Author: Preferred Customer
Last saved by: deland
Company: Dell Computer Corporation

A simplified approach to understanding the Bhagavad Gita 
 Adapted from the www.hinduism.org website

Young girl: Mommy! Can you solve this riddle for me?

Mommy: Well, my little darling, I can try.

Young Girl: What is it that can speak any language; does not speak until spoken to and it is sometimes strong and sometimes weak?

Mommy: It must be very clever. Can speak any language, did you say? And very polite too; does not speak until spoken to. I wonder! You can tell me the answer.

Young girl: It’s an Echo!

Mommy: That’s a very clever riddle. I enjoyed that. Now it is my turn to ask you a riddle. Can I?

Young girl: Yes, Mommy.

Mommy: What is it that weapons can not cut it; fire can not burn it; water can not make it wet and the air can not make it dry?

Young girl:Mommy, if weapons can not cut it and fire can not burn it then it is something indestructible, and waterproof on top of it! Mommy, please tell me what can it be? Now I am really curious to know.

Mommy: It’s the Soul also known as the Self or the Atman. This riddle is taken from the Bhagavad Gita