नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः।
न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः।।2.23।।
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2.23
Weapons can’t cut through it; fire can’t burn it; water can’t
make it wet; wind can’t make it dry
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Hitherto, one of the most significant impediments that has precluded mankind from appreciating the beauty of atman is the amorphousness of the atman. Learned men have indited volumes about its charismatic natures; its being untrammelled by the forces of space and time; its being impenetrable by death. However, with the capacities of our imagination parochial, we have never been able to unravel as to how something so powerful that it nullified the perennial effects of nature seems to exist in a body as fragile as a being. Arjuna too, standing amid the battleground of Kurukshetra, must have found himself incapacitated to even muse over such a time. Throughout his life, he must have seen warriors who could decimate armies but would have found even the most potent among them to not be impervious to the forces of natures, ergo, taking the vision of something that remains within us and is yet so elusive; whose description range from mere words to periphrasis; whose existence is admitted but not appreciated by the narrow faculties of the human mind; must have been excruciatingly difficult for him too. Hence Lord gives a view of its powers by showing that the elements of the earth, which we believe are the supreme forces, can’t do it any harm. It is indeed veracious that its not our soul that lives in the body but the vice versa. Among all the changes in the cosmos, atman never changes, it just grows. Just like the hysteresis process of a magnet, in which the magnet itself doesn’t change but reserve the memory of its history, atman too never mutates, but just grown from one to another. The most basic tenet of the Sanatam Dharma is that it is through the process of constant struggle and strife that we can become capable of mortifying our base desires and look for something bigger than us all. As we keep on learning, we keep on growing and our cycle is not inhibited by the phases of life and death. For the body is perishable, it follows its own cycle, however, the atman is in the constant struggle to grow more and more conscious to be able to become one with the unity, the Lord himself. For this process to continue, the atman remains impenetrable to the forces of nature, but is rather governed by its own forces which keep on guiding it towards gaining an ameliorate conscience. Thus, even though it resides in our body, it has no predilection for the same, for it understands that the body is a medium not an end in itself, that it is just a temporary manifestation which will keep on changing with the forces of nature. Such is the nature and charm of atman that it exists in nature, yet nature can’t rule over it.
Jai Hind, Jai Bharat
Jai Ma Bharti
