"Bhishma, Drona and the rest have come like true soldiers and Kshatriyas to engage in battle. They do not weep like you. Consider that. They will never grieve or withdraw. Arjuna! This is the testing time for you, remember! Let Me tell you this also. There was never a time when I was not. Why? There was never a time when even you and all these kings and princes were not. Thath is the Paramatma, Thwam is the Jivatma; and both were the same, are the same, and will be so forever. Prior to the pot, in the pot and after the pot, it was, is and will be clay."

Arjuna was shocked into awareness and wakefulness by all this. He said, "May be You are God; may be You are indestructible. I weep not for You, but for such as us: come yesterday, present today, off tomorrow. What happens to us? Please enlighten me."

One point has to be carefully noticed here. Thath, that is the Godhead, is Nithyam, eternal; every one accepts it. But Thwam, the individual too is godhead! (Asi). It too is eternal, though it cannot be grasped so easily or so quickly. So Krishna elaborates this and says, "Arjuna! You too are eternal as the absolute. Seen apart from the limitations, the individual is the universal. Prior to the appearance of the jewel, there was just gold; during the existence of the jewel, there is just gold; and after the name-form of the jewel has gone, the gold persists. The Atma persists in the same way, body or no body.

"Though it is associated with the body, the Atma is unaffected by the Gunas and the Dharmas, that is to say, it has no qualities and characteristics. You are unaffected by the changes that the body undergoes when you grow from the infant to the boy, from the boy into the youth, from the youth to the middle-aged man and thence to the old man. You persist, in spite of all this. It is the same when the body is destroyed; the Atma persists. So the hero will not pine over the change called death." Krishna said this with such emphasis that the chariot shook!