Verse 32
Anaaditwaan
nirgunatwaat
Paramaatmaayam
avyayah;
Shareerastho’pi
kaunteya
Na
karoti na lipyate.
Being without beginning and devoid of (any)
qualities, the Supreme Self, imperishable, though dwelling in the body, O
Arjuna, neither acts nor is tainted!
Anāditvān: It
has no qualities of any kind as we know qualities here.
Nirguṇatvāt paramātmāyam avyayaḥ: It is imperishable because
it is indestructible.
The Supreme Self, though existing
in this body as the deepest self in us, does not involve itself in any
contamination of the gunas of prakriti.
Na karoti na lipyate: He
neither does anything, nor is He contaminated by the fruits of action.
In an earlier talk, it was explained
that consciousness remains uncontaminated by anything that takes place, just as
space inside a vessel cannot become affected by things that we pour into the
vessel.
If we pour something fragrant into
the vessel, the space inside it, does not become fragrant; or if we put
something which smells foul into the vessel, the space inside it does not
become bitter/foul smelling.
Similarly, the witness
consciousness in all of us, which is the light of the sun in the sky, as it
were, is untarnished by anything that may happen to our Gross body (physical)
or Subtle body (mind/intellect/vasanas etc.)
Verse 33
Yathaa
sarvagatam
Saukshmyaadaakaasham
nopalipyate;
Sarvatraavasthito
dehe
Tathaatmaa
nopalipyate.
As the all-pervading ether is not tainted
because of its subtlety, so the Self seated everywhere in the body, is not
tainted.
The subtlest reality is
consciousness, and all things that are external to it, of which it is
conscious, are gross. Everything in the world is gross; therefore,
consciousness — which is the subtlest of being — cannot actually get involved
in anything in this world, the two being dissimilar in nature.
The subtle cannot enter into the
gross, and the gross cannot affect the subtle.
Because of the subtlety of the
Supreme Being and its all-pervading nature—sarvatrāvasthita—it is not
affected by anything that takes place in creation, either by evolution or
involution.
As the waters of the mirage cannot drench the
desert, the world of plurality - the domain of matter and its activities - cannot
contaminate the Eternal.
The Self, though permeates and pervades the
whole body, is not soiled by its virtuous or vicious actions just as space is
not dirtied by the things accommodated under it.
Love.
