Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 3.12. Continued to Discourse 4.1- Swami Krishnananda

Tuesday, June 09, 2020.

Discourse 3: The Second Chapter Begins – Sankhya Yogam -12.

“I have told you Sankhya, now I shall tell you yoga,” replies Sri Krishna. 

E?a te’bhihita sa?khye buddhir yoge tvima? s??u (2.39): “All that I have been telling you up to this time is the wisdom of the Sankhya, which is the knowledge of the structure of the universe as it is in itself, including you. Now I shall tell you how to live in this world—how to live in this kind of world in which you are also involved—and how to act in an impersonal manner, and not in a personal manner.” 

That is the yoga of action, which Sri Krishna subsequently gives.

Discourse 4: The Second Chapter Continues – How to Live in the World

Sankhya also implies the knowledge of the immortality of the soul. At the very beginning of Sri Krishna’s instructions in the Second Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, emphasis is laid on the eternity of the soul. Deathless, immutable is the Atman: avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam (2.17). The word ‘avināśi’ means it is indestructible. Not only that, it is all pervading: yena sarvam idaṁ tatam. The Atman is involved in all things, warp and woof. The deathlessness or the indestructibility of the soul implies the timelessness of the soul because that which is involved in time cannot be deathless, as time is the factor that kills everything. The process of time is the process of decay, transformation and final extinction.

Therefore, anything that is involved in the process of time cannot be immortal. Hence, the immortality of the soul also suggests the timelessness of the soul. And the timelessness of the soul implies the spacelessness of the soul because when time goes, space also goes. As space and time are two facets of empirical involvement, when one goes, the other also goes. We cannot think of time without space, as we always consider time as a kind of movement or succession in space; and, we cannot think of space without the process of time involved in it. Thus, the whole world is subject to mutation, transition, and the conditions involved in the very existence of space and time.

To be continued ...