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Our series on the second chapter of Bhagavad-gita continues with the detailed study of the science of the soul, given by Sri Kṛṣṇa Himself. Before we can engage in spiritual life, we must know who we really are. The material body is just a temporary shell. The real self is the eternal soul.

na tv evaham jatu nasam
na tvam neme janadhipah
na caiva na bhavisyamah
sarve vayam atah param

“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.12]

Kṛṣṇa began teaching Arjuna in Bhagavad-gita 2.11, by chastising him, “You do not know anything; still, you are talking as if you were a learned man.” That is the symptom of a person without any spiritual knowledge. Almost everyone in this material world is without any spiritual knowledge. Still, they are proud of their learning, their knowledge, their degrees. They will talk on and on about all kinds of material subjects.

But if you ask them to explain the difference between a living body and a dead body, or between matter and spirit, they cannot answer. They try to avoid the question by saying that it is not important, or they become angry. This is material consciousness, or spiritual ignorance.

A really learned person does not behave like that. When Sanatana Gosvami, the ontological architect of this Esoteric Teaching, approached Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the incarnation of Kṛṣṇa for the Kali-yuga, he first of all presented himself as a person without any knowledge. Was Sanatana Gosvami really ignorant? Actually, he was born into a very aristocratic brahmana family. He was very learned scholar in Sanskrit and Urdu, and a cabinet minister of the King of Bengal; still, he presented himself before Caitanya Mahaprabhu as a fool. He said,

nica jati, nica-sangi, patita adhama
kuvisaya-kupe padi’ gonainu janama!

apanara hitahita kichui na jani!
ramya-vyavahare pandita, tai satya mani

“I was born in a low family, and my associates are all low-class men. I myself am fallen and am the lowest of men. Indeed, I have passed my whole life fallen in the well of sinful materialism. The common men say that I am very learned pandita, but I am such a rascal, I do not know what I am.” [Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 20.99-100]

This is the proper way to approach a spiritual Master Teacher. This is everyone's actual position. We do not know who or what we really are. If you ask any so-called learned scientist or professor, “Who are you?” He’ll answer, “I am Dr. So-and-so.” “I am American,” or “I am Mexican,” “I am Indian,” according to the bodily conception of life.

This is ignorance. No one is this material body; we are all spirit souls. That is the first lesson of spiritual knowledge. As long as we identify with this body, that “I am Mr. Such-and-such,” “I am American,” “I am Indian,” this is all ignorance. When you actually understand that you are not this body—therefore you are not American, nor Indian nor Mexican, but you are spirit soul—then your spiritual education begins.

In Sanskrit this realization is called aham brahmasmi: “I am spirit soul.” Anything that is spiritual is actually part of the spiritual world, the Kingdom of God. Therefore the spirit soul has no connection with this material world. When one fully understands this fact—that the spirit soul is completely different from this material world—then he’s actually learned. This state of consciousness is called brahma-bhutah.

brahma-bhutah prasannatma
na socati na kanksati
samah sarvesu bhutesu
mad-bhaktim labhate param

“One who is thus transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman and becomes fully joyful. He never laments or desires to have anything. He is equally disposed toward every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service unto Me.” [Bhagavad-gita 18.54]

The symptom of brahma-bhutah consciousness is prasannatma: as soon as one becomes self-realized, he becomes jubilantly happy. As long one identifies with this body, he is unhappy, full of anxiety and misery, because this body is temporary and imperfect. But spirit is always sat-cid-ananda vigraha: eternal personality and form, full of consciousness and bliss [Brahma-samhita 5.1].

So the spiritual teaching of Bhagavad-gita begins with this point, that one should know that he is not this material body. That knowledge is lacking throughout the whole world. Everyone is identifying with this body, like an animal. Therefore Kṛṣṇa chastised Arjuna Bhagavad-gita 2.11 that “You have this animalistic concept of life, and still you are speaking like a very learned scholar. No truly learned man laments on account of this body.” It is said in the Bhagavad-gita,

dehino ’smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptir
dhiras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.13]

Dhiras tatra na muhyati: dhira means one who has become sober by spiritual education and training. He is not disturbed, and remains sober even when there is cause for jubilation or lamentation. Just like when a man dies, his relatives lament and cry, “My father is dead. My father is gone. My father is no more.”

But if one is a little sober, he can understand, he can contemplate, that “I am lamenting, ‘My father is gone,’ but he’s not gone. His body is lying on the bed or in the funeral casket. Then why I am saying ‘He is gone’?” What is this contradiction? This is an opportunity to understand the soul. If the relative is lamenting, crying, “My father is gone,” that means he never knew his father; he knew the body only. But at the time of his father's death he can understand that his father is not this body; that his father is really the soul, and when the soul departs from the body, the body dies.

Likewise, if we think of ourselves only as this body, then we do not really know ourselves. We are in ignorance because we mistake the material body for the self. This is the one cause of all of our suffering. As my friend Balaram so eloquently expressed in a conversation we had last night, “They are afraid to lose what they do not have.” We are all afraid of death, but death refers only to the material body. Since the material body is not really the self, then it is not ours, but the property of the Lord, the creator of the material world and everything in it. Since the material body is not ours, why are we afraid to lose it? We never possessed it in the first place. It is like rented car or house. It was never ours in the first place. Why should we be upset to lose it?

Our spiritual knowledge begins when we come to the understanding that every one of us is a spirit soul. We may be in different kinds of bodies, but we are not this body. Now Kṛṣṇa is describing the nature of the soul. Kṛṣṇa describes all three types of persons as spiritual and eternal. In every language there are three persons: “I, you and he,” first person, second person and third person. Kṛṣṇa says in this sloka that na tu eva aham jatu: “Either you, he, or I, none of us ever born.”

Because we are not this body, birth refers to the body, not the soul. The soul is described here as not taking birth. He was already existing as a separate individual person eternally in the past; now he has taken birth and exists as an individual person in the present. And in future also, even after the death of this body, he will continue to exist eternally as an individual personality.

na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyam
ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane sarire

“For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He does not die when the body dies.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.20]

The materialistic philosophers think that the living symptoms, such as consciousness and activity, only come into existence by some combination of matter. But that is not the fact. The life symptoms manifest in the body because the living being, the spirit soul is there. As soon as the spirit soul leaves the body, the body is finished. All the material elements of the body are still present, but without the soul there are no symptoms of life. Therefore the theory that life symptoms are due to material causes is untrue.

When a man dies, because we do not know the truth about the living force, we cry that “My father has gone.” But is he really gone? We are thinking that the living being is my father, mother, son, daughter, friend, enemy, American, Indian, Mexican, rich, poor, man, woman, young, old, living or dead because we view everyone, including ourselves, in terms of this material body. This material consciousness is the cause of our being trapped in this material world.

When we start to understand everyone and everything in terms of the spirit soul, consciousness and our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, then our real knowledge begins. Real knowledge means to understand the spiritual nature of reality. Then we can know our real eternal self.

Next: The Real Self 2