Bhagavatgita a detailed study-chapter2

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12.na thu eva na aham jaathu na aasam na thvam na ime naraaDhipaaH

na bhootho nabhavishyaamaH sarve vayam athaH param

 

Never was the time when I or you or these kings ceased to exist nor will be a time when all of us will cease to exist.

 

Here Krishna starts telling Arjuna about who the real I is. The self is permanent and only the bodies change . There was never a time when you, I, and all these men in front ceased to be nor will there be a time when we all will cease to be. This is the answer to the question who am I. You are not what you think you are , says the Lord .The anxiety about living and dying comes only through identifying yourself with the body. Death is not the end of you but it is only a change of circumstance. When Krishna says "there never was a time I ceased to exist or will cease to exist," He is not only talking as an individual self but also as the supreme self, who is the inner self of all. This idea of the permanency of the self is elaborated in the subsequent slokas.

 

13.dheinaH asmin yaThaa dhehe koumaaram youvanam jharaa

thaThaa dhehaantharapraapthiH Dheerah thathra na muhyathi

 

The individual self assuming a body, passes through childhood, youth and old age. Similarly it acquires a different body after death. Wise never get worried about this.

 

You are not overly worried about changing from boyhood to youth or to old age which you consider a natural occurrence. So too death is only natural change about which you need not worry. The relations and attachment to them and grief over losing them, all this pertains only to the particular body the self is occupying at the time .

 

There is a story in Mahabhartha to illustrate this. Chithraratha , a king lost his son because his other wives gave the child poison and the mother of the child and Chithraratha were grieving when Narada came there. The King told him about the cause of his sorrow and Narada said he would bring his dead son in front so that he could get solace. When the son came Narada told him that his parents are aggrieved over losing him and asked him that whether he would like to come back to life to console them. The son replied, I had so many births with so many fathers and mothers . Whom should I satisfy? Then the king understood about the karma and its effects and hat everything happens with a cause and with the divine will. This happened to him because he was destined to become a great baktha of the Lord and it was he who took birth again as Gajndhra and got mukthi.

 

This is what Krishna means by saying DheeraH thathra na muhyathi, the wise never worry about death and this was the reason why wise people like Bheeshma were not anxious like Arjuna and were not swayed by attachments, resolved to do their duty.

 

But even to the wise the contact with senses will bring pleasure and pain. This point is answered in the next sloka.