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In the Gita sloka 2.12 God declares that

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.

My question is: Will I cease to exist in any state after death or moksha ?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
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Dheeraj Verma
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    You should clarify in your question what you mean by 'I' – Swami Vishwananda Oct 06 '17 at 09:20
  • What do you mean by "I"? – The Destroyer Oct 06 '17 at 09:28
  • I means Dheeraj. Dheeraj who raised this question. – Dheeraj Verma Oct 06 '17 at 09:35
  • "Will I cease to exist after death or moksha ?" Are you asking whether your existence will be over after getting moksha? – Vishvam Oct 06 '17 at 09:48
  • @Rishabh I am asking whether I will cease to exist after death or after Moksha? – Dheeraj Verma Oct 06 '17 at 10:06
  • I am confused with the word "Exist". What do you mean by exist. Is it mean whether even your spirit(aatma) will get vanished after moksha? Your individual existence will be over? your aatma will no longer exist any more? – Vishvam Oct 06 '17 at 10:12
  • @Rishabh I means my personal identity. I the Dheeraj. I who is asking this question. Exist in the sense as mentioned in the sloka. – Dheeraj Verma Oct 06 '17 at 10:25
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    Dheeraj is not your identity at all. It's your body's identity. Your body is known as Dheeraj, not your spirit(aatma). Spirits don't have any name, form, species ect. Body is lifeless object, Just an mechanical equipment with whom spirit use to do their work on Mrityu loka. Your body use to change on every birth but your spirit remains same. So your body(Deeraj) will exist until your spirit is using it. – Vishvam Oct 06 '17 at 10:35
  • @Rishabh I am not talking about the body. I am talking about the person who is discussing with you. I talking about the person who will reborn and will possibly remember previous births. I am talking about Dheeraj who is writing this message through the body. I am talking about Dheeraj who thinks before writing this message. I am talking about Dheeraj who does justice to the answers received. I am talking about Dheeraj who is searching for Moksha. – Dheeraj Verma Oct 06 '17 at 10:45
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    Everything that born in this world, will surely die one day. You body(Dheeraj) has born, that's why he will die one day. But spirit(aatma) neither born nor dies. If your spirit hasn't born then how will you calculate how long your spirit is being living? Because our age starts from our birth. Your body's age started from it's birth, so you can tell how old your body is. But your spirit never took birth so it's age cant be count. In short spirit is age less. Your spirit is older than this whole galaxy coz even galaxy took birth but your spirit never took any birth. – Vishvam Oct 06 '17 at 11:01
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    Dheeraj we Perceive our identity and think we are different and individual due to "Aham-Kaara"- "I-ness", as in I am Dheeraj, I ate, I am boy, I am happy et cetera. This I-ness makes us perceive identity. The soul does not have this "I"-ness, but it gets attached to soul. The soul itself is not separated with God(or the supreme reality, more specifically). So after Moksha, this Identity or "I"-ness definitely ends and is vanished, because you realise your real Identity, which is Supreme Brahma. This I-ness united with Maya, acts as a cover which separates us. –  Oct 06 '17 at 11:21
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    As for death, definitely soul never dies. But I-ness is not removed. We gain the Karma, and united with I-ness again birth is taken on earth(or you may go to Heaven or hell, but ultimately you have to come to earth. This cycle does not end till Moksha). The Karma we did in previous many lives is called Prarabdha, and we take some of it each time we take birth, to take fruits(good or bad) of this Karma. And this Karma is attached to individual identity or "I". So this "I" keeps us in this cycle. And Maya makes us believe we are I only. So when Maya is removed, "I" is removed and so this cycle. –  Oct 06 '17 at 11:30
  • Conquering ego is a pre-requisite for moksha. And death does not equate or guarantee moksha. So the Q is confused. –  Oct 06 '17 at 15:12
  • That "I" in you who is thinking about this question (Dheeraj who thinks before writing this message) is called atma or to be more precisely it is called jivatma. As you can see from the Gita verse 2.12 which you quoted, that "I" or Dheeraj will never cease to exist. But I think that you misunderstood something here. That "I" or jivatma is not Psycho-Physical as you said! Only our mind and body are Psycho-Physical, but not the soul (jivatma) which is totally spiritual or non-material. – brahma jijnasa Oct 07 '17 at 13:04
  • @brahmajijnasa In that case I am only concerned about the jivatma. I had modified the question by asking "Will I cease to exist in any state after death or moksha ?" (in any state whether material or spiritual) I am concerned about the preservation of "Dheeraj who thinks before writing the message". And answer seems to be Yes. Non-material Dheeraj will survive. – Dheeraj Verma Oct 07 '17 at 15:59
  • Yes, Dheeraj will survive, he is eternal jivatma, see also Gita 15.7 https://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/15/7 where it is said that jivatma is sanātanaḥ "eternal", and small particle (aṁśaḥ) of God, Lord Krishna. And also, yes, you don't have to be concerned whether material Psycho-Physical Dheeraj will survive because you are not Psycho-Physical Dheeraj at all, you are just non-material jivatma ;) – brahma jijnasa Oct 08 '17 at 13:05
  • @brahmajijnasa Will the Jivatma survive along with Parmatma ? Or will the Jivatma merge with Parmatma? – Dheeraj Verma Oct 08 '17 at 13:38
  • In the Advaita system of Vedanta they believe that this "I" or jivatma is perceived only in maya (illusion), so that when we realize that we are the Supreme or Brahman we will merge in the Paramatma (or Brahman) and thus we will lose our identity as an individual soul (jivatma). Thus they believe when the influence of illusory maya is removed, jivatma will cease to exist and only Brahman will remain. They believe that in Brahman there is no plurality of souls (jivatmas), but only one soul, Brahman, exist. However we in the Vaishnava systems of Vedanta don't believe that. ... – brahma jijnasa Oct 08 '17 at 17:15
  • We believe that the existence of the plurality of jivatmas together with the Paramatma is not due to maya (illusion), but is the reality that will last forever, eternally. So it's not an illusion but is the eternal reality, eternal truth! And even when we get liberation (moksha), and when we reach Brahman we will continue to be individual souls (jivatmas), and we will join many liberated jivas there in the world of Brahman. And there in the world of Brahman (also called Vaikuntha) we stay eternally with Lord Krishna and many other liberated jivas, and we never return to this world of samsara. – brahma jijnasa Oct 08 '17 at 17:15

