Bhagavad Gita Commentary–Eight
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Know The Atman!
“Some say this Atman is slain, and others call It the slayer: They know nothing. How can It slay or who shall slay It?”
Except for the most unfortunately wounded in spirit, everyone is more than willing to accept the truth of their immortality. Because the authority of the Supreme Spirit is behind each word of Krishna’s exhortation to Arjuna, something deep within us responds with recognition to each statement, and that includes his insistence on the eternal nature of every spirit. Consequently there is no need for me to keep going over and over regarding that principle. The body may appear to be killed, but never is the self (atman) slain. This does not mean that those who (seemingly) kill others are not culpable, for it is their murderous intention that is the root evil. Having learned this in India, Jesus insisted on its truth in his teachings. Yet, he who thinks he can be killed is mistaken. This is not very hard to grasp, but the second part–the statement that the atman can no more slay than be slain–is not so commonly accepted. So it needs due consideration.
What is going on here?
Krishna has already told Arjuna that all sensory phenomena are temporary. Later he will be explaining that they are nothing more than ever-shifting movements of energy that the individual consciousness is merely observing–not undergoing as he thinks. Consequently the wise one watches the sense-movie and learns from it. The Mundaka Upanishad expresses it thusly: “Like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, the individual self and the immortal Self are perched on the branches of the selfsame tree. The former tastes of the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree; the latter, tasting of neither, calmly observes.” In Western metaphysics the expressions “lower self” and “higher self” are often employed for these two “birds.”
The situation is this: The immortal part of us, the atman, the pure spirit (consciousness) ever looks on at the experiences of the lower self–the mind, ego, subtle and gross bodies–all that go to make up our relative “self.” But so convincing is the drama, so compelling and literally engrossing, that it loses itself in the spectacle and thinks it is born, lives, and dies over and over, feeling the pain and pleasure that are nothing more than impulses in the field of energy that is the mind. These are the vrittis in the chitta spoken of by Patanjali at the beginning of the Yoga Sutras, the permanent cessation or prevention of which is Yoga. Through meditation we come to separate ourselves from the movie screen of illusion. Learning is the purpose of the movie, so we do not just throw the switch and leave the theater. Rather, we watch and figure out the meaning of everything. When we have learned the lessons, the movie will stop of itself. Yoga is the means of learning.
So we are points of consciousness tied to the seats of our bodies, helplessly watching and identifying with the 360-degree surrounding screen, overwhelmed by the sensory avalanche. When we cease to identify and come to see with the clarity of objectivity (that is the reality of the situation), then we begin to really see and learn. Then, just as the ear is trained by listening to music, so is the consciousness developed by witnessing the drama of many lives. Yet it is not changed–it is freed. For change is illusion. When we have experienced this–and therefore truly known–for ourselves, then we know that nothing has ever “happened” to us–only to the vibrating substance which we have mistakenly thought was us. Vairagya, detachment from all things, then arises, for that is the only realistic response or view of our life. How can we have either desire or aversion toward nothing? Then perfection in true knowledge (jnana) becomes our only goal, for that perfection alone is freedom.
The lessons to be learned
Being either killer or killed is impossible; so Krishna assures Arjuna–and us. The Gita is being spoken on a battlefield so martial action is the subject, but the principles presented by Krishna can be applied to anything in life. The fundamental lesson is twofold: 1) everything has a meaning for us, and 2) no “happening” or change is real. But we are real, and that should be the basis of our entire perspective on our present entanglement in the birth-death drama.
If we are not careful we will fall into the trap of considering only the negative as unreal and think of the positive as real and therefore to be accepted as such. This is not so. Sin and virtue, hellishness and holiness, are equally unreal. However, sin and evil render us incapable of seeing the truth of things, whereas virtue and holiness wean us from the illusions around us and purify our mind so we can come to learn the real Facts of Life and learn from life itself. Yet, no change is ultimately real. Not even the decision: “I want to know God.” Insight and aspiration mean nothing of themselves. Only when they result in involvement in spiritual practice (sadhana, tapasya) do they mean anything. Yes, even the process of sadhana (meditation, yoga) is unreal, but its result is real in that it reveals the Real. In Indian thought spiritual practice is often spoken of as a thorn used to remove a thorn in the foot. Both are then discarded. Yoga is also just a movie, but it is a movie that leads to self-knowledge in which yoga ceases to be a practice and becomes a state–the state of consciousness that is our eternal being. So all the holy and spiritual thoughts and feelings or philosophy we may come up with are just more of the same light and shadows that have been fooling us for countless creation cycles. They will eventually degenerate and reveal themselves as valueless as all our other fantasies. Only when they inspire us to take up meditation and authentic spiritual life are they of any worth, assisting us in drawing nearer and nearer to The Real. Those caught up in the play of external life truly “know nothing” as Krishna says. Not because they are stupid, but because the objects of their “knowing” really are nothing.
The effects of self-knowledge
But knowing the atman-self is a different matter altogether. The attainment of self-knowledge is not the same as working out or puzzle or figuring out a riddle. It has a practical effect: eternal Peace and Freedom. Therefore Krishna continues:
“Know this Atman [to be] unborn, undying, never ceasing, never beginning, deathless, birthless, unchanging for ever. How can It die the death of the body?” This is the perspective that gives abiding peace to the seer. And further:
“Knowing It birthless, knowing It deathless, knowing It endless, forever unchanging, dream not you do the deed of the killer, dream not the power is yours to command it.” Do not dream: know. Then you will be free from the compulsions and anxieties of the world-dream.
