Bhagavad Gita 2.22
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि । तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥
vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro 'parāṇi | tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny anyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī ||
Translation
As a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so the embodied one casts off worn-out bodies and enters into others that are new.
Reflection
Which body, role, or season have you been refusing to take off, though it has worn through?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Two
The image everyone remembers from Chapter 2. The body as a garment. Vāsāṃsi, clothes. Vihāya, casts off. Saṃyāti, enters into. The metaphor is deliberately small. Not a great cosmic event. A person changing shirts. Krishna keeps the scale low so the fear of the change is reduced to the right size. The shirts wear out; they get replaced; the person inside does not change. Aurobindo notes that the verse's genius is the unflashy nature of the image. Cosmic re-embodiment described with the most domestic of comparisons.