BG 2.20

na jayate mriyate va kadacin

nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah

ajo nityah sasvato ‘yam purano

na hanyate hanyamane sarire

SYNONYMS

na — never; jayate — takes birth; mriyate — dies; va — either; kadacit — at any time (past, present or future); na — never; ayam — this; bhutva — having come into being; bhavita — will come to be; va — or; na — not; bhuyah — or is again coming to be; ajah — unborn; nityah — eternal; sasvatah — permanent; ayam — this; puranah — the oldest; na — never; hanyate — is killed; hanyamane — being killed; sarire — the body.

TRANSLATION

For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain, when the body is slain.

The most important line for Arjuna is na hanyate hanyamane sarire. When the body is destroyed the soul is not destroyed. Soul which is part of Krishna will not be destroyed.

na jayate mriyate va kadacin, the soul does not take birth; the soul does not die, what does it mean? na jayate mriyate, na jayate means it will not take birth. A similar word is used—Ajo is unborn, not taking birth. Why are these two similar words used, is there any meaning? For example, if we say child hasn’t taken birth, it means the child is in the womb. Here what is the meaning of the word Ajo? Ajo refers to the meaning that souls doesn’t come to existence at a particular time. When we say that somebody has taken birth it has entered into existence at a particular time, and if the entry is at a particular time the exit should also be at some time. So the soul is beyond the dimension of time. Soul is transcendental. Ajo doesn’t mean non-existence; Ajo means it does not come to birth, it doesn’t come to the domain of time. It is always eternal.

In this whole section, Sri Krishna is using the Upanishadic negation strategy of Naiti-Naiti (Na-ati not this-not this). Soul does not die, it is immeasurable. It covers the soul indirectly because the body and soul apparently are merged together. So Krishna is separating the body and soul for our understanding of what is soul.

na jayate, soul never takes birth. The concept of soul in most religious traditions is quite hazy.

For example in Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) they talk about the soul, but when they talk about the soul their talk is mostly a metaphorical reference to non-material essence within us.

It is something essential which survives. And as a metaphorical reference to our non-material reference, the soul is not often taken literally as an entity. Now, in Abrahamic religion there are several branches which have their own ideas, but prominently there is not much knowledge about the soul in these scriptures. And in overall traditions, the reference of soul happens, but it comes more as a metaphorical reference to our non-material essence. In the BG and Vedic scriptures, they treat the soul ontologically (pertaining to nature of existence, pertaining to reality as it is), a higher dimensional entity. So within every living entity, there is a conscious being called soul. It is not some hazy conception, it is an actual being, actual object.

For example; somebody can say, Love God with all Thy heart, all Thy mind and all Thy soul. So when we say, all Thy soul, what are we referring over here? Actually the heart gets its consciousness from the soul. The heart gets its emotion from the soul. The body gets energy from the soul, so here the soul is referred to in a metaphorical sense.

So the meaning here is, put your essential being into loving. So the use of soul in a metaphorical sense is not wrong. For example; when we say, put your heart and soul in doing service, what do it imply? The heart here itself is used metaphorically. It is not that I have to take my heart from chest, and out it in the service. When we are referring to the heart, we are not referring to the biological hearts that beats and circulate blood all over the body; we are referring to the metaphorical heart which is the seat of all emotions. Putting your heart in doing service means to do the service with all your emotions, as Sri Krishna says regarding the soul metaphorically, as the seat of consciousness.

Sometimes we use metaphor, put ones heart and soul into something, the philosophical point from this is, I am not the body but I am the soul which is correct. Sometimes, we also use MY SOUL which is a conventional usage. In reality, Soul—I am the essential being, and it is our entire being. So that’s with respect to understanding of souls in various traditions.

We discussed earlier that broad religious practices in the world can be classified into two that revives Abrahamic religions .

The Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam they are often historically around, something specific that has happened in history and is centered on it. For example, Mosses taking the selected people from Egypt to Promised land Jerusalem, or Jesus appearance or Mohamed’s coming they are history centered.

