The One With The Original Cloud Storage

“The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 15.8)

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शरीरं यद् अवाप्नोति
यच् चाप्य् उत्क्रामतीश्वरः
गृहीत्वैतानि संयाति
वायुर् गन्धान् इवाशयात्

śarīraṁ yad avāpnoti
yac cāpy utkrāmatīśvaraḥ
gṛhītvaitāni saṁyāti
vāyur gandhān ivāśayāt

On this day, you are relieved. It is the weekend, but you are still working. You are still out of the house. The difference is that you don’t feel a burden. You are helping out your friend. You are off to the side, ready to get your hands dirty, both figuratively and literally, but only when called upon. The responsibility falls on someone else’s shoulders. Based on what you witness, in something that can only be described as a miracle of modern-day living, you happen to remember the potency of the highest being of all, in how He effortlessly manages a creation that He created through something as easy as breathing while at rest.

The task at hand is preparing a house for sale. This is the place the parents of your friend have called home for several decades. You know that many memories were made in this house, but the problem right now is that those memories are starting to pile up. Enough so that some of the bedrooms are completely filled. You can’t see the floor. There is no path for even reaching the window on the side opposite to the door.

Just how did all of this stuff get here? More importantly, how is anyone going to get rid of it? The homeowners in this case resist every attempt at decluttering. They don’t want to part with a single item. Your friend points to an area at random and one of the parents instantly breaks into a story. They explain the circumstances involving the original purchase. Everything has sentimental value. Cards, collectibles, souvenirs, and the like. What is junk to someone else is a valuable treasure to this person. That is fine and good, but the parents are too old now to maintain things. They are in desperate need of downsizing.

One room is full of VHS tapes and audio cassettes. Your initial thought turns to how the media has changed over the years. The VHS was itself a symbol of advancement. You could now record what you viewed on television. You could document family vacations and birthday celebrations. Weddings, anniversaries, backyard parties – you name it; anything could now be preserved on tape. Of course, today there is the digital version. All of these memories can be digitized. Your friend then responds to your suggestion by bringing up the problem of preserving the media. Even if digitized, the data would have to be stored somewhere. You respond by pointing to the sky. You see, there is now something called “cloud storage.” This entire room can be cleared out, without losing a thing. The cloud stores everything for you. You can conveniently access that data whenever you want, from wherever you are.

This is where you pause to reflect. Internally, to yourself, you think of the many varieties in interests, tendencies, and inclinations witnessed within a single species that is the human being. How did that happen? How is it that one person naturally gravitates towards sports, while another person can pick up a guitar and become proficient in playing after only a few days? No instruction necessary. They can later accurately claim to be “self-taught.”

सर्वस्य चाहं हृदि सन्निविष्टो
मत्तः स्मृतिर् ज्ञानम् अपोहनं च
वेदैश् च सर्वैर् अहम् एव वेद्यो
वेदान्त-कृद् वेद-विद् एव चाहम्

sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo
mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca
vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāham

“I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 15.15)

A verse from Bhagavad-gita explains. It is the Supreme Personality of Godhead who gives both remembrance and forgetfulness. He is the reason behind intelligence. A child comes preprogrammed, for lack of a better term. That is how we can expect them to reach various milestones, such as crawling, walking, talking, and so forth. The development takes place because the potential is there from the beginning. Shri Krishna is the one who injects that potential.

There is also the reality of carryover. We can read words today because we were once taught. We previously learned to identify letters of the alphabet and the sounds those letters make. We then built upon that foundation by putting words together to make sentences. We learned those things a while back, but we retain the ability based on a repository of information that is the mind. The mind carries our conceptions forward, from the past to today.

The Supreme Lord explains that those same conceptions carry forward into future lifetimes. The mechanism is similar to how aromas travel through the air. We know the trees outside are starting to grow leaves based on the allergic reaction we have to pollen. We are inside of the home, but the air carries the particles from one place to another, reaching us, even though we are far away.

The transmigration of the soul means leaving behind a particular gross body and later accepting a new one. How, then, will the conceptions carry forward? It must mean that there is a kind of cloud storage serving as a repository. Someone must be in charge of that storage. Someone must know how to keep the information safe.

श्री-भगवान् उवाच
बहूनि मे व्यतीतानि
जन्मानि तव चार्जुन
तान्य् अहं वेद सर्वाणि
न त्वं वेत्थ परन्तप

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
bahūni me vyatītāni
janmāni tava cārjuna
tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṇi
na tvaṁ vettha parantapa

“The Blessed Lord said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!” (Bhagavad-gita, 4.5)

Krishna is responsible for the entire system. He has a special distinction in that He can remember everything. We forget our past lives, while the conceptions carry forward, but Krishna has perfect memory. He confirmed this to the bow-warrior named Arjuna, after being directly questioned on the matter. The benefit here is that the proprietor of the greatest cloud storage system can also remember every act of devotion, every kind offering, and every nice word we speak in His honor. We can trust that He will never forget us, such that the purest conception of life that is bhakti will carry us to the highest destination in the next life.

अन्त-काले च माम् एव
स्मरन् मुक्त्वा कलेवरम्
यः प्रयाति स मद्-भावं
याति नास्त्य् अत्र संशयः

anta-kāle ca mām eva
smaran muktvā kalevaram
yaḥ prayāti sa mad-bhāvaṁ
yāti nāsty atra saṁśayaḥ

“And whoever, at the time of death, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 8.5)

In Closing:

If practiced with determination,
Then reaching highest destination.

Concept of cloud storage consider,
How vast mechanism to deliver.

But safe in this path to proceed,
Because Krishna restoring indeed.

That every offering and name to chant,
Step closer towards liberation to grant.