About the time between rebirths

Question

Hare Krishna please accept my humble obeisances all glories to srila prabhupada. 

I have a question about the time between rebirths. For example, if I were to leave my body today —and in this theoretical situation I get a human birth in the next life — am I transferred to my mother’s womb the very next moment after my death? Or is there a waiting period in between? 

 

Also when a soul gets reborn are they reborn in the same universe? Like in the example I just gave, could I be reborn in the 10-headed-brahma universe? 

 

I have been wondering this for some time. Thank you. 

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Answer in english

The change of body is immediate, whatever it may be. As long as the jiva, the spiritual soul, is identified with the material world, it must necessarily have a body, physical or subtle.

 

Srila Prabhupada answers a lady who asks him the same question in a rather blunt, almost curt manner. (December 27, 1972, in Bombay, India).

 

He doesn’t elaborate on special issues, such as the time spent in the hellish planets or the time spent in su subtle body, that we call a ghost. He doesn’t explain this because he wasn’t asked about it. We will discuss these another time.

 

The soul can go into any body, human, animal, vegetable or even in some minetal, and in any universe. It mainly depends on the state of consciousness at the time of leaving the body.

yam yam vapi smaran bhavam

tyajaty ante kalevaram

tam tam evaiti kaunteya

sada tad-bhava-bhavitah

(Bhagavad-gita 8.6)

 

 

– Manonatha Dasa (ACBSP)