Summary:

Chapter 2, Verse 21: Krishna introduces indestructible Atman (self) to Arjuna. He emphasizes duty (svadharma) and necessity of participation. Krishna urges Arjuna to see beyond personal relationships, recognize his larger role, and act objectively. Verse illustrates how individual actions affect the collective, using analogy of fingers and an arm to show the importance of each person's contribution. Verse essence: One who knows the self as indestructible and eternal cannot truly kill or cause death.

Chapter 2, Verse 22: Body is equated to clothes and reincarnation is introduced. Krishna explains how self (Atman) discards old bodies for new ones. It presents logical arguments for reincarnation, emphasizing cause-effect relationships lasting millennia. It introduces concepts of subtle body and causal body. The causal body, or “karma account,” stores unseen results (adrsta phala) of past actions as punya (blessings) or papa (suffering), determining future body-mind combinations. Krishna concludes by reassuring Arjuna about the continuity of the subtle body after death. Verse essence: Just as one changes old clothes for new ones, the self discards old bodies for new ones.

REVISION:

The Nature of Human Existence and Perception

Session begins by addressing all humans as “killers,” highlighting our innate tendency to participate in the world. We are born with empirical smallness (physical limitations) and develop subjective smallness (personal opinions about our limitations). This leads to the formation of complexes that shape our interactions with the world.

Popping Your Personal Bubbles of Smallness & Distortions

To overcome these feelings of smallness, we participate in the world, making both mistakes and good deeds. This participation is often colored by our pratibhasika (imagination or subjective world). Krishna emphasizes the importance of moving from this imaginary/personal world (Jiva Srishti, or pratibhasika) to the empirical world (Ishvara Srishti, or vyavaharika) to begin proper analysis of reality.

The Glass Half Full: Objectivity vs Subjectivity

The discussion uses the example of a glass being half full or half empty to illustrate the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. This analogy demonstrates how our personal perspectives can cloud our judgment and prevent us from seeing reality as it is.

Personal Bubbles and Ethics

The concept of living in a “personal bubble” is explored, highlighting how people can become disconnected from ethics when operating solely within their subjective world. In these personal bubbles, ethics often become boring or irrelevant, leading to a disconnect from the larger, interconnected reality.

The Inner Programming of Dharma

Despite our tendency to retreat into personal bubbles, there exists an inner programming – Dharma – that guides us towards our innate nature. This inner voice creates feelings of shame or guilt when we act against our better judgment, serving as a compass for ethical behavior.

The Concept of Atman and Unchanging Consciousness

Krishna introduces the concept of Atman (Self), the unchanging presence beneath all life changes. This leads to a discussion on the nature of consciousness, explaining how it remains constant despite apparent changes in body and mind.

Interconnectedness and Cosmic Contribution

Billions of years ago, when massive stars exhausted their hydrogen, they began fusing helium. As these stars approached the end of their lives, they created heavier elements like iron through fusion. When they exploded as supernovae, they scattered these elements across space. Some of this iron eventually became part of our planet and is now in your blood, demonstrating the interconnectedness between ancient stellar processes and your body today.

BHAGAVAD GITA, CHAPTER 2, VERSE 21

वेद अविनाशिनम् नित्यम् यः एनम् अजम् अव्ययम् ।
कथम् सः पुरुषः पार्थ कम् घातयति हन्ति कम् ॥ २-२१॥
veda avināśinam nityam yaḥ enam ajam avyayam ।
katham saḥ puruṣaḥ pārtha kam ghātayati hanti kam ॥ 2-21॥

Pārtha (Arjuna)! The one who knows this (self) to be indestructible, timeless, unborn, and not subject to decline, how and whom does that person kill? Whom does he cause to kill?

Krishna's Message: Embracing Your Unique Role in the Cosmic Order

Arjuna’s problem, “How do I kill all these people infront of me!”.

Krishna replies, “Body is subject to disintegration, but Atma is indestructible, who is true nature of these soldiers”.

Krishna isn’t saying “Because Atma can’t be destroyed, you can kill all these people!”. Rather, Arjuna needs to do what needs to be done because you came connected to situations, and are put in a unique place in the scheme of life.

The Necessity of Participation for Well-Being

Doing your part while alive isn't a choice, but a necessity for personal and collective well-being. He illustrates this with examples: you needed your parents' participation to survive, your parents needed their employers' participation to feed you, and you need oxygen to breathe.

Just as you rely on others' participation to survive, you are equally expected to contribute to others' survival. This reciprocal relationship is what Krishna calls “your duty” (svadharma).

Seeing Beyond Personal Agendas

Krishna urges Arjuna to see beyond his personal relationships and recognize his larger role. He says, “Arjuna, you're not just a prince, and your cousin isn't just a cousin, but a prince of Hastinapur who is misguided!” Krishna encourages Arjuna to see his part in a much larger scheme and fulfill his duty, rather than acting on personal agendas.

