So the question is, if the body dies at death and the Atman goes from one body to another,

what about the desires? How are they transferred?

Well, from an ad-dhwaitic perspective, this is what

happens. When the physical body drops away, there is a subtle body. What's the difference

between the physical body and the subtle body? Physical body is this, the public body, which Dr. Jala, he has spent a lifetime

examining and giving anesthesia, putting to sleep, yes. And pervading this physical body

is what we call the subtle body. And nothing very mysterious about the subtle body.

All of us know it. Just now when we look inside, we feel

thoughts and feelings and emotions and perceptions. That is what is called the subtle body. Specifically

in Vedanta, the distinction is this. Physical body is called stula-sharira. Settled

body is called sukshsharira. What's the difference? Stoola-sharira is what is called annam-sharira. Settled body is called sukshma-sharira. What's the difference?

Stoola-shir-is is what is called annamayakosha, the sheath of food, that means, which is transformed.

Food is transformed into this physical body. That's what the doctor examines. That's what you weigh

and you measure the height and so on. That's what is a man, a woman, a person of particular race or color, and so on.

This subtle body is pranamaya kosha, manomayakosa, wiganamayakosha, the three sheets successively

subtler and inward of pranaana whose effects are the vital functions which

keep the physical body alive. For example, the prana is that which is responsible for the

circulation of the blood, for digestion, basically for health. The not functioning of the

prana would lead to, say, illness and so on.

So yoga and Ayurveda, Hata Yoga, Ayurveda, they deal with the Prana.

In fact, health is more a question of the prana rather than the physical body.

And subtler than this is the mind, our thoughts and feelings, which we have right now.

...