Bhagavad-gita 2.12

Every Soul Remains Individual Eternally

📅 March 7, 1966 📍 New York ⏱ 50 min
Every individual soul eternally maintains its unique identity, never merging into undifferentiated oneness.
Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca

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Prabhupāda: So last day we were speaking about the eleventh..., eleventh, Second Chapter, eleventh verse. Just read it. Second Chapter, eleventh verse.

Devotee: "In fact, there was never..." "Arjuna, you grieve over those who should not be grieved for, and yet speak like the learned wise men who do not sorrow over the dead or the living." Prabhupāda: Yes. You have marked it? With pen? Yes.

So we have finished this śloka. The next verse is, na tv evāhaṃ jātu nāsaṃ na tvaṃ neme janādhipāḥ na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ sarve vayam ataḥ param [Bg 2.12] What is the translation?

Devotee: "In fact there was never a time when I was not, or you or these kings were not, nor is it a fact that hereafter we shall cease to be." Prabhupāda: Yes. Now...

Devotee: "...we shall ever..." Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is trying to convince Arjuna that death does not take place. He says clearly that "Myself—I am the Supreme God, Kṛṣṇa—yourself, you, and all the other kings and the soldiers, those who have assembled in this great battlefield, it is not that in the past we were not existing, and in the present we are now face to face. We are seeing that we are existing. And in the future, we shall also exist in the same way." "In the same way" means individually.

Just like I am an individual person. You are an individual person. He is an individual person. So I, you, he, or they—first person, second person and the third person—so that individuality continues. Individuality of every living being is a fact.

Therefore in the actual field also, we see that we have got difference of opinion. What I think, you may not agree with me, because you have got your individuality. Similarly, your thinking may not be agreed by another gentleman. So everyone has got his individuality.

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