Embracing Action with Self-Knowledge

Knowing one's true nature as Atman (the unchanging self) is actually the only way to fulfill your duty properly (which leads to your happiness), and without conflict. This means…

1. Recognizing Necessity: As a person, you have no choice but to act. The universe is designed such that your contribution not only sustains others' well-being but also brings you contentment. This is the natural order.
2. Maintaining Objectivity: Knowing that “I” (Atman) have nothing to gain or lose allows you to act more objectively. Whereas, when you're acting out of a small person, there's always an agenda and expectations what should happen.

This way, knowing nature of you (Atma) enables you to do what needs to be done, free from the bondage of results, while fulfilling your role on earth.

The Interconnected Web of Existence

Everything in the universe is connected and serves a purpose. Using the analogy of fingers and an arm — while fingers may seem insignificant compared to the whole arm, without them, the entire arm becomes useless. Similarly, your actions, duties, and contributions extend far beyond what you can see, affecting not just one person but potentially dozens or more.

NEXT VERSE: Popular verse. Body, clothes and atma…

BHAGAVAD GITA, CHAPTER 2, VERSE 22

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरः अपराणि ।
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णानि
अन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥ २-२२॥
vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya
navāni gṛhṇāti naraḥ aparāṇi ।
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni
anyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī ॥ 2-22॥

Just as a person gives up old clothes and takes up new ones, so does the self, the one who dwells in the body, gives up old bodies and takes others which are new.

Body equated to Clothes:

Body is equated to clothes. Lot of time/money gets spent on clothes in young years. How many of it do you still have? Spend lot of time keeping clothes in good condition. Eventually they become old or out of fashion, you discard and buy new. Your body is like that. Body is meant to deteriorate. Time comes when have to discard it completely, and buy yourself a new body. This goes on and on.

Topic of Reincarnation Introduced:

Is reincarnation knowledge or belief? 

There’s a book “Many Lives, Many Masters” by Brian Weiss. He was a psychiatrist using hypnosis to treat patients. One day, one patient brought memories of past life. So Brian started using past-life regression as therapy to help one release oneself from impressions causing phobias, etc.

If so many are talking about it, why do we call it belief, and not knowledge?  (a) I haven’t had any memories (b) Maybe these people are hallucinating.

However Vedas speaks of it as a possibility which has strong logic behind it.

Showing Reincarnation:

• Example showing past causes are always connected to present:
  1. Latest discovery of time (E=MC2); world (and everything in it) is nothing but transformation of energy into matter, and matter into energy. Meaning no real death.
  2. Anything in this world is connected to past causes. EG: Get a blood report > iron. What is source of iron? Some stars billions of years ago collided and released iron, and it’s now in your blood making your body function. Meaning causes of millions of years ago is contributing to your body now.
  3. Your presence here is connected to extinction of dinosaurs.
• Can't find anywhere a cause-effect relationship lasting for only 80 years.
  • If above examples are the case with anything in the universe, can you make a statement, “What I do, has zero consequence in the future”, considering everything the the world is expression of cause-effect relationship? 
  • Additionally, can you find anywhere where cause-effect relationship only lasts 80 years? No. Then how can be say this personality of yours is caused for the first time ever? In reality, this personality of yours is an effect of past causes stretching millennia. 
  • What is nature of world? It is intelligent world which connects past to present for millennia. Any cause put into field, produce an effect. Meaning whatever you do now, produces future effect.
• How does coming back take place in detail?
  • I’ve come with this physical body (sthula-sharira). There is also Sukshma-sharira (Subtle-body). IE: Not only have physical brain, able to think. Not only have eyes, have sight.
  • When get physical-subtle body, our identity is in it, and thus feel limited. To free self from limitation, we engage (cause) in world, and creates 2 types of effects (karma):
    1. Seen result of action (drsta phala): Every time do something appropriate, feel good about self.
    2. Unseen result of action (adrsta phala): Sometime in the future, the result of your action will fructify. Timelag between performed-action and compensation-received.
       • Can be either punya (world compensates me in future with blessings) / papa (gives not only immediate guilt but future suffering when inappropriate things are done).
• We have karana-sharira (causal body)
  • Causal body that stores unseen results of appropriate/inappropriate past actions. In common language “causal body” is called “your karma account”.
  • In this causal body, you have collected punya/papa for lifetimes, which gives you this body-mind. Reason why every body-mind is different is because the karma-account has different punya/papa mixture.
  • The entity who goes through many bodies, is called “jiva”.
• What is path of jīva?
  • SAMSARA: You can continue becoming different roles. Jīva’s actions while living contribute to kind of body/parentage it’ll get next time. It’s not like jiva chooses after death, as nobody would choose to be born with poor heart, in war torn region, etc.
  • MOKSHA: Figure out “I’m not this ever changing entity, but truth of everything”; mokṣa. You can ask, “Am I really this body, mind, karma”? Even karma is in constant flux because it produces a result, then is exhausted by experiencing it.

Krishna's Conclusion to Arjuna: Therefore Arjuna, don’t worry, even if these people die, their Sukshma-sharira hasn’t died. Only outer shell.

NEXT VERSE: Krishna gives additional logic helping you discern subtle and physical body from Atman.

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Course was based on Neema Majmudar's Bhagavad Gita & Swami Dayananda (Arsha Vidya) home study course.

Recorded 6 Oct, 2024