Bg 5.15

nādatte kasyacit pāpaṁ

na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ

ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ

tena muhyanti jantavaḥ

Word for word: 

na — never; ādatte — accepts; kasyacit — anyone’s; pāpam — sin; na — nor; ca — also; eva — certainly; su–kṛtam — pious activities; vibhuḥ — the Supreme Lord; ajñānena — by ignorance; āvṛtam — covered; jñānam — knowledge; tena — by that; muhyanti — are bewildered; jantavaḥ — the living entities.

Translation: 

Nor does the Supreme Lord assume anyone’s sinful or pious activities. Embodied beings, however, are bewildered because of the ignorance which covers their real knowledge.

 

14th verse tells that the soul is not doer, svabhāvas tu pravartate, svabhāvas is material nature, so someone can ask: isn’t the supreme lord responsible for how I am made. This is addressed in this verse.

Nādatte -> ādatte means to accept, 

nādatte means Lord doesn’t accept. 

kasyacit pāpaṁ -> kasyacit means anyone, Lord doesn’t accept anyone’s papa. na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ -> Nor He steals anyone’s punya, that means Lord is not responsible for anybody’s sinful or pious activities. Then what is that which makes living entities act in that way? 

ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ -> So Gyana of living entity is covered by ajñāna, similarly Lord has responded to Arjuna’s question 3.36 in 3.39, where He has used the word āvṛtaṁ.

So ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ for whom? tena muhyanti jantavaḥ -> jantavaḥ is the living entity, the conditioned soul, the soul who is covered by the body and mind is called conditioned soul, that soul is referred to as living entity or 

jantavaḥ. tena muhyanti, muhyanti -> means the soul is put into illusion.

The first part in this verse is saying, the Supreme Lord is not responsible for anyone’s action, He doesn’t accept the actions, He doesn’t accept the reactions. Now of course when devotees surrender to Sri Krishna, Lord takes away sinful reactions and pious reactions. But we are not talking about Bhakti Yoga here, Sri Krishna has not taken to Bhakti Yoga in this Chapter, so what is He talking about? He is talking about the consciousness of Karma yogi in contrast to the conception of a Karmis, so when an ordinary materialistic person is working or Karma Yogi is working the focus is not about Krishna. So at that time Lord does not get directly involved.

nādatte kasyacit pāpaṁ

na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ

 

Lord does not accept anyone’s good or bad activities like a judge who doesn’t accept criminals’ crime nor the victims compensation, judge does as per requirement of the merits of the case, same is with the Supreme Lord. Now the question may come up, at one level it is said soul is not the doer and at the other level it is said Supreme Lord is not the doer svabhāvas tu pravartate, svabhāvas, it is the nature that is the doer so the question comes up where does this nature come from? What is the nature ? That is described by ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ, 

tena muhyanti jantavaḥ

 

By the covering of ignorance the living entity gets deluded and based on the delusion the living entity acts in self-defeating or self-destructive ways, self-defeating means they cause harm to oneself, self-destructive means soul works in a way that causes soul to lose its human body and goes to lower species, that is called hatma i.e. the killer of the soul, soul has been lost for a long time by such misdeeds. All this happens because of ajñānenāvṛtaṁ, what is this ajñāna, it can be analyzed in different ways we can refer to it as lust, 

  • lust is one type of ajñāna, 
  • Ahankar arrogance is another type of ajñāna, they are called as Anarthas, 

Anartha means those which have no artha, artha means meaning or value, so they don’t have any value i.e. they don’t have any meaning, so are these anarthas. 

We can also refer to ajñāna as goodness, passion and ignorance. They create ignorance. Fact is soul forgets who I am, its own identity and take its own sense of identity, soul instead of thinking I am part of Krishna he starts thinking that I am male, I am female, I am Indian, I am American, I am fair skin, I am dark skin, whatever all these misconception comes because of the body. 

There are three parties involved: the soul, the supreme Lord and the material nature. Now Sri Krishna has said svabhāvas tu pravartate in the previous verse, so if nature is doing everything does it mean that we are helpless and we are not responsible. No nature is making us act in a certain way but even among natural urges, there are certain urges or certain pushes we can say which can be dovetailed and certain things which have to be curtailed. E.g. Varnik propensities can be dovetailed in Sri Krishna’s service, on other hand six anarthas (lust, anger, greed, pride and illusion) should be curtailed. Both of these are the result of our material identification, our situation in the body and our identification with the body, but some of them can be utilized, some of them have to be controlled. In one way even if a person thinks he is Brahmana that is also ajñāna, as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said Na Aham Vipro Na che Narpati like that he rejects identification of all the varnas and all the ashramas. He said I am a simple servant of Sri Krishna, Servant of Lord of the Gopis. That is true at the pure liberated level, at the Sadhaka Level we understand intellectually and we accept in principle that I am a soul then understand that the body has a particular nature. So I act according to the nature, but when I act at the body level I don’t become infatuated or elated because of the body e.g. if I am Brahmana I can speak very well and if I think I am very good or very clever then I become elated, that I can do things for which people praise me then I become Karta, he ati manyate on the other hand I am Brahman and I cannot speak well etc. and so I am dejected oh I am good for nothing but that is also another form of illusion, so whatever bodily facility I have I will use them in Sri Krishna’s service and that way I will make steady spiritual advancement, when I will make spiritual advancement in this way I will move forward steadily and ultimately return to Sri Krishna once I transcend the mode, this is how everyone in varna system can be elevated in Spirituality according to their nature and they can eventually attain liberation. So the ajnana is definitely there but different aspects of ajnana has to be dealt differently, so whether one is  Kshatriya, Vasya or Sudra everyone is having lust even Brahmana has lust, now different people in different Varna and ashram deals with lust differently but they all have to regulate lust to some extent, so these six anarthas the extent to which it can be expressed will vary so Kshatriya can have polygamy, can have many wives and can live in opulent palaces ,can have lot of wealth also that is within the varnic duties and the varnic arrangements, within the varna that is accepted by scriptures. 

ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ, we are covered by ignorance and it makes us behave in a particular way, when we identify with this behavior and think that as the essence and let our desire caught completely in what we are seeking according to our bodily nature then we will become entangled, but when we will understand that this is my bodily nature and I act according to this but I am different from this, I am a soul and as a soul I’m meant to love & serve Sri Krishna, then the bondage will not be there, in fact when we work in that way we stay free from bondage, so now Sri Krishna will talk about how to become free from ajnana. 

Sril Prabhupad: Being in a bewildered condition, therefore, the embodied soul identifies himself with the circumstantial material body and becomes subjected to the temporary misery and happiness of life.

Circumstantial material body, normally we think of circumstantial meeting, but from the point of eternity the material body is also circumstantial, its temporary and we have got it, certain circumstances certain desires came up in our mind, those desire develop and we become attached to those things and we develop certain kind of thought process at the time of death and accordingly we get this body, it is largely circumstantial, of course we are not the victim of circumstances, we cooperate with the circumstances, we chose desire accordingly, so in that sense we are also partial responsible but the use of word circumstances indicates that there is nothing intrinsic that connects us to the body we are different from the body.

eṣa u hy eva sādhu karma kārayati taṁ yam ebhyo lokebhya unninīṣate. eṣa u evāsādhu karma kārayati yam adho ninīṣate: (“The Lord engages with the living entity in pious activities so that he may be elevated. The Lord engages him in impious activities so that he may go to hell.” (Kauṣītakī Upaniṣad 3.8))

esa means Lord sādhu karma kārayati -> That Lord makes the living entity do good activity, taṁ yam ebhyo lokebhya unninīṣate -> unninīṣate relates with word unnati means to progress, that which elevated the living entity. 

eṣa u evāsādhu karma kārayati yam adho ninīṣate -> āsādhu karma un-pious activity. ninīṣate means lower the living entity may go to the lower places. Now this verse raises a question: does Lord engage us in good activity or bad activity, or do we engage ourselves, both are there. Actually unless Lord Sanctions nothing will happen but it is we who desire, so after we desire Lord engages accordingly. The emphasis on this verse is that the Lord is facilitating us. The Lord is not per say prima facie engaging us, the Lord is facilitating our desires and Srila Prabhupad also quotes here 

ajño jantur anīśo ’yam

ātmanaḥ sukha-duḥkhayoḥ

īśvara-prerito gacchet

svargaṁ vāśv abhram eva ca

“The living entity is completely dependent in his distress and happiness. By the will of the Supreme he can go to heaven or hell, as a cloud is driven by the air.”

 

So the same point is made over here

ajño jantur anīśo ’yam -> anīśo ’yam -> Isha means controller, anisha means non controller, so this Jantu is ajnya and is anishoyam, is ignorant and is not in control and sukha-duḥkhayoḥ. We are not in control. It is like a soldier on the battlefield and his arms have fallen, so he is in a situation where any time a bullet will come and hit him, similarly we are in such a situation, any time our Karmic reactions can come and hit us. So our condition is very devastating, so this is the way we are completely dependent. When problems come we will deal with them, yes we should deal with them according to our capacity but our capacity is also limited, sometimes someone is living a normal life and the person gets a terrible disease or terminal disease and what can the person do? He will go from one end of globe to other to check if some treatment is available but if no treatment is available then the person has to accept that this inning is going to over another inning will come, (we are not body we are soul), if I am purified then I will continue in spiritual world otherwise I will continue with Sadhana Bhakti, but if we don’t understand that I am not body and I am a soul then it is sad, it is like a candle being extinguished by one blow, it is very helpless condition. If we understand we are greater than our body and our lifetime is greater than the lifetime of this body then that expands and enriches our conception of existence. That is the only thing that can bring us hope when one is in such grim situation other time we may have other hope of course many hopes turn out to be false, other hope keep going on, but when we have no hope in material life we must have hope in spiritual life otherwise we may not have any hope at all.

Therefore the embodied soul, by his immemorial desire to avoid Kṛṣṇa consciousness, causes his own bewilderment. – Immemorial means we just can’t know when it has started or how it has started. Since the desire is going on for a long-long time.

 

Prabhupada is balancing here, first he says lord engages then he quotes from Vedanta Sutra (Vedanta Sutra is like conclusion of upanishad) 

The Vedānta-sūtras (2.1.34) also confirm this. Vaiṣamya-nairghṛṇye na sāpekṣatvāt tathā hi darśayati: “The Lord neither hates nor likes anyone, though He appears to.”

na sāpekṣatvāt -> There is no pakṣa that Lord takes, the Lord neither hates nor likes anybody but it appears like that, it may appear that the Lord has made somebody wealthy, the Lord has made some body poor, but it is not like that, Lord has done that according to their own Karma, according to their activities in the past, the Lord is impartial. na sāpekṣatvāt Lord does not take sides.