Dharmic religions are Budhism, Janinism, Hinduism, Sikhism. There are also historic events there and those are very significant. But they are more in search of principles of Dharma. Understanding the universal that underlies the universe and harmonizing with those principles that is the focus of Dharmic religions

In Dharmic religion: Buddhism has a peculiar conception; there is re-incarnation but there is no soul. (Whereas Christianity accepts the soul, but doesn’t accept reincarnation. They consider only one life). So we wonder if there is reincarnation? There has to be something which goes from one body to another. But they say, no-no there is no such thing which goes from one body to another. Because there is no such thing they say, our sense of “I” ness is a flow of residue of consciousness. There is just a flow of consciousness moving, there is no soul, it is just a stream of consciousness moving forward. And that stream of consciousness exists in the next life also. What then re-incarnates is a big question, even among Buddhist thinkers for a very long time. There is no such thing as soul, and it is called as Anatavad.

Since, general people misunderstood the concept of sacrifice as mentioned in the Vedas; meat eating became rampant. Lord Buddha said, out of compassion: “how can we allow killing so many animals? So stop killing animals and eating meat.” Thus, Lord Buddha didn’t espouse the Vedic scripture. The problem with that stance was, without Vedas it is very difficult to understand absolute truth.

Lord Buddha’s teaching is practical. He doesn’t even go into metaphysics much. When someone asked Lord Buddha, “are you a God?” He said “no.” The next question to Buddha, “are you an angel?” He said “no.” Finally, he was asked, are you Supreme? With humility, He replied, “no.” The questions continued; as the seeker trying to understand Budha’s identity, asked “Who are you?”

Buddha said, “I am awake, that is all.” At that time somebody asked him, is soul different from body? He remained silent. The question continued, “is soul the same as body?” He remained silent. Finally the seeker went away.

Buddha’s disciple enquired from him, “Why didn’t you answer? He answered, “the person was asking a question from a platform of ignorance.” So whatever I would have answered, would have only increased his ignorance. Thus, I decided not to answer.

Buddha mostly avoided metaphysical answers. His teachings are more on the concept of morality. Try to bring people in goodness, right thought, right actions etc. It was moving people to goodness, so that eventually people receive Vedic wisdoms and attain transcendence. Buddhism is not atheist, but a pre-theistic religion.

Buddha stressed, “don’t talk about God, focus on morality. Focus on practical action.” Lord Buddha didn’t said, that there is no God, but he said focus on goodness for improving your behavior.

Neo-Buddhism

Later on some thinkers imported something which was not teachings of Buddha. So one of them was atheism and another of them was rejection of the soul. So Buddhism emerged from Hinduism—of course, the word Hindu was not there at that time—but Vedic traditions were there. So Buddhist emerged as a rebel or reformation tradition out of the Vedic traditions, rejecting the societal imposition of the caste system, and animal sacrifices in the Vedic texts. Thus, Buddhism established itself as an independent body of thought; although drawing heavily from the vedic wisdom in order to establish philosophical autonomy which means we are distinct and not just an offshoot of Hinduism.

Buddhism tried to come up with these ideas after Gautham Buddha left this planet, and one of the idea was Anathava – there is no soul at all. So the idea is Hindus believe in soul, we don’t believe in soul; that way they try to divorce themselves from Hinduism.

So it is an unsuitable idea; for example they said there is a flame in a candle which appears the same, but it is changing continuously and before extinguishing the flame is transferred to another candle. Similarly, consciousness keeps on changing; although because of continuity it appears the same. So this is a misapplied example.

Bhagavatam also gives an example in the 11th canto. We are different from the material world, and in the material world everything is changing. For example, I see this table or this wall as continuous, but things are constantly changing. If we look at the microscopic level, matter is always in flux. It is continuously created and destroyed; so there is change, but there is an illusion of continuity because of persistence of vision. Example a torch or candle when moved in circular form, it seems as if there is a circle of light; although it is not, because our eyes persist with whatever we see for a few moments. But there is a continuous observer who sees things as continuous.

