Sri Krishna, with a smile on his face, speaks these words to Arjuna:
While speaking learned words, you grieve for what is not worthy of grief. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. (2.11)
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. (2.12)
The embodied soul, just as it continuously passes from childhood to youth to old age in this body, passes into another body (after death). The firm ones never grieve about this. (2.13)
Let us try to understand this with the help of an analogy. Say, for example, you commute half an hour by walk between your home and workplace everyday. You want to save time, so you think it would be a good idea to purchase a motorcycle. Thus an idea is born, the idea of having a vehicle that will help you save your time. After a while, the idea takes shape, you purchase a motorcycle and start using it everyday.
After a few months, some part of the motorcycle gets worn out, and you change the part. After some time, something else goes wrong with the motorcycle and you replace certain parts. So, as you use the motorcycle regularly, you keep changing different parts of the motorcylce. After a few years you have replaced most parts of the motorcycle, that it’s physically not the same motorcycle you purchased years ago. But then… physically it may have changed, but to you it’s the same motorcycle… just think about it.
And then there comes a time when the vehicle has become too old it can’t be used anymore. You throw it away and buy a new motorcycle.
The physical parts of the motorcycle may change, the motorcycle itself may be replaced, but what holds it together is the idea of having a vehicle that will help you save your time, and as long as this idea remains in your mind, you will have a motorcycle that gives shape to the idea. The motorcycle may even evolve into a car, but it’s the same original idea that manifests in all these different forms.
Now, let us go back to the 13th verse in chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita. The Lord says,
The embodied soul, just as it continuously passes from childhood to youth to old age in this body, passes into another body after death. The firm ones never grieve about this.
It’s all clear now. Just as the idea of ‘having a vehicle that will help you save your time‘ passes through different states of the motorcycle from new to old, the idea passes into a different motorcycle when the old one is dead. The idea itself never dies. What’s there to grieve about that?
Now to verse 12:
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
What you refer to as ‘my motorcycle’ not the physical motorcycle made up of metals and stuff. The real motorcycle is actually the idea, the original idea of having a vehicle that will help you save your time. The idea is non-physical. There never was a time the idea did not exist. The idea has always been there, it doesn’t have any birth or death. In fact, it’s wrong to say that ‘the idea is born’. Just that that idea that’s always been there crossed your mind at a particular point of time. It will remain in your mind for sometime and then leaves you. The physical motorcycle may be destroyed, the idea may leave your mind, but the idea never ceases to be. So, what’s there to grieve?
So, if you are not the physical body that changes state from childhood to youth to old age, if you are ‘that’ which goes through these different states in this body, and ‘that’ which takes up a different body when this body dies, then what is ‘that’? What are you?
Awesome Srini.
Though i myself spend time reading Bhagavad Gita,your views brings further clearance .
I like the Analogy. It makes understanding easier.
I’m following your posts.
Please keep posting
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Satish
Thank you Satish! Ideas flow more freely when it’s about to be shared!!
with respect to, “what are you?” … in my case, a Harley Davidson 1992 Heritage Softail Classic ala Seagreen foam colored bike i once saw on display at Warner Brothers Store in Danbury Mall … having owned many bikes over the years, rented many a Harley while on vacation, but never owning one (yet), i retain the idea that i am my thoughts and in this case, the thought of someday being “one” with my memory of that beautiful bike with my wife riding sitting behind me on those lovely king-queen cruising leather seats and rubber mounted engines for quiet rumbling kind of a ride
… akin to the ride i once enjoyed rolling down the two lane Hawaiian Big Island road, rumbling down the volcano towards the coastline on a rented black and silver Heritage Softail … the absolute joy of being connected to et al. was to this day one of my favorite riding memories :0
seriously speaking, truly enjoying your angle on B. Gita … i read it years and years back when i was doing my spiritual journey of reading all the great works from all the great faiths … my memory at the time was of the battle Arjuna was asked to lead and i never really made the connection to mental battle as much as i read his appreciation for ALL of HIS Creations and that even seeming forces that oppose us somehow share the same DNA of Him, the One, the Alpha, the Omega, the One who championed our very spirits, thus how can we battle that which He created … but alas, there are times to wage “the good fight” and be champions of truth, light, love and liberty for all His beings … and so us spiritual warriors of light continue forth :>) … kudos to your read and sharing … cordially, chuck scott
Wow, Chuck, looks like you’ve got a story to tell
And thanks for sharing your thoughts. You’ve also brought forth a good point. Many people still have this question, ‘does the Bhagavad Gita justify war?’ Let me just use this space to clarify this point.
The war of those days were not like the wars we have today. They were more like a sport. Those days, both parties of the war agree upon a specific time for the start of the war, and a specific place. Nobody is compelled to enter the war zone against his interests. Warriors who enter the war zone enter voluntarily knowing that there is every chance of losing their life. No killing unarmed enemy, no attacking an enemy from his back, and definitely no killing of innocent civilians. The war is fought only from sunrise to sunset. After the sunset, even the fighters from opposite sides meet and greet each other.
Also, before the war the Pandavas tried their best to negotiate peacefully with Duryodhana. Krishna himself went to Duryodhana as a mediator and discussed all sorts of settlements. But Duryodhana wouldn’t budge an inch, and war became inevitable.
We must also remember that Mahatma Gandhi, who was a champion of non-violent struggle, drew great inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita.
I liked the analogy. Since childhood, I have come across this idea that I am separate from my body. I did not understand it as a child and rejected it completely as I grew up. I firmly believed that I started and will end with this body. For a year or two now, the idea has come back to me strongly. It seems so obvious now that I am not this body. Although, ‘who am I’ is still a question for me. I can disassociate from the body, from breath, and, sometimes, from my thought also. At times, as I have read in some texts, I try and just become the observer, but I am not able to hold that state for long. I am working on it.
I will appreciate if you write a post on this question, ‘Who am I’.
What caught my eye about this article was the mention of motorcycles. I am a big fan of riding motorcycles
“Who am I?”…. that’s the most important question a person can ask in his life…. I think the best way to go about is find out what I am not. I am not the body, I am not the mind that’s made up of thoughts because thoughts are evanescent…. if I say “I am the awareness”, what does it mean? Am I the thought that says “I am the awareness”? Then what is it that’s aware of the thought?
Well….. if there is an answer to the question “Who am I?”, I think it should come from inside of oneself…. One can get a clue to understanding the Self when one is still, when there is this thoughtless awareness. Yeah, we can’t hold on to this state for long, but who is it that’s wanting to hold on to that state?
I’d really like to write a post on this… Though I have discussed this question indirectly in many posts, such as this one, I have never provided a direct answer to this question, I have never really been able to, because the answer to this question is always elusive.
I recommend you to read this if you haven’t read this already: http://www.arunachala-ramana.org/publications/who_am_i.html