Let each of our actions, no matter whether you are peeling a potato or composing a poem, let us be complete in it. Let us leave the result to god. If we do so, Krishna says, we will be released from bondage that comes in the form of birth. Krishna does not say that birth is bondage. He only says that one who is full of expectations, who is attached to the fruits of action is always in need of tomorrow, future, future life. Among us who live in desires, in hopes and expectations anxiously seeks a new birth after his death. That person cannot escape rebirth. And for such a person birth becomes bondage and it can never become the freedom. Because such a person is not really interested in life and living, he is interested in his expectations, in the results he expects from it. For him birth is just an opportunity for achieving some results. And for such a person death is going to be very painful, because death will put an end to all desires and demands he lived for.
Naturally when he is born again he will find his birth to be his bondage. Birth is bondage for one who does not know the life that is freedom. In fact desiring is bondage, craving and attachment to result is bondage. To live and know life totally is freedom. And for one who knows this life there is no birth and death. He is released from both birth and death. Krishna has said only the half truth; it is a half truth to say that one is released from the fetters of birth. To complete it, we should understand he is released from death as well. We are released from both birth and death.
This does not mean that birth and death are bondage. In ignorance, for an ignorant person birth and death appear to be bondage; they bind the ignorant. For a person of wisdom among us, one who knows the truth, birth and death cease to be, he is in freedom. In fact bondage and freedom are states of mind. While the ignorant mind experiences bondage, the mind of the wise is free. Krishna does not condemn birth as such, but the way we are, birth feels like imprisonment to us.
Wishing you good health & happiness,
Dr. Dwarakanath, Director, Mitran foundation- the stress management people
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