Gita 02.13 – The body is changing, not just growing – so focus on the unchanging

This is the verse which practically all devotees know and it is considered often the ABC of spirituality, the first fundamental teaching of the Gita, that as Prabhupada put it, you are not the body, so dehino asmin, the dehino, the possessor of the body, the embodied, asmin is situated, itha dehe, it is situated in the body, so actually just as the embodied who is situated in the body, just as the embodied stays in the body, even when the body changes, if you are looking at the literal translation, kaumaram yauvanam jara, the embodied goes from childhood to youth to old age, and tatha dehantara prapti, thereafter goes into another body also, dheeras tatra na muhyati, dheera, the sober person is not bewildered by this, na muhyati, so what is being exactly talked about in this verse, actually the essence that is being talked about is, how one should not be bewildered by change of the body, so actually Krishna is not exactly telling that you are not the body or the soul, Krishna is assuming that, and Krishna is telling the consequence of that knowledge, assuming in the sense that, it's not that Arjuna doesn't know this, Arjuna has talked also about narakhe niyatam vaso, about staying in hell, now how can a person, who will go to hell, in the body, if the person is nothing more than the body, there has to be something of the person that goes to hell, so the idea of some aspect of us continuing to exist beyond this life is known to Arjuna also, and Krishna is in that sense not trying to logically prove the existence of the soul to Arjuna, trying to convince Arjuna that the soul exists, Krishna is simply telling about the logical consequence of the fact of the existence of the soul, the fact that it is taken that Arjuna already knows and accepts, the remote possibility that a person like Arjuna, born in a cultured family, in the spiritual culture of those times, would not accept the soul, it's such a remote possibility, that Krishna doesn't feel the need to address it, except as a passing possibility towards the end of this section, in verses 27, 28, he addresses, 27, 28, 29, he just addresses it very briefly, towards the end of this section, but here, what is the consequence of knowing that we are not the body, we are the soul? That he says, that once you, just as the embodied in the body remains the same, or the embodied stays in the body, even when the body changes from boyhood to youth to old age, similarly, the embodied stays the same way, when the body changes completely, Dehaantara Praptera, and knowing that it is only the peripheral that is changing, that the essential is not changing, the peripheral is the body, the essential is the soul, is not changing, Dheera, the sober person, is Namuhiyati, is not bewildered, so the point is, Arjuna, you are Samudha Cheta, Arjuna himself had said that, I am feeling overwhelmed, Samudha, so Krishna is saying that Namuhiyati, you can also avoid bewilderment, if you meditate on the soul beyond the body, and the direct point of this verse, relevant to the discussion is that, Arjuna, don't grieve for the death of your loved ones, because the essential person, whom you love, that person is not going to die, just as Bhishma was the same person when he was relatively young, now when he is older, he is the same person, so, just as you loved your brothers when they were small, and you love them when they have grown up, similarly, the same person who owned another boy, the person is not going to be destroyed, therefore, there is no need to lament. Now, the verse is very significant in terms of its implication or its application in today's society, actually, even in the spiritual society, where people knew that they are not the body, they are soul, still they would take care of the body, the kings would dress and decorate themselves with great opulence, and in fact, dancing and other such skills, which we could say are related to the body, there were also important skills in Vedic culture, so, it's not that the body is rejected, and we will discuss about rejection of the body on a future verses, but the point here is, the knowledge that I am not the body, Krishna says, what is the application of that? The application is, not that, oh, I stop caring for the body entirely, it is just that I don't become overwhelmed because of changes that happen to the body, so, that is the primary application, that we cannot just wish away our bodily existence, but we should not let our bodily side completely obscure our spiritual side, we should not become so caught up in the body, that we don't even think about other higher things in life, and that will be a tragedy, so, to avoid that happening, we need to ensure that we take care of the, generally, we take care of the body because it's a necessity, we will become weak and we will die, we take care of the body because that's what the society asks us to do, our parents, our relatives, society expects us to do things at the level of the body, so, that's why we don't need any excessive amount of pressure or training to take care of things at the body level, but we do need repeated reminders of our spiritual side, because that side is so easy to forget, so easy to neglect, so easy to overlook, and to prevent all this from happening, we need to say, we need to remind ourselves of our spiritual side by repeated hearing, repeated reading, and now, coming to the crux of the argument of this verse, the point is that there is external reincarnation, there is internal reincarnation, and Krishna is over here saying that there is no essential difference between the two, so, the body goes through changes, the body is in a child, in a small child stage, then it is in a youth stage, then it is an elderly stage, and yet, the person remains the same, so, just as the person remains the same through these bodily changes, similarly, the person will remain the same when there is an even more drastic, dramatic, to some extent, traumatic change, when one body changes to another quite abruptly, but essentially, it is the same thing, now, actually, we don't really think of the body in terms of change, we may think of it in terms of growth, but sometimes, if we look at our picture, when we are infant, or we show our picture as an infant to someone, who has known us, only when we have grown up, that person will not even recognize, so, there is so much change, and that it is often unrecognizable also, but the important point is that this change, this is not just growth in terms of say, okay, the same thing growing, we think of the same body was a baby's body, and the same body has grown big, and just the, maybe some complexion, some other things are changing, that's why it's not recognizable, the same thing that is growing, but it is not like that, if we look even from a scientific perspective, actually, all the cells in the body are dying out and getting replaced, and actually, what is it that keeps the, if everything in the body is changing, all the cells, scientists have found even the brain cells die out and are replaced, so, what is it that gives the notion of sameness, it is actually like a river's shape, which makes us feel that the river is the same, but actually, in the river, the water is constantly changing, and that's when the river is changing, we may give one name to the river, this is the Godavari river, this is the Kaveri river or whatever, but we understand that actually the water is constantly flowing and water doesn't stay the same, only because the river bed and the river path more or less stays the same, we say the river is the same, but it is actually, all the water in the river is changing, so, and the water that flows practically, it just goes off, so, like that the cells in the body are constantly changing, and the old cells don't come back, so, in that sense, it's not just growth, it's actually change, and just as the body changes thoroughly, totally, and yet the person remains the same, but this change, this thorough and total change of the body happens gradually, and that's why it doesn't register on us, but when the thorough change happens abruptly, it joins us, I mean, the soul goes from one body to another, then it joins us and we start thinking what is happening, oh, we get a little deluded, but Krishna tells Arjuna, see with the eyes of knowledge and see that actually, the soul is not changing, the soul is staying unaffected, just as the soul remains the same when the body goes through the changes within this lifetime, similarly, the soul remains the same when the body goes through change across lifetimes, and therefore, knowing the continuity of the soul across bodies, do not grieve, this is the consistent theme of this verse, Arjuna is grieving of this section, Arjuna is grieving and Krishna's mood is to counter Arjuna's grief by giving him knowledge, so, na mohiyyate, do not be deluded, Arjuna's illusion is causing him grief, sometimes illusion causes a strong desire to acquire some sense object and enjoy, but for Arjuna, the desire causes his entanglement in grief and Krishna is freeing him from grief by giving him spiritual.