So when we talk about the soul, the mind and the body: consciousness in the material world is continuously changing, but there is a seat of consciousness, there is a source of consciousness which is continuous. And this is very important to understand: what is the difference between soul and consciousness?

The soul is the locus (central point) of consciousness, or it is the root of consciousness. In the candle example, the candle is the source of flame, but that is incorrect as the body is not the source of consciousness. The soul is the source of consciousness. And the body being matter, it has no capacity to produce consciousness. The body is the route through which consciousness is expressed in the world.

Material manifestation of consciousness is changing, for example our mood changes, our thoughts keep changing. But I as a person remain the same. Similarly the body is changing, and the consciousness expressed through the body is also changing, but the person who is the observer or source remains the same.

We are discussing how there are various misconceptions which come about the soul. And the BG gives the clear conception.

Christianity: In Christian religion, the idea is that the soul is semi-eternal, what do we mean by this? Actually in Christian traditions, reincarnation is accepted. There are references to reincarnation in the Bible also not explicitly, but implicitly there are many prophets who are considered to be re-incarnation of previous Prophets. And similarly Jesus talks about re-incarnation: once Jesus asked his disciple, alluding to a blind person, “why is this person blind?” Disciple said, because of this person’s wrong misdeed, or because of parent’s misdeed? So Jesus said, in that particular case, “it is neither,” as that person’s blindness is meant to demonstrate glories of God, and he ensured that the blind person gets eyes. So the point over here is, Jesus does not reject the idea that a person could have done something wrong.

So there are two possibilities presented before Jesus, that person did something wrong, or the parent did something wrong? In that person’s case, Jesus removes blindness, but is it that all blind person’s blindness is removed? So what Jesus demonstrated to us was an exceptional case of mercy, but what about the universal occurrence of blindness? What is the reason for that?

Jesus does not give a philosophical answer here. What he does say is important, but what he does not say is also very important. He does not refute the idea that the person would have been responsible. Now, how is the person responsible if he was born blind? What could the person would have done to born blind?

Re-incarnation is a general word where there is pre-existence and after life phenomena. After life means when we die life continues, that is called after life, and preexistence means before we are born life continues. We continue to exist. In Christianity pre-existence is not accepted, as it is now, but Jesus does not outrightly reject the possibility that the person could have done something wrong. So when did the person do something wrong that means preexistence. It means in the life earlier to this life. In that case we can say, certainly reincarnation is not incompatible to Christian tradition or wisdom although it may not be accepted.

Satyaraj Prabhu one of the scholar devotee has written a book reincarnation controversy – in this book it is written, how concept of reincarnation is banished from Christianity during the rule of Constantine due to a complex web of theo-politics which means politics connected with religion.

In the initial phase of Christianity, the Romans were ruling Europe, as well as the parts of Israel (Jerusalem, where Jesus was born). Christians have started preaching and as they started preaching and spreading many of them were persecuted by Romans for the first 2-3 centuries. By the fourth century the Roman empire itself collapsed, because of internal decay. And at that time to bring back basic morality, the Roman emperor adopted Christianity as the official religion. This was a remarkable change in the trajectory of Christianity after being persecuted for centuries. It certainly became the religion of power. And then it was quite tragic that Christians started doing the same things to other which was done to them. They started persecuting all other people who had different believes from them.

So Heathens, Pagans, Jews all these people were severely persecuted in the next 1000 – 1500 years when the Roman Catholic Church had tremendous political power. There were inquisitions (any person who has heretical beliefs) which were held, for example there was a thinker called Bruno and he talked about the immortality of the soul and existence of other worlds, because of this reason he was burnt alive.

So this was to give an overview of how the idea of eternity of the soul, preexistence and multiple incarnations were banished from Christianity. At that time when the Roman Emperor had accepted Christianity, the focus was not on philosophical fidelity, not on accurately following Christianity; the primary focus was on political expediency (what was convenient).

