YOU ARE IMMORTAL
‘You Are Immortal’ is the assurance which we get from the reading of the second chapter of The Bhagavadgita, which
itself is derived from the sacred Indian epic “The Mahabharata”. Originally written
in Sanskrit, The Gita, known as the Divine Song, has been translated into many
languages, and has been interpreted by innumerable
scholars and philosophers. Quite aptly
its text has also been named as ‘Science of Human Development”.
The
second chapter of The Gita is entitled as ‘The Book of Doctrines.” As a
great Indologist Sir Edwin Arnold puts it, the book is a discourse between Arjuna, Prince
of India, and the Supreme Being under the form of Krishna.
The discourse pertains to the battle
between the armies of the Pandavas and Kauravas. The former is much smaller
than the latter which consists of Arjuna’s kinsmen. Arjuna is reluctant to
fight because of these kinsmen. Extremely fear-stricken, he has a dry mouth,
trembling body, shaking hands, whirling mind and inauspicious omens before his
eyes.
He tells Lord Krishna that he would not fight. Killing his
kinsmen will be a terrible sin.
But then he immediately seeks enlightenment
from the Lord, as he is his disciple. The Lord starts by telling him there is nothing like death. All beings are immortal.
Translators put this part of the Lord’s speech as follows:
The wise grieve not for those who
live; and they grieve not for those who die – for life and death shall pass
away.
We all have been for all time: I, and thou, and those kings
of men. We all shall be for all time, we all are for ever and ever.
The spirit of our mortal body wanders on in childhood, and youth
and old age. It wanders on to a new body. Heat and cold,
pleasure and pain, come from the world of senses. The man whose soul is one is
not moved by these, because they are transient. He is worthy of life in Eternity.
The soul is imperishable, eternal and free from birth and
decay. “As a man discarding worn-out clothes, takes other new ones, likewise
the embodied soul, casting off worn-out bodies, enters into others which are
new.
The soul cannot be cut, nor burnt, nor wetted, nor dried.
Changeless, all-pervading, unmoving, the Soul is eternal.
A verse in Katha Upanishad gives a similar message:
When the knots of the heat are untied, and man is freed from
worldly attachments, he becomes immortal.
The Antaratman (The Spirit) is lodged in the secret
recesses of our hearts. It is sheathed as the reed-plant is sheathed in its
blades. We should abstract it with understanding, tearing ourselves from
attachments and desires and separating the pure from the gross.
The Spirit within is pure and is immortal.
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26th
December 2020 G.R.
Kanwal
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