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In our detailed study of the Bhagavad-gita, we have spent a lot of time on this sloka:

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]

This is because our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada thought it so important that he spoke on it more often than any other sloka of Bhagavad-gita. He wanted to resolve, once and for all, our doubts about the eternal personality of the spirit soul. He wanted us to know, without a doubt, that we are individual persons, and that our individuality will continue in the future without any interruption.

He wanted us to know, in other words, that eternal life is already ours, as a free gift from Kṛṣṇa. We don’t have to strive for immortality; are already immortal. The question then becomes, what will we do with our eternal existence? What kind of eternal individuals will we be? The rest of Bhagavad-gita is devoted to that question.

Therefore Bhagavad-gita is the best advice, given by Sri Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to the eternal individual souls. If He says something—we must agree to accept it. If we don’t agree, that will not be beneficial for us. When a great man says something, everyone should listen. A great man always speaks for the welfare of all. Therefore his advice is worth hearing. That is why scholars all over the world study Bhagavad-gita, even if they don’t accept Sri Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Kṛṣṇa, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is saying that we are all individual persons. God is an individual person, and we are all individual persons. This is confirmed in the Vedic literature.

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam
eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman
tam atmastham ye 'nupasyanti dhiras
tesam santih sasvati netaresam

“The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the maintainer of innumerable living entities, in terms of their different situations according to individual work and reaction of work. That Supreme Personality of Godhead is also alive in the heart of every living entity by His plenary portions. Only saintly persons who can see the same Supreme Lord within and without, can actually attain to perfect and eternal peace.” [Katha Upanisad 2.2.13]

Nityo nityanam. Nitya means eternal. “Kṛṣṇa is eternal, and we are all eternal. Amongst all the eternal living entities, Kṛṣṇa is the chief.” This is a definition of God, is given in the Katha Upanisad. Cetanas cetananam: “He is conscious, and we are all conscious, living beings.” He is the supreme conscious living being.

The science of devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the essence of yoga. Now, of course, there are many different yogic schools. In America you’ll find that most of them do not believe in God. But actually the yoga system does not deny the existence of God. God is there in the original yoga literature by Patanjali and others. But because the modern followers of Patanjali are mostly impersonalists, they misinterpret his writings to be godless.

Real scholars of the yoga literature understand this properly. For example, here is a quote from Introduction to Indian Philosophy by Dr. Chatterjee and Dr. Datta of Kolkata University, sixth edition. In this book, after studying all different kinds of philosophy, they give a summary of each type of philosophical system. They say: “The place of God in the yoga system, as distinguished from the atheistic Sankhya, is that yoga is theistic.”

This book is very authoritative. It is in its sixth edition, so it is very popular; actually, it is a standard text in all the universities of the world. Dr. Chatterjee and Dr. Datta are accepted by all universities as authoritative scholars. And they say that the hatha-yoga system is theistic, believing in God. The hatha-yoga system was introduced by Patanjali, a great authority in Vedic philosophy. But the modern so-called yogis, although they claim to follow Patanjali, are impersonal, atheistic.

The hatha-yoga system admits the existence of God in both the practical and theoretical realms. Patanjali himself, however, has not felt it necessity to introduce much information about God for solving the theoretical problems of philosophy. For him, God has more practical than theoretical value. And God is explained very well in other parts of the Vedic literature, such as Bhagavad-gita. So Patanjali did not write much about God, Kṛṣṇa. That does not mean that Patanjali was atheistic; just that his writing was more concerned with philosophical theory than theological practice.

Devotion to God is considered to have the greatest practical value, inasmuch as it is the basis of the most advanced part of yoga practice. Those who are practicing yoga at the highest level must be devotees of God. Otherwise, their yoga practice will be a failure. Devotional service to Kṛṣṇa is the most important means for the final attainment of samadhi-yoga, or the restraint of the mind, or citta-niruddha as Patanjali called it. The whole purpose of practicing yoga is to control the mind, and restrain it from material identification and engagement.

Now, unless you perform devotional service of the Lord, or bhakti, there is no citta-niruddha, or success in yoga. The difficulty is that the subsequent commentators and interpreters of Patanjali have given a wrong interpretation of the original text, and deluded the audience. The original meaning of Patanjali’s Yoga-sutras reveals a theoretical interest in God, and more fully discusses the nature of God and the proof for the existence of God. They practically take up the path of speculative philosophy and meditation.

But Patanjali’s original text teaches that without devotion of God, there is no success of yoga. Thus the yoga system has both a theoretical and practical interest in the divine will. According to yoga, God is the Supreme Person. This is the authoritative statement of Patanjali. But if you go to the yoga societies and inquire about spiritual life, will you ever hear that God is the Supreme Person? So they are not really following Patanjali.