The king wanted to maintain the rule and for that people need to have some basic morality. And their thinking was that, if it is told to people that you have many chances, people will not be seriously following morality which would imply defiance to the king.

Because the king was considered to be the representative of God, so the Roman empire now became the holy Roman empire. And the holy Roman emperor is considered to be God. So the king impressed upon people, this is the only life—better to live in fear of God, following the laws—or eternal hell is awaiting to be awarded by the king for violating the rules. So these were the reasons, how reincarnation ideas were suppressed.

There was a prominent Christian thinker Oregon, just next to Saint Augustine was one of the most prominent earlier thinkers. Oregon was almost second in rank and he had talked about reincarnation, but he was anathematised, his teachings were declared as deviant especially about the reincarnation of the soul were also rejected.

That is how in Christianity the idea of soul is rejected and what happens when the idea of reincarnation is discarded? There are several serious issues. For example the inequity of this world can’t be explained why this person is born blind, and this person is born with eyes? No explanation for that, it just becomes arbitrary. Fine, if this is the way things are, and this is the way you have to accept that. So if you understand that there is a past life and people get consequences for what they have done in the same life, as well as in future lives: then we understand that we were responsible for our choices, and by making better choices we can create a better future for ourselves.

So accepting God’s goodness becomes difficult; when God is seen as partial and arbitrary, some people have been given eyes and some people have not been given eyes. Likewise, it is very difficult to explain that some people are born with wealth and some are born poor. The question that arises, “Why like this? Such things become very-very difficult to explain.

Example; in Cricket match one team is starting with 200 and another team with 0. So one will wonder; why it is like this that team is starting with 200. So there are two possibility; the organizers have fixed the match. They have conspired for one team to win or another possibility is that the scoreboard works by chance, somehow by chance the scoreboards becomes 200. Now both of these alternatives are very unsatisfactory.

In our day to day life things don’t work with such a degree of randomness. Students study, get knowledge and get marks. So the second idea is that the scoreboard is working by chance. In the game, the batsman got a 6 and found that on the scoreboard the score became minus (-) 6. So what is the point of playing? So even in something as recreational as sports (not that much serious) we understand that there is a cause-effect connection. So do this and this will happen. So in real life, if we see there is no connection between what we do and what we get, then it is a situation of helplessness. I hit sixer after sixer and the score gets negative and more negative and another person just defends and his scores keep on increasing, that will become absurd. So we don’t operate in life like this. In reality as we act, accordingly the results arrive. So the idea that the things works by chance, someone born wealthy and someone poor because of just bad luck that makes doctrine of helplessness.

On the other hand the idea that, there is a God who is biased, is even worse. The idea that God makes things go wrong, why? So when it is asked, the answer is actually, we can’t know why. Is it the will of God? And we have to accept the will of God. So all this makes things very complex. The idea that there is God, but God arbitrarily decides some to be born blind and someone very rich, this makes God very discriminatory like a match organizer who gives extra marks to one team.

Some say we cannot understand the will of God. Yes, that is fine. We cannot understand the will of God in specific situations, but there should be some broad understanding of God. Otherwise how will we develop love for God, if God is so arbitrary to do anything to anyone?

Actually when faced with these two alternatives that everything happens by chance, and there is no God in control; or God is in control, and God acts arbitrarily both are unacceptable. It becomes very difficult to stomach the idea of arbitrary God. Many people, even if they have an inclination to believe in God, they prefer atheism because these things are happening by chance and that is much more intellectually acceptable, but it is incorrect. There is a third alternative: a controller who has set causal laws that equitably govern the functioning from the microcosm to the macrocosm. And things which appear to be arbitrary, in reality are working within that framework of universal laws.

It is possible that one team score is 200, and another team score is 0, because this is the second innings. In the previous inning the team has got a lead and that lead is reflected over here. Similarly, one person is born wealthy because that person has done something good in previous life, and past life karma is carried forward to this life.