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The verse BG 2.12 is related to the Kaala chakra (Eternal Return).
Please refer this post:
When Brahma's day ends and a new day starts does the previous day repeat itself?.
The day/night of Brahma keeps repeating. Whichever events happen during that time, will also repeat infinitely.

We can also say that, "Never was a time, when you did not ask this Qn, I didn't answer and people didn't provide good comments. Never it cease to be."

Will I cease to exist in any state after death or moksha ?

After death, if desires are still there then we may get rebirth. If all desires are vanished, then the Moksha is attained.

After Moksha, there is no rebirth and hence the self is completely vanished to the point of no return. In other words, the self is merged with the supreme Self in oneness. Once a drop of water is poured in a sea, we cannot re-identify that drop back. It's gone.

In the next cycle, everything will repeat again. But since, all the cycles are perfectly identical, you or me won't remember anything until we reach again to this moment.

Refer this answer, which discusses life after Moksha & the cycles.

iammilind
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  • Thats interesting. So you mean to say that in the next cycle of Bramha's creation Dheeraj will born again even after this Dheeraj attains Moksha?!! – Dheeraj Verma Oct 06 '17 at 12:44
  • @DheerajVerma, yes that's correct. Note that, "Brahma" is not some entity, which will be every existent for all the cycles. All the cycles are repeating in perfect harmony. If you consider "Brahma", as a creator then that creator will also be born with the fresh mind in the beginning of cycle and will create everything fresh. That will eventually also include a soul which will take various body including "Dheeraj" (same for iammilind). Nothing is common between 2 cycles. There is no memory of previous cycle. – iammilind Oct 06 '17 at 13:02
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    This is not correct. Irrespective of cycles (Kalpas or Mahakalpas or Yugas), a soul which got Moksha will never take birth again. – The Destroyer Oct 06 '17 at 13:26
  • @TheDestroyer, that's what you think. If you consider "soul" as "something" then, certainly it will come back in the next cycle. If you consider "soul" as "nothing", then there is no point of coming or going. Mostly people interpret "soul" as "jiva" (or a Purusha). If 'it' associates with certain body, then again 'it' will associate with the same body in the next cycle. That's undeniable. – iammilind Oct 06 '17 at 13:28
  • Brahma's day cycle concept will just demotivate people for doing any efforts for moksha... It also demotivate me a lot when I read this post earlier And now you linked that post here then It's again making my motivation down. Why will I make any efforts for moksha if it is not permanent? Besides there is also little feeling inside me that this concept is fake. May be you just misjudged the concept. There is error in your understanding I guess. This can't be true. There must be some other meaning coming out of the verses that you read about this concept. So try to grab meaning again from verses – Vishvam Oct 06 '17 at 14:16
  • @Rishabh, "... just demotivate people" -- It did demotivated me. But then I realised that, "motivation" is born out of "desire", which is born out of rajas / passion. Until a little bit of passion is there, the Moksha can't be attained. If you are making effort then you want to achieve something, but Moksha is not "something". If it was something, then it has to vanish. Since the cycles are repeating, a jiva attains Moksha only when it's destined. All the so called efforts are just in vain. Also, we should not think Moksha as "better" than heaven. It's just "beyond" heaven, hell, earth. – iammilind Oct 06 '17 at 14:45
  • But there is also can be possibility that you miss-understood the concept. Are you 100% sure that you grab the exact correct meaning from verse? Try re-read it again and try to understand it again. Cycle sure repeats but it's not necessary it will repeat like carbon copy. I mean why it need to repeat in same way. Why can't it start as new story? It's not seems true.. Where it is being said that cycle will repeat with same characters and same roles? – Vishvam Oct 06 '17 at 15:17
  • @Rishabh "why it need to repeat in same way.", you may read the 1st post linked in answer. Re-read the 5 raional points. In brief, time is infinite but sequential. How can the present moment be reached when time passes sequentially? The only feasible way is cyclic pattern (kaala chakra). A cycle has finite set of events. The same cycle can repeat infinitely. Above Gita verse is just confirming the theory of Eternal Return, which exists even before Gita. I might be wrong, but So far I have not found solid explanation rejecting this theory. – iammilind Oct 06 '17 at 16:25
  • Even if you believe this theory is true But still this cycle theory leaves many questions. For ex. If only few years(i.e. 4 or 5)left for completion of one day of Brahma. And someone got moksha on that time, then his period of moksha will be only 4-5 years only....? Really? There can't be any bigger joke with that person. All his efforts will turn out in a big joke. Lord can't be that cruel... – Vishvam Oct 07 '17 at 04:17
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – iammilind Oct 07 '17 at 04:44