? Ask yourself what does ‘saving’ you mean. Exactly where will they take you?

Our Refuge is a Higher Consciousness

If we are facing the end of this Cycle of Time, as many are suggesting and feeling, then our only Refuge is a higher consciousness. Use this time wisely. Do not waste it in fear. You are the Oneness. You are That. As they say in Sanskrit, Tat Twam Asi  – That thou art!

About the Author

V. Susan Ferguson is the author of Inanna Returns, Inanna Hyper-Luminal; her own commentary on the Bhagavad Gita and the Shiva Sutras; and Colony Earth & the Rig Veda. Her website is Metaphysical Musing.

Sources:

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Swami Krishnananda; The Divine Life Society, Uttaranchal, Himalayas, India, 2006.

Abhinavagupta’s Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, GITARTHA SAMGRAHA, Translated from Sanskrit with Introduction & Notes by Boris Marjanovic; Indica Books; 2004, Varanasi India

The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Winthrop Sargeant, State University of New York Press, 1994

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