Shrimad Bhagavad 2.13, 2.14, 2.15

देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा।

तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति।।2.13।।

2.13. Just as the boyhood, youth and old age come to the embodied Soul in this body, in the same manner is the attaining of another body; the wise man is not deluded at that.

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मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदुःखदाः।

आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत।।2.14।।

2.14 But the contacts of the organs with the objects are the producers of cold and heat, happiness and sorrow. They have a beginning and an end, (and) are transient. Bear them, O descendant of Bharata.

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यं हि न व्यथयन्त्येते पुरुषं पुरुषर्षभ।

समदुःखसुखं धीरं सोऽमृतत्वाय कल्पते।।2.15।।

2.15. O the best among persons! That wise person becomes immortal whom these (situations) do not trouble and to whom the pleasure and pain are equal.

The lord commences by carving out the distinction between the body and the atman, between our senses and our consciousness and tells that thought may seem indiscernible, yet the gravity of discreteness is them can’t be eschewed. He tells us that just like the aging process of a body the soul too is going through a metamorphosis. As we grow from an infant to fall into the laps of senility, so too the soul is transmuting from one form to another. Nature teaches us that the world progresses by evolution; that species mould themselves to make themselves comme il faut for the time; that the only everlasting thing in the world is evanescent change; that if we don’t prepare ourselves to nestle in the cast of befitting time, we will be vanquished and clobbered by the forces of nature itself. Similarly, Lord tells us that soul is also not excused from the process. Change is ineluctable, though in some cases it is momentarily and in others extremely protracted. Furthermore, Lord edifies that all the emotions and sentiments that we believe are part of our soul and consciousness are not at all any integral part of our emotions. They are just ephemeral stimulation of our external organs and nothing carries enough power to transfix our soul. Our biggest mistake is to believe that we comprise of our emotions, notwithstanding knowing that they will pass sooner or later, we linger onto them and cling to them thinking that they are indispensable. This folly makes us to go through the ups and down of emotions through which those who know the truth of atman are not made to go through. They are never made to tread the formidable path being administered by our emotions and external stimuli because they know that these things are mere illusions created by the body and our impervious soul is not bound by them. Thus Lord asks Arjuna to be unfazed by death and life, grief and merry, hate and love, loath and certainty, indecision and decision, evolution or decadence, equivocation or vehemence. He asks him to concede to the cardinal truth of life that atman is above all and nothing carries enough competence to penetrate the atman. In fact, Lord even goes further to say that those who snub pain and pleasure equally are immortal. That is so because, when we stop dwelling over the matters of our destructible body and raise above the trifles of the external world, silence pervades inside us all. When this silence is further strengthened by our equanimity, nonchalance and indiscrimination, it leads to our unification with the atman and since atman is adamantine, we rise above the bagatelle to become immortal. Immortality thus, comes after accepting that our body is a mere apparel and our soul is what we are made up of.       

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI