Sri Krishna enlightens Arjuna by striking at the very root of ignorance. With firm compassion, he corrects superficial weakness and teaches that calm endurance, alike in pleasure and in pain, is the essential condition for true knowledge of the Self. This steady balance of mind is the very technique of self-realization. One who abides in mental equipoise is no longer tormented by pleasure and sorrow and becomes fit to attain immortality. This is an eternal truth, echoing the ancient Upanishadic proclamation that all finite experiences are subject to extinction. No experience gained through body, mind, or intellect endures forever; all are fleeting and transient.
The chain of finite experiences inevitably leads to sorrow and pain, yet through them one may ascend to the infinite and eternal. Sri Krishna makes clear that the purpose of life is perfection through self-evolution, and that one must wisely use the brief span allotted to human existence. To endure meekly yet joyfully the small pinpricks of life—heat and cold, success and failure—is the highest training life can offer. Such equanimity must not arise from the dark caves of inertia but must spring forth from the light of wisdom and knowledge. As long as we dwell in the body, sorrow cannot be avoided; yet through non-attachment to love and hatred, one learns to sacrifice bodily pleasures for higher fulfilment.
Martyrs and revolutionaries have endured persecution and mental agony for the sake of intellectual and moral ideals, fulfilling their duty with unwavering resolve. Thus, Sanjaya presents the distinction between the real and the unreal as expounded by Krishna. The real is that which never changes; the unreal is that which is subject to change. Our existence, emotions, and ideas are finite. The body changes moment by moment, the mind evolves, and the intellect grows. All change is marked by the continual death of the previous state. Therefore, body, mind, and intellect, being ever-changing, cannot be real in the ultimate sense.
For change to occur, a changeless substratum must exist. To hold together the countless experiences of body, mind, and intellect into a synchronized whole called life, there must be an underlying reality. That which remains unchanged is the Self within us, the pure awareness. Experiences arise under its light and fade away. This spiritual entity is unborn, undying, changeless, infinite, and real; it is called Atma. The wise know its purity, though the world of phenomena appears as the field of perception. The real envelops all that exists; it is the very substance of the perceived world.
As pots of varied shapes and colours are all formed of the same clay, so the world of finite change is permeated and sustained by the changeless. Thus, Sri Krishna declares that there is no possibility whatsoever of the real being destroyed, even by the smallest fraction. O son of courage, discard all defeatist tendencies and face sincerely and wholeheartedly every situation in life, at every moment of existence. The Self, being immutable, is neither slain nor slayer. What is killed is only the perishable body and the delusive ego; the Self transcends both body and ego, for pure consciousness illumines them.
The Self cannot be the agent or the object of slaying. Six changes belong to all embodied beings: birth, existence, growth, decay, disease, and death. These are the sources of all mortal pain, yet none of these apply to the Self, which is immutable and eternal. As waves arise and vanish while the ocean remains, so bodies are born and perish while the Self endures. That which has a beginning must have an end, but the soul is not born with the body nor does it perish with it. The Self is unborn, eternal, birthless, and deathless.
Krishna tells Arjuna that if he truly understands this reality through intellectual insight, he cannot regard himself as the slayer of the unborn. Let the ego-centered identity loosen its attachment to any particular experience. Just as a person changes garments according to circumstance, so the embodied being discards one form and assumes another. Death frightens only those without understanding; to the wise, it is painless and insignificant.
The changeless Self is described by the Lord through the language of the mutable world familiar to Arjuna. In this world of change, objects are destroyed by instruments of death—water, fire, wind, and earth—but none of these can destroy the Self. Weapons do not cleave it, fire does not burn it, water does not drown it, and wind does not dry it. The subtle soul cannot be affected by gross means. It is ancient, beyond time and space, unmanifest, unthinkable, and unchangeable. Therefore, Krishna says, it is neither possible to kill it nor to be killed by it; thus, Arjuna should abandon his grief.
Understanding the eternal nature of the Self, one cannot truly perceive oneself as the slayer nor recognize another as slain. Those who measure life by appearances accept it as a constant flux of births and deaths; to them, change itself is life. Krishna tells Arjuna that this repetition of death is natural and therefore unworthy of lamentation. Since life by its nature is a stream of birth and death, no wise person grieves over it. To complain against the nature of life is folly.
Krishna’s message is one of cheer and joy; his doctrine teaches that to brood is ignorance, and to smile is wisdom. Sanjaya concludes that this discourse dispelled Arjuna’s sorrow and restored him to his sense of duty, while he watched closely for any transformation in the mind and mood of the noble warrior.
