After death are we reborn into the cycle of 84 lakh species or does it depend on our desire at the time of death?

Transcription: Sudha Mehta Mataji

Question: After death are we reborn into the cycle of 8.4 million species or does our destination after that only depend on our desires at the time of death?

Answer: The two are not contradictory but they are complimentary principle depending on the desire, depending on the thought, the emotion at the time of death. Whatever is the strongest attachment at the time of death accordingly we will get our next body and that body will be in one of the 8.4 Million species and so that’s how we are reborn in to the cycle of 8.4 Million species. But it is not necessary that all of us have to go through all these species if we die with some material consciousness or the statement that we will go through 8.4 million species is indicative of how much we may have to wander in the material existence and how rare it is to get a human form so therefore we should use the human form. Just like if a person searches for a friend in a city and after searching for a long time finds the friend then that person may say to the friend “I searched all over the city for you” “searched all over the city” does not necessarily mean that the person searched in every single nook and corner of the city. It just indicates that he searched for a very very long time and in many places. So like that the 8.4 million species wandering is indicative of that the soul will have to wander through many many species. So which all species the soul will have go to in the post natal that means post death journey will depend on the kind of Karma that the soul has done so whatever karmic reaction the soul has to suffer in the lower species and whatever kind of desire the soul has cultivated which can be best fulfilled in a lower specie those are the lower bodies that the soul will have to go through before eventually returning back to the human body. So that’s how we enter into the cycle of birth and death but the entry point will be determined by the kind of desire that we have at the moment of death.