the weary wayfarer from the inexorable necessity of treading the rough and rugged path of the world of woe tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of times.
Life is bondage. The bonds that bind the soul to the world and prolong and postpone the period of its liberation are actions. The actions are fetters that bind the soul to the wheel of rebirths. The individual who goes to heaven or hell after death experiences reward or retribution according to his desert. But after a life of many a summer in the world beyond the grave, when the merit or demerit of his good or bad actions is exhausted, he will have to descend upon the earth to work out his destiny according to the residue of the actions of his past earthly life. Thus will he be compelled to descend upon the earth time and time again until, freed from all attachments of actions, he wins emancipation.
As the source of man's actions is desire, it is desire that keeps the soul rooted to this world. Deliverance of the soul depends then upon the cessation of desire. But desire is inseparable from life. It is the very seed of all existence. It is said that when there was no existence and no death and Brahma alone breathed calmly, desire arose in him and the creation came into being as its consequence.
Yajnavalkya says that man is altogether desire. Karma results from desire and determines the time of the deliverance of the soul. Desire, moreover, generates desire. Like fire, says Manu, that grows stronger when fed with clarified butter, does the enjoyment of what man desires, creates in him cravings for still more. Man desires health and offspring, riches and glory, and a hundred good things of this life and in addition prays for heavenly bliss when he goes to his final reckoning. Between the dawn and dusk man performs many actions, good or bad. But even when they are all good, they are prompted by desire for profit and power, name and fame, health and happiness, or for the acquisition of some earthly good. This attachment, craving, hope, and love for the prize of actions forge fetters round the human ego and indefinitely postpone the period of its liberation.
According to the Upanishads, the individual ego takes up one body and drops it at death and thus the ego that goes the round of births is identical. With Buddha it is not the same ego for the ego as such does not exist. There is no eternal soul or spirit of
