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You are deathless, birthless, You are the infinite spirit (Bhagavad Gita 2.22- 30)

1 October 2010, 11:46 am

This part of the Bhagavad Gita I like the most. Sri Krishna continues…

Just as a person gives up old worn-out garments and puts on new ones, the same way the Self gives up old and useless bodies and accepts new ones. (2.22)

This drives home the point that you are not the body. You are the Self and you have these bodies. Nothing more need be said about this (please refer the previous posts).

This (the Self) can never be cut into pieces by the weapons, nor burnt by fire, nor moistened by water, nor dried by the wind. (2.23)

This (the Self) cannot be broken, it cannot be burned, it cannot be dissolved, it cannot be dried, it is eternal, all pervading, immovable, unchangeable and eternally the same. (2.24)

This (the Self) is impersonal, inconceivable, unchangeable. Thus knowing This to be such, you don’t deserve to lament. (2.25)

These three verses emphatically states that the Self is non-physical and removes all illusions and fears that may arise due to identifying oneself with the physical body.

Okay, but what if you are not able to accept all such concepts of about the Self? All we see is the physical body and, after all, Krishna himself says the soul is inconceivable. So why try to convince oneself with such unthinkable concepts? You may think so, that’s fine. Sri Krishna answers…

Even if you take this to have constant birth and death, you still don’t deserve to lament, O mighty armed! (2.26)

For, certain is death for the born and certain is birth for the dead; therefore, over the inevitable you should not grieve. (2.27)

All beings are unmanifested in their beginning, O Bharata, manifested in their middle state and unmanifested again in their end. What is there then to grieve about? (2.28)

A lump of clay on the surface of the earth takes the form of the pot, retains the form for a while, and then it’s broken and gets back to being the mass of clay on the surface of the earth. Similarly all beings are unmanifested in the beginning, manifest in the middle state and unmanifested again in the end. What’s there to grieve?

Some see This (the Self) with amazement, some speak about This with amazement. Yet others hear about This with amazement and there are others, who even after hearing about This don’t know (understand). (2.29)

Perhaps, this verse implies that only a few actually experience the real non-physical Self. Others speak about the Self, hear about it from others, and there are many others who even after hearing don’t understand at all. So, even if you can’t understand the Self, don’t worry, you still don’t have a reason to grieve as long as you can understand that death is certain for everything that’s born.

Grief is just unnecessary. Accept the inevitable and do what needs to be done. That is it.

This Self, the indweller in the body of everyone, is always indestructible, O Arjuna! Therefore, you need not grieve for any creature. (2.30)

Okay, this quote from Swami Vivekananda sums it up all, in meaning and spirit.

Stand up and fight! Not one step back, that is the idea. Fight it out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the spheres! Let the whole world stand against us! Death means only a change of garment. What of it? Thus fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards. Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune. You have cried to all the gods in the world. Has misery ceased? … The gods come to help you when you have succeeded. So what is the use? Die game. … You are infinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are infinite spirit, it does not befit you to be a slave. Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight!

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The unreal never is, the real never is not (Bhagavad Gita 2.17)

24 September 2010, 10:00 am

The unreal never is; The real never is not. The truth about both has been seen by the knowers of the Truth (or the seers of the Essence).

— Bhagavad Gita 2.17

The unreal never is. The unreal was, the unreal would be, but the unreal never is.

The past and the future does not exist outside of our minds. What you think as past is nothing but stored up memories. What you think as past is nothing more than your own account of what happened. It can never be an accurate account of what actually happened. Even if you think it’s accurate, it exists only in your mind right now. It is not real. The past never is. You have the present, the reality in front of you right now, so why worry about the past? There is no reason to worry about the past, and there is no reason to bask in the glory thinking about some good that has happened to you in the past. It is no more.

Similarly, what you think as future is only your own imagination of what would happen, it has not happened yet. The future never is. The future is unreal. There is no reason to fear about something that might happen the future, because there is every chance your fears won’t come true, and you are only spoiling your present with your unnecessary and unpleasant imaginations. Likewise, there is no reason to be excited about something good that might happen in the future because there is every chance what you anticipate won’t happen, and by getting excited you take your focus away from the present and you are only heading towards disappointment.

Reality is now. This is the truth. Be real. Be in the now.

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Pleasure and pain, heat and cold (Bhagavad Gita 2.14, 15)

18 September 2010, 10:35 am

Sri Krishna, the manifestation of God, continues his discourse…

Notions of heat and cold, of pain and pleasure, are born, O son of Kunti, only of the contact of the senses with their objects. They have a beginning and an end. They are impermanent in their nature. Bear them patiently, O descendant of Bharata. (Bhagavad Gita 2.14)

What is pleasure for you may be pain for somebody else. What is pain for you may be pleasure for somebody else. Also, what you found pleasurable sometime in the past, you don’t enjoy as much now. And what you enjoy now might be something you hated in the past. Pleasure and pain, likes and dislikes, these are just notions of the mind. They appear and disappear. They are impermanent. Even heat and cold are just notions of the mind. For example, in the place where I live in, a temperature of 30 °C is pretty acceptable, even cool, while the same temperature would be very hot to a person used to living near the Arctic. It’s the same temperature, but what makes it hot or cold is just the notions of our mind and our habitual responses. The number that denotes the measure of temperature might be real, but ‘heat’ is not real, it’s just a response of the mind. Even the number and system we use to measure temperature is made up by us, human beings. In absolute terms, these things like heat and cold, pleasure and pain, have no meaning whatsoever.

That person who is the same in pain and pleasure, whom these cannot disturb, alone is able, O great amongst men [Arjuna], to attain to immortality. (2.15)

The person who understands that pain and pleasure are just notions of the mind, and dis-identifies himself from these notions completely, is not disturbed by these notions anymore (though the notions themselves may still exist). When the person rises above these notions, he will find the real Self which is immortal. Note that not much of effort is required to free oneself from the notions of pleasure and pain. It’s just the understanding and the spontaneous dis-identification with the concepts of the mind.

See also, An attempt to understand the Self with the help of the analogy of life-cycle of a motorcycle.

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The motorcycle analogy to understand self (Bhagavad Gita 2.11 – 2.13)

16 September 2010, 11:46 am

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?

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Bhagavad Gita 2.6 – 2.9: Arjuna’s surrender

14 September 2010, 9:30 am

Ater all attempts to justify his state, Arjuna finally accepts he is confused. He requests Krishna to counsel him.

And indeed I can scarcely tell which will be better, that we should conquer them, or that they should conquer us. The very sons of Dhritarashtra, — after slaying whom we should not care to live, — stand facing us. (2.6)

With my nature overpowered by weak commiseration, with a mind in confusion about duty, I supplicate Thee. Say decidedly what is good for me. I am Thy disciple. Instruct me who have taken refuge in Thee. (2.7)

I do not see anything to remove this sorrow which blasts my senses, even were I to obtain unrivalled and flourishing dominion over the earth, and mastery over the gods. (2.8)

Sanjaya [the narrator of Bhagavad Gita] said: Having spoken thus to the Lord of the senses, Gudakesha [Krishna], the scorcher of foes [Arjuna], said to Govinda, “I shall not fight,” and became silent. (2.9)

This surrender in 2.7 is a good thing. When the mind accepts that it is confused and becomes silent, it’s ready to receive good counsel. When the cup empties itself, it’s ready to be filled with nectar.

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