[ SANSKRIT TERM ]
संसार· samsara
The cycle. The river you can't step into the same way twice — but keep trying to.
MEANING
Samsara is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth — but more practically, it's the cycle of wanting, getting, losing, wanting again that defines unliberated existence. The Gita treats samsara as the default condition: not a punishment, just the consequence of acting from misidentification with the small self. Moksha is release from samsara. The Gita's claim is that the release happens through changed seeing, not through escape from action — you can be in samsara structurally while having stepped out of it experientially.