The Chapter 2 of the Gita is titled Sankhya Yoga. It has 72 verses and condenses the entire teaching of the Gita.
It is interesting to see how Krishna answers Arjuna's pitiful cry for advice, caught as Arjuna is in the dilemma of fighting a bloody war to death with his own brethren, elders and teachers. Krishna first dismisses his despondency and confusion in the face of a war which had been in the making all along, between the warrior cousins, on a matter of right and righteousness. He also cautions Arjuna that for a warrior, dereliction of duty in battle will incur ignominy and ridicule. He also says that this war has been inescapable and inevitable due to the build-up of issues. The epic is titled Mahabharata because it symbolises the war to end all wars in India's history.
Nevertheless, the following words of Krishna take the discussion to a different level altogether. It discusses the essential immortality of the soul and how birth, death and killing are superficial, transient events on the eternal canvas of creation. His words are vital to our understanding of the core of Indian philosophical belief.
I quote Sir Edwin Arnold's translation in verse form of the Bhagavad Gita:
KRISHNA
Thou grievest where no grief should be! thou speak'st
Words lacking wisdom! for the wise in heart
Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die.
Nor I, nor thou, nor any one of these,
Ever was not, nor ever will not be,
For ever and for ever afterwards.
All, that doth live, lives always! To man's frame
As there come infancy and youth and age,
So come there raisings-up and layings-down
Of other and of other life-abodes,
Which the wise know, and fear not. This that irks--
Thy sense-life, thrilling to the elements--
Bringing thee heat and cold, sorrows and joys,
'Tis brief and mutable! Bear with it, Prince!
As the wise bear. The soul which is not moved,
The soul that with a strong and constant calm
Takes sorrow and takes joy indifferently,
Lives in the life undying!
That which is
Can never cease to be; that which is not
Will not exist. To see this truth of both
Is theirs who part essence from accident,
Substance from shadow. Indestructible,
Learn thou! the Life is, spreading life through all;
It cannot anywhere, by any means,
Be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed.
But for these fleeting frames which it informs
With spirit deathless, endless, infinite,
They perish. Let them perish, Prince! and fight!
He who shall say, "Lo! I have slain a man!"
He who shall think, "Lo! I am slain!" those both
Know naught! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain!
Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!
Who knoweth it exhaustless, self-sustained,
Immortal, indestructible,--shall such
Say, "I have killed a man, or caused to kill?"
Nay, but as when one layeth
His worn-out robes away,
And taking new ones, sayeth,
"These will I wear to-day!"
So putteth by the spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh,
And passeth to inherit
A residence afresh.
I say to thee weapons reach not the Life;
Flame burns it not, waters cannot o'erwhelm,
Nor dry winds wither it. Impenetrable,
Unentered, unassailed, unharmed, untouched,
Immortal, all-arriving, stable, sure,
Invisible, ineffable, by word
And thought uncompassed, ever all itself,
Thus is the Soul declared! How wilt thou, then,--
Knowing it so,--grieve when thou shouldst not grieve?
How, if thou hearest that the man new-dead
Is, like the man new-born, still living man--
One same, existent Spirit--wilt thou weep?
The end of birth is death; the end of death
Is birth: this is ordained! and mournest thou,
Chief of the stalwart arm! for what befalls
Which could not otherwise befall? The birth
Of living things comes unperceived; the death
Comes unperceived; between them, beings perceive:
What is there sorrowful herein, dear Prince?
These words describe all aspects of death. It is a transition. It is not touching the soul. The key verses in Sanskrit are the ones which state how the embodied soul merely transitions at death. And that Arjuna has to do his duty at hand, recognising the inevitablity of death for all that is born.Wonderful, wistful, to contemplate!
Difficult, doubtful, to speak upon!
Strange and great for tongue to relate,
Mystical hearing for every one!
Nor wotteth man this, what a marvel it is,
When seeing, and saying, and hearing are done!
This Life within all living things, my Prince!
Hides beyond harm; scorn thou to suffer, then,
For that which cannot suffer. Do thy part!
This philosophical concept, as Krishna says, is hard to understand, and most only marvel at it. Therefore the goal is to shift one's focus from death and lead one's life in an aware manner. That means not that we have to do different things, but do things everyday differently. That attitude of awareness and equanimity is discussed in the last several verses of this chapter, from the description of a Sthitaprajna's attitude to life.
(Photo: Oct. 2013 Pamban Bridge Rameshwaram.)