So there is a controller, things are not happening by chance. But also the controller doesn’t act arbitrarily, rather works on what we have done previously. There are laws which take care of things, but the controller is overseeing the operation of those laws. So the controller is not arbitrary, we get what we deserve. According to the way we act, we get the results. So this is very sanity restoring and hope engendering understanding.

Sanity because things are not insane such as there is an arbitrary God nor is that things happens by chance. No, there is order and God is overseeing the order.

This gives us hope that God is in-charge, and if I act properly now, I can create a brighter future for myself. We are discussing all this to understand that the knowledge of soul and reincarnation has a positive effect on our life.

If we think to ourselves that we are just a lump of matter, then it makes life meaningless.

So na jayate mriyate was the context.

In most Christianity denominations the idea is that soul is semi eternal, every time a man and women unite that time a soul is created. Because there is no concept of reincarnation, so there is no preexistence, and the soul is having only one life time and in that lifetime if the soul accepts Jesus as savior, the soul will go back to God to live happily. Otherwise the soul will go to hell and burn in the fire of hell forever.

This raises serious questions about the kindness of God. What happens to those people who were born in a place where they never hear about Jesus. So will they all go to hell forever? Just because they were born at a particular place, why God made them born there. If there is no previous life, there is no reason why they are made to be born in such a place; where they will not hear about Jesus and they go to hell.

What about those souls who came before Jesus, they never heard about Jesus; since they came after Jesus. How will they be delivered?

Christians think that “Thou should not be killed is a generic statement”, not meant for animals etc. and what about abortion where human babies are killed? What about the soul who is aborted…and if their reply is that those souls are innocent, so they go back to God, then why not abort everyone so that everyone goes back to God?

The idea of only one lifetime is a serious logical flaw, that God gives only one chance and that also not a serious chance. Its only one chance you have got, and if you don’t utilize that properly, you have lost it forever. Strikingly enough, even ordinary parents give their children more than one chance, so what to talk about the Supreme parent who is supposed to be supremely compassionate.

So this idea of Ajaha means that the soul is eternal. So the soul is eternal…no beginning and no end…

In Christianity thinkers have the opinion that the soul has a beginning but no end which is a peculiar idea. But that is their idea. Such ideas are refuted by clear reference in BG that is Ajaha. The soul is unborn.

So further when Krishna says nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah, what it indicates is, Srila Prabhupada has translated this into Soul. It does not come into being and will not come into being, the soul exists beyond time dimensions. The concept of coming into being is the concept of coming into the dimension of time. So the soul is never within the time dimension, it is beyond the time dimension.

Srila Prabhupada Purport: In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (1.2.18) we also find a similar passage, which reads:

na jāyate mriyate vā kadacin

nāyaṁ kutaścin na babhūva kaścit

ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo

na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre

vipaścin means consciousness, or the capacity to discriminate vipaśchita Krishna will be using later in the same chapter of BG. Only nāyaṁ kutaścin na babhūva kaścit line is different which means we have similar verses in BG which are mentioned in Upanishad.

The soul is conscious and the soul does not undergo six changes; only the body undergoes six changes.The soul is eternally youthful.

Srila Prabhupada has quoted:

There are two kinds of souls – namely the minute particle soul (aṇu-ātmā) and the Supersoul (vibhu-ātmā). This is also confirmed in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (1.2.20) in this way:

aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān

ātmāsya jantor nihito guhāyām

tam akratuḥ paśyati vīta-śoko

dhātuḥ prasādān mahimānam ātmanaḥ

There are two birds. One is eating good fruit happily and bad fruits miserably. Another bird is observing calmly, observing the bird is super soul and eating the bird is the soul. Soul is trying to enjoy through the body while it is sometimes enjoying, and other times suffering, yet it continues in material existence. If the soul can turn towards super soul and understand super soul, it can become free from all miseries. So this is about how the soul regains its eternal nature.