Bhagavadgita 2.6- Sankya yogam-Soul un-manifest

Lord Krishna talked about how the soul is eternal and is all pervasive. It is described to be imperishable in the coming verses. This fact was mentioned in the second chapter from 19th verse to 25th verse.


Whoever considers the soul to be capable of killing or be killed, is considered to be ignorant; Soul neither kills, nor is killed.


The soul is never born, nor it ever dies; nor does it become after being born. For, it is unborn, eternal, everlasting and primeval; even though the body is slain, soul is not.


The soul is free from birth and decay. The man who knows this fact that soul is imperishable and eternal- how and whom will he cause to be killed, how and whom will he kill?


Just as a man casts off his worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so also the embodied self casts of its worn-out bodies and enter others which are new.


Weapons cleave it not, fire burns it not, waters wets it not, wind dries it not.


The self can not be cut, nor burnt, nor wetted, nor dried up. It is eternal, all pervading, stable, immovable and ancient.


This self is said to be unmanifest, unthinkable and unchangeable. Therefore, knowing This to be such, you should not grieve.



Bhagavan described the Atman in clear terms in the above verses. What is the advantage of knowing this truth? How is this useful to us?


We talked about how the truth is evident and obvious in each and every issue. If we understand this basic truth behind each aspect of our lives, there will be no sorrow. The biggest hurdle we ever face is "death". Bu we always assume that we are not going to die that day or that moment. We learned to pity someone else's death.  We hear statements like "He was fine until yesterday; O' poor man just died; how bad it is". But the reality is that every one has to face this dance one day or the other. But we feel confident (ignorant) that death will not touch us now". Every action in our life is to make an effort to live longer. We want to earn money so that we can live comfortably for ever. This is so unreal to think this way because every one has to leave this body and leave behind everything.


Bhagavan brings this false pretense to the fore front and make us realize the truth.  It feels like Lord Krishna was talking about the war when he says "The soul neither kills, not gets killed". He also talks about how we are not responsible for any action that we perform. We think we are rearing our children and we feel that we caused pain or pleasure to other people.

We expect that everything has to go through us even if we do not have control on certain issues. We also assume somehow that we took care of business and without us nothing is possible. This only adds ego or pain to us. If we realize that we are a little guy in the big world, the pain might be little less. Here the soul has no involvement in this whole process. Only mind and body perform their duties.  

The Soul has no changes and never has to transform. Only the body will change. The body goes through 6 Vikaaraas (changes). 1) Birth 2) exist 3) Growth 4) transformation 5) decay 6) death. These are the six changes that everything in this universe goes through.  What is the Truth here and what we have to understand here? Once we are born, we have to go through this transformation.  Nothing happens to Soul even if this body disintegrates.   If we understand this truth, then we realize that we are only instruments of past karma.

We cast off old clothes and get new ones as needed. In a similar way Jeevatma (Kaarana Sarira and Sukshma sarira) will leave the body once the karma effect is finished with that particular body. It is easy to get rid of the old clothes and get new ones but our attachment to this body is beyond explanation. A small kid has been wearing the same old clothes for a while, and a mother wants to put on new clothes. Then the child will cry to let go the old clothes because he likes them so much. But the mother takes them anyway. The child will forget about this after a while. We are also same. Once we take new body, we forget everything about the past lives. This is very essential to grasp so that we can understand this truth. Then it will be easier to go through the changes of life.

OM SRI SAI RAM!