According to Patanjali’s hatha-yoga system, God is the Supreme Person who is above all individual selves and free from all defects. The same thing is taught in Bhagavad-gita also. Lord Kṛṣṇa is informing us about the future and the past existence of the soul, because He is perfect and has perfect knowledge. He can see both past and future.

But because we are not perfect, we do not know. Can you say where you were a hundred years ago? You cannot say. Or can you say where you will be a hundred years from now? You cannot say because you are imperfect, because you do not have perfect spiritual knowledge.

So God is not imperfect; He is a perfect being. The yoga system also accepts Him like that. According to the yoga system, God is the Supreme Person, who is above all an individual. So also, now you see that every living entity is individual. This knowledge is free from all defects because it is given by Kṛṣṇa. And because He’s free from all defects, His statement is perfect.

Therefore we must admit that “My statement is imperfect, because I am imperfect.” I have no idea of the distant past and future. How can I say that in future you will be like this, or in the past you were like this? I cannot say. But God, who is perfect and free from defects—who can see past, future and present equally, and there is no defect in His vision—He can say.

So here is the statement of the Supreme Person. We have to believe it. If we don’t believe it, then we are the loser. He is the perfect being who is eternal and all-pervading. That means, although you can see Him as a person, He is also present everywhere by His energetic expansion. Kṛṣṇa, although He’s present before Arjuna, instructing him, is all-pervading at the same time.

A crude example of all-pervasiveness is the sun. At twelve o’clock noon, you see that the sun is above your head. And five thousand miles away, if you telephone your friend and ask, “Where is the sun?” he’ll say, “It is shining here.” Five thousand miles the other way, if you inquire, everyone will say, “The sun is shining here.” So if a material thing like the sun can be so all-pervading, shining in so many places at the same time, then the supreme spiritual being, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is even more all-pervading than the sun.

He is the perfect being who has eternal knowledge, eternal consciousness. So when Kṛṣṇa says that “You and Myself and all these beings are existing as individuals eternally,” He can really know because He has got eternal consciousness. He has actual personal experience of what I was in my previous life. But because my consciousness is conditioned my material impurities, it is not eternal, therefore I have forgotten what I was in my previous birth. Neither can I say what I shall be in my next birth.

These are the distinctions between our consciousness and God’s consciousness. If we falsely claim that “I am God, I am that supreme consciousness,” it is lunacy, madness. We should not indulge our ego in that way, and anyone teaching in that way is cheating. It is not possible that we can be God, because God is never overcome by ignorance. His consciousness is all-pervading in both space and time, so He has perfect knowledge of past, present and future. This is Kṛṣṇa.

Therefore Bhagavad-gita is an authoritative book. Kṛṣṇa is the perfect being who is eternal and all-pervading, omnipotent, omniscient. All we individual souls are more or less subject to the affliction of ignorance. All living entities except God are subjected to ignorance and forgetfulness. We are overwhelmed by ignorance and false egoism. Because of false egoism, without having the qualification, one declares that “I am God.”

How can we be God when we are subject to false egoism, desire, aversion and dread of death. We have to do various kinds of work—good, bad, and indifferent—and reap the consequences thereof by the law of karma. That means we are subjected to the reaction of our acts. If you do some good thing, then you reap a good result. If you do some bad thing, then you reap the bad result. And because we are defective, sometimes we do something good, sometimes bad. So we are confused and do not know which way to turn.

The best thing, therefore, is to follow God. All the scriptures and religions of the world agree that God is all-good. If we follow God, then we also become good. If we follow God or God’s representative, then we also become good. Because God is always good. God cannot give you bad direction. Therefore it is incumbent that everyone should be followers of the instructions of God. That is devotional service. Nobody should be deviated from the service of the Lord. The whole Bhagavad-gita is nothing but the instructions of God to all the living beings. Although it was spoken 5000 years ago in India, its wisdom is good for all eternity. Therefore it is full of the Supreme Absolute Truth.

Now we are studying the beginning of Bhagavad-gita, and at the end, Lord will instruct Arjuna,

sarva-dharman parityajya
mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo
moksayisyami ma sucah

“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.” [Bhagavad-gita 18.66]

“You just surrender unto Me”; and aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami: “And I shall protect you from all reactions of sinful life.”

The best thing is, if we want to be all-good, then we have to follow the instruction of the all-good. We have to mold our life in such a way that we do what is advised by the all-good Supreme Personality of Godhead. That will make our life perfect. So that is the method of the Esoteric Teaching.

Next: Secrets of the Soul