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20. He is never born, nor does he ever die, or having once come into being will he again cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, changeless and ancient. Even though the body is killed, he (the soul) is not slain.
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The nature of soul and its four most important qualities are described here, besides the fact that it is different from the physical body and indestructible. Man's behavior towards himself and towards others depends entirely upon the way he considers himself, upon the identity he gives to himself. If he thinks that he is mere physical body and subject to mortality, he would lead a very narrow and insecure life. The body becomes the center of his life and activities, the cause of his relationships with others and the source of all his suffering and enjoyment. It becomes his very identity, his clutch in an otherwise confusing world.
If you look carefully at today's world, it becomes very clear that at the centare of our civilization and our whole field of activity is our chief concern for our physical existence, its perpetuation and protection. Whether we are waging wars, increasing our wealth, exploring the world or the space, making scientific discoveries, organizing ourselves into groups, associations, institutions and nations, making laws, building monuments or cities or technologies and making or breaking relationships, and illusions, the main objective is to increase our bodily comforts and luxuries and achieve maximum physical pleasure and recreation or enjoyment. It is as if the whole society is obsessed with the needs of the body, its survival and continuity.
No wonder if we want to bring a radical change in our attitude and outlook we must grow out of this awareness into a different awareness where the body no more occupies the central place. One reason why religions put so much emphasis on practicing austerities, negation of the body and discipline of the body is to divert our attention from physical comforts to spiritual goals.
Attachment to ones family, place, tribe, caste, nation, or race is also borne out of ones love and attachment to ones own body. I love my family because they are related to me physically. I love my native place because that is where I am born and grown physically and where I have experienced diverse sensations and finer feelings. I love that place because it enriched me physically, nutritionally, materially and psychologically. I love my tribe or caste because we all share common ancestry and are in a way physically related. I love my nation because its welfare and success ensures my physical welfare and success, with its people I share a sense of common physical identity, culture and history, and its image is but an extension of my own
image, the collective physical image of all the people who live there and share the resources there. I love my race because I belong to it physically, can relate myself to it genetically and share with it many identical features, resources and common heritage, because in its welfare lies my ultimate welfare and because it gives me the feeling that I am part of larger brotherhood.
Arjuna's suffering is born out of similar attitude. The people with whom he is going to wage a war are in fact related to him. They are but an extension of his physical identity, a part of his collective ego and image. Any harm to them is in a way harm to himself. And unless he stops identifying himself with his physical being, he cannot change his habitual thinking and become truly spiritual.
Commentary by Jayaram V
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