When the Lord acquires a body, meaning, when the Infinite deludes Itself that It is conditioned by the mind-intellect, It becomes the Jiva; and the Jiva takes to itself various bodies from time to time and incarnates in different environments, which are ordered by its own burning desires and aspirations, and which are most suited for exhausting and fulfilling all its demands. From the moment the Jiva enters a body till it leaves it, it keeps these sense faculties and mental impressions at all times with itself. In fact, the ‘subtle-body’ includes all these faculties.

At death, the ‘subtle-body’ permanently departs from the ‘gross-body’ which is left inert. The dead-body, though found to maintain the shape of the very individual, has no more any sense faculty or mental ability or intellectual capacity, that it had expressed before. These expressions, physical, mental and intellectual, were those which gave the body an individual personality-stature. All these constitute the “subtle-body”, and the “gross-body,” bereft of its subtle essence, is called the dead-body.

At the time of death, the ‘subtle-body,’ as it is described here, moves off gathering unto itself all faculties, “EVEN AS THE WIND TAKES SCENTS FROM THEIR RESTING PLACES”, a passing breeze is not at any time separate from atmospheric air that is everywhere, and yet, when the breeze passes over a flower, or some sandal-paste, or a scent-bottle — which are all seats of fragrance — it carries with it the respective aroma. Similarly, the subtle-body, when it moves out, carries along with it the senses, mind and intellect, not in any gross-form, but as a mere “fragrance” of what all they had lived through, felt in, and thought of. Thus viewed, the mind is nothing but a bundle of vasanas. These vasanas can exist only in the Infinite Consciousness, and the Light of Awareness illumining the vasanas is called the ‘individual personality’ — Jiva.

In this stanza the Jiva is called the Lord (Ishwara) only because the ‘individual personality’ is the Lord of the body, that orders, commands, and regulates all its actions, feelings and thoughts. Just as an officer, on receiving his transfer orders from the Government, packs up his belongings and moves out of his residence for the time being, and having reached the new seat of appointment unpacks and spreads out his furniture for his comforts, so too, at the time of departing from the body, the subtle-body gathers itself from the gross ‘dwelling place,’ and on reaching the new physical structure, it spreads itself out again to use its faculties through that new “house-of-experience.” These stanzas are really a summary of the Upanishadic declarations.

THIS SUBTLE-BODY, DESCRIBED IN THE PREVIOUS STANZAS ROUGHLY AS “THE FIVE SENSES AND THE MIND AS THE SIXTH,” IS BEING EXPLAINED FURTHER IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS:

Yat, when; isvarah, the master of the aggregate of the body etc., the individual soul; utkramati, leaves the body, then he draws. Thus, the second quarter of the verse is treated first for the sake of consistency. [When the soul leaves the body, then it draws the organs (see previous verses) from that body. In this way, the second quarter of the present verse is treated first, because going to another body follows the leaving of the earlier one.-M.S.] Ca api, and even; yat, when; it avapnoti, assumes a body other than the earlier one; then, grahitva, taking; etani, these, the organs with the mind as their sixth; samyati, he leaves, goes away totally [Samyak, totally-without returning in any way to the earlier body.-M.S.] Like what? In reply the Lord says: iva, as; vayuh, the wind (carries away); gandhan, odours; asayat, from their receptacles-flowers etc. Which, again, are those (organs)?