When we cling to these compulsions and anxieties, birth, life, and death are agonies raking us like hooks and whips. But what are they in actuality? Krishna says: “Worn-out garments are shed by the body: worn-out bodies are shed by the dweller within the body. New bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments.” How simple! And how effortless. It is our clinging, our grasping, that torments us. For though we do not realize it, aversion and distaste are also graspings after them. To push a thing away we have to touch it, to come into contact with it. And once touched it works its effect on us.
Although Krishna is speaking of the experiences of physical birth and death, the same is true of any kind of “becoming” or dissolving of both external and internal experiences. The same is true of the various states of consciousness that we pass through on the way to the goal of perfected awareness. We should pass into and out of them as easily as changing our clothing, neither clinging to them nor tearing them away from us. Easefulness is the keynote of genuine spiritual development. There are no traumas, no cataclysms or sweeping shake-ups in the path to God. Such things only take place in the prisons of illusions. If they do occur we may know that we are either on the wrong path or are walking it in a wrong manner. Spiritual hypochondriacs revel in these things, regaling their hearers with lurid accounts of how traumatic and cataclysmic every step of “the path” has been for them. Their dramatic bombastic revelations are symptoms of mental illness, not of progress in spiritual life. A yogi I knew once told some of his students that they should pay no attention whatsoever to any experiences mentally ill persons might claim to encounter in meditation. “They are crazy, and will turn everything they do into craziness. That is their nature.” He gave this advice because some of them were doubting the validity of their own practice, since some emotionally unstable people of their acquaintance seemed to be getting worse by practicing the same type of meditation.
Finally, Krishna’s statement that “new bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments” is an indication of the truth that it is we and we alone that are always in control. But, like those afflicted with short-term memory loss, we put ourselves into a situation and then forget we did so, attributing it to God, fate, accident, or just about anything but ourselves. Therefore, praying to God, engaging in superstitious “good luck” practices (which is what most religions are and little else), trying to “cheat fate” and suchlike are doomed to failure and frustration. WE are the key.
The immutable self
Krishna’s next statement is to be looked into beyond the surface appearance.
“Not wounded by weapons, not burned by fire, not dried by the wind, not wetted by water: such is the Atman.”
First of all, the four factors: weapons, fire, wind, and water, represent the four gross elements (ether being the fifth, subtle element), earth, fire, air and water. By the “elements” we do not mean simple earth, water, fire, etc., but the four types of creative energies that combine to make up all that is material. The names given to the elements are merely symbolic of their behavior and effects. We are encased in five bodies: annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, jnanamaya, and anandamaya koshas–coverings. These are the “bodies” corresponding to the material, biomagnetic, mental, intellectual and will levels of our makeup. These, in turn, correspond to the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. The idea is that no matter what our consciousness is encased in or what kind of external force is “working” on us, our true self, our true nature, cannot be altered in any manner whatsoever.
Secondly: wounded, burned, dried, and wetted are symbols of being divided, changed, taken from or added to (increased or decreased). Again, we simply cannot be altered in any way. Anything that can be is not ourself. This is the very important teaching known in Sanskrit as anatma–the teaching regarding what is not the self. Buddha emphasized this greatly, and was being completely traditional in doing so. Sadly, those outside India who encountered his teachings thought that the term (anatta in Pali) meant there is no self. But the term means not-self, not no-self, which would be niratma or niratta. So wherever we see change…that is not the self. “Change and decay all around I see. O Thou Who changest not, abide with me.” Unfortunately, these words are addressed God, Who is not the problem. What should be sought is the abiding experience of our own unalterable self. For Krishna sums it up in this way:
“Not dried, not wetted, not burned, not wounded, innermost element, everywhere, always, being of beings, changeless, eternal, for ever and ever.” The self is the inmost reality and can only be known at the core of our being–which is the self. Yet it pervades all that we call “us,” enlivening all our body-levels as the proximity of fire creates warmth in inert substances and as the light of the sun stimulates the growth of living things. This is a basic concept of Sankhya philosophy. Primordial energy has no motive power of its own, but the proximity of Spirit causes it to “live” and move. It is with us as it is with God. The presence of God causes the primal matter to manifest as all creation; and it is the presence of our spirit that causes our own private prakriti to manifest as a chain of ever-evolving births and deaths. Self-knowledge is the apex of our evolution, after which our prakriti becomes a mirror, silent and motionless, no longer moving, but reflecting only consciousness itself.
Read the Bhagavad Gita online: The English text of the Gita posted on this Web Site is arranged according to the meter of the original Sanskrit text so it can be sung–as it is done every morning in our ashram and in most of the ashrams of India.
1) The translation used is that of Swami Prabhavananda. [Go back]
2) The Godhead that is within every being. [Go back]
3) Bhagavad Gita 2:19 [Go back]
4) “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:21,22,27,28) [Go back]
5) Bhagavad Gita 2:20 [Go back]
6) Bhagavad Gita 2:21 [Go back]
7) Bhagavad Gita 2:22 [Go back]
8) The same yogi was once asked: “Why do some people not progress through meditation while others do?” His reply was this: “Perhaps they do not practice correctly; perhaps they do not practice enough; and perhaps they do not practice at all!” [Go back]
9) Bhagavad Gita 2:23 [Go back]
10) Bhagavad Gita 2:24 [Go back]
