Gita 02.29 – Perception, verbalization, reception and incomprehension wrt soul are all amazing

Hare Krishna so today we will discuss from the Bhagavad Gita chapter 2 verse 29 aashcharya vatpashyati kashchidhenam aashcharya vachainam anyai shranoti aashcharya vatpashyati kashchidhenam aashcharya vadvatadithai vachanya aashcharya vachainam anyai shranoti shrutvaphenam vedana chaiva kashchid so this is a peculiar verse peculiar in the sense that it is talking about something quite different from the mood it seems you see actually Arjuna is distressed is in grief and while Arjuna is in grief at that time it is unlikely that somebody will feel the emotion of amazement what somebody will feel instead of time is distress, horror agony and Arjuna has expressed it to that extent also that and Krishna has also acknowledged it saying that so Krishna is talking about aashcharya he is not referring to the immediate feeling which Arjuna may have at this particular moment he is referring more to the general principle of how people will react when they recognize that the within their body is the eternal soul so that emotion may not come immediately because the understanding the registering of the idea of the soul may take time so amazement which Krishna is referring to is it is more of a response that comes when Tamsin intellectually registers it is like when there is a joke there is a movement there is a pause before people get the joke and when they get the joke then they start laughing so there is a comprehension required now of course this is a simplistic example and understanding of the soul is far more graver than just a joke but then that is the point that Krishna is saying that once people understand then it will be amazing so he is now using the word Aashcharya Vat Aashcharya Vat Vat means it can mean like but basically amazing so now prior to this Krishna has told Arjuna that the soul is Achintoyam, it is inconceivable Avyaktoyam it is invisible so when it is all this Achintoyam, Avyaktoyam then at that time what does it mean that it cannot be seen it cannot be conceived and that is what Arjuna is asking now ok if the soul cannot be seen if the soul cannot be conceived then how do I actually grasp the concept of the soul so then Krishna is saying actually it is amazing it is not so easy to grasp but when you grasp it it will be amazing so to some extent it is like a teaser sometimes we have a brain teaser the brain teaser requires some time to grasp but once we grasp it then it is amazing to grasp so Aashcharya Vat Pashyati Kashyate Nam so some people perceive of the soul as amazing that means that when they perceive the soul Pashyati, in other words Pashyati means to see and Krishna has talked about Pashyati in the sense of of course there is a philosophical seeing and then after that there is a realized seeing there is a seeing with Jnana Chakshu where one understands and thereafter one sees and after that there is actually direct perception Sakshat, which happens when one gets actually spiritualized, one raises one's consciousness to spiritual level and sees at that level so here Krishna is talking about seeing at that level that level is the spiritual level where one perceives spiritual reality at the highest possible level so Pashyati so now actually when one intellectually understands that I am not the body, I am the soul and then one perceives the soul, it's like a defining moment in one's spiritual life in one's life at large who I thought and who I am is so different it is almost like a person who is a millionaire and who has forgotten his identity as a millionaire and is living as a pauper and that person suddenly gets a moment of Eureka Eureka is an expression which is immortalized as what Archimedes is supposed to have said when he saw when he realized how to test the purity of gold and ran unclothed to the king to tell him about it, so basically Eureka is an exclamation when people understand something which is not understood before, it's a moment when inspiration akin to a revolution comes along and Eureka moment means the moment when one gets that inspiration akin to a revolution inspiration akin to a revolution so when people get that when we ourselves in our spiritual life get that it will be like a Eureka moment in our life that is the soul so now if we see there are four levels talked about and it is a level of descending comprehension so Pashyati is considered the highest level of comprehension now at one level we often say that we should not say seeing is believing but even the scripture Darshan of Krishna in terms of seeing him is considered special and only very rare and special people get Darshan of Krishna so similarly it is only rare people who can see the soul of course we all can see when we get but it takes time so that is special and Krishna talks about that here when he says Pashyati that is the highest level of perception now below that there is one more level of perception and that is the perception at the level of it's not actually perception it's one level below in comprehension that is so somebody is speaking about it so that means now for example most of us when we understand about the soul we start sharing Krishna's message with others and when we tell others also actually you are not the body you are the soul when we speak like this it is not that we have realized it but though we have not realized it we still speak about it because it is such important news that we want to share it with others it just like if there is a cure for a very rare disease and we have started taking the cure and we have experienced some benefit to some extent we have been healed although not fully but whatever extent we have been healed we feel that oh