XXXIV - Page 355 Home | Index | Previous | Next

Identify yourself with the Divinity not with your Body

Krishna continued, "I want to tell you one other thing, the blind father of these evil cousins of yours had 100 sons, yet in the end there was not even one of them left to perform his funeral rites. What is the reason for this? All these sons were the children of God, but the blind king considered them as his. Arjuna, you are also becoming a brother to him. You are deluding yourself with the idea that this body is yours when it really is not yours, at all. By thinking that you are the body, you are developing the same blind outlook. That is complete ignorance. Unless you drive away this ignorance, you will not be able to realize wisdom. You have to develop discrimination and self-inquiry in order for wisdom to enter into you.

"Within your body is the spiritual heart, and within that heart is God. Also in your body is the individual soul. These two, God and the individual, appearing to live separately inside the body, are playing together, acting out their parts in a grand drama. They come together and go apart again, as directed by the author who has written this play. He assigns all the separate roles of good and bad, virtue and sin. But, in truth, there is only the one divinity that plays all these parts.

"From the standpoint of the body, there is the individualized soul manifested as this particular person of body and mind, and there is God who is the indweller of the heart. As long as you have the delusion of the body, these two, God and the soul remain separate entities enjoying their play with each other. As soon as the delusion disappears, they merge into the one all-pervasive divine principle. When you remove the false delusion of body consciousness, you bring about the union of the individual and God. Then you are established in divine consciousness and enjoy eternal bliss."

Teaching in this way, Krishna was able to impart to Arjuna the knowledge for becoming a wise being and the means for reaching the bliss of non-duality. He said, "Arjuna, always have the sense that everything which exists is one and the same entity. Do not allow the senses to pull you away from this feeling of unity and equanimity. Let your heart be free from sorrow and elation, attachment and hatred. Be unaffected by censure or praise. Treat all people equally."

Krishna told Arjuna, "When you firmly believe that everything in this creation is the manifestation of divinity, then you will become steeped in wisdom and freed from illusion. Then you will have realized the true purpose for which you have been born as a human being. Arjuna! Carry out my commands! See me everywhere! Know me to be your very self, the atma! Realize the atma and be forever free!"