The Yoga of the Supreme Person

Krishna explains how the living entity moves through material existence: 'Śarīraṁ yad avāpnoti yac cāpy utkrāmatīśvaraḥ'—the living entity (īśvaraḥ, the lord of the body) obtains a body and departs from it. This is the cycle of birth and death—taking bodies and leaving them. 'Gṛhītvaitāni saṁyāti'—taking these (mind and senses), it goes. When you leave a body, you don't leave empty-handed—you carry your mind and senses with you. 'Vāyur gandhān ivāśayāt'—just as the wind carries scents from their source. This is a powerful analogy: the wind carries scents invisibly, and you carry your mental impressions (mind) and sensory tendencies (senses) invisibly from one body to another. Your desires, attachments, habits, and karma travel with you. This explains continuity across lifetimes—why you're drawn to certain things, why patterns repeat, why you have tendencies you can't explain. The mind and senses aren't just material—they're carriers of your mental impressions and karma.