this is wonderful and I want to experience this wonderfulness more and more and I want others to also experience the magic therefore let me share this with others and the more we speak about it the more we are forced to contemplate on it and the more we find it amazing suppose if we realize that so if we realize that this is actually amazing that there is something called a soul and I don't even realize it so how do we go ahead from there we speak about it suppose we are giving a class and there are people who are hearing we are speaking that the body is soul and we see all people you know wearing different dresses, having different bodily and facial features and different complexion we realize actually beyond all this diversity all of them are souls that is amazing and when we realize it it is like a eureka moment it is not really that we have understood it it is not that we are perceiving those people as souls it is not that we are perceiving them as sparks of spirit in their heart but just the fact that we are speaking about it and because of that we are thinking about it and that itself is a momentous discovery so highest level is we directly perceive it one level below that is we speak about it as a sadhana towards perceiving it and by that also we keep perceiving it the next level is that we don't perceive it but one level below that we actually hear about it so first time say we go to some satsang or we read the bhagavad gita and find actually there is a soul inside the body and the soul is the real me how is it possible? it is amazing news that we get and that news is very revolutionary life transforming and it can really the change in the change it can bring about if I am not the body and the soul then I should be investing time for the real me imagine we are working very hard and all our money is going for someone else why are we working so hard? if we love that person and that person also loves us then putting in all that money for that person is good but if that person doesn't love us and we don't care for that person then putting in all that money is useless so similarly actually if we recognize this point that we are all eternal souls and when we hear it and it starts registering into us then it becomes amazing so therefore those who hear about it they are also amazing they also find it amazing so of course here we are talking about people who speak about it who see it and they find it amazing knowledge of the soul, people who hear about it and they find it amazing people who speak about it as they speak more about it they also understand it and they also understand it more and they also find it amazing and there are people they hear it but still they don't understand it and that is tragic tragic because ultimately we all want to understand some things and if we don't understand then we can't move forward in our life so those who some people just can't understand how do you believe in a soul you have never seen it how can something like that exist and they also find it amazing so in this way some people are now here we have applied the adjective amazing to the soul some people see the soul see the soul as amazing some people hear it as amazing some people speak it as amazing and some people just can't understand it how can you believe something like that exists their amazing applies in the sense of unbelievable of course the word amazing is not used in the fourth line but that is the point they also can't understand for them it's amazing in the sense of absurd unbelievable how can something like that exist either way the whole point is that everybody is bound is deluded about the soul like this now Baldevidya Bhushan does some elaborate analysis and he explains how can apply to any of them it can apply to the people and it can apply to the action also so applying to the people means some amazing people see the soul they are most rare they have spiritual perception some amazing people speak about the soul even those who are preachers sharing this knowledge they are amazing because how many people are there like that who actually understood the soul and are speaking about it and some amazing people hear about the soul so actually the people who come to the temples read spiritual books and come to know about the spiritual identity they are also few so they are also amazing and some people amazing people don't understand the soul itself you know for advanced spiritualists who can see spiritual side of things they just can't understand how people can't understand it's actually so obvious how can dead matter come alive you have to be non-material consciousness has to be non-material so when people can't understand it they consider those people to be amazing so the adjective can apply to the people and similarly it can apply to the action also so in a sentence there is a subject, object and word so the adjective can apply to any of these that means some people amazingly see the soul some people amazingly speak about the soul some people amazingly hear about the soul and some people amazingly can't comprehend the soul so those actions of seeing the soul are amazing, actions of speaking about the soul are also amazing so in this way essentially the point which Krishna emphasizes through this is that actually we are all that it is quite a significant intellectual step forward for us in moving forward in our understanding of the soul and each step in that journey will be amazing so he is implicitly telling Arjuna that rather than being at the fourth level of amazing in the sense of being amazingly stupid amazingly unfortunate in terms of not understanding soul at all move onwards and come to the level of becoming amazingly enlightened and seeing the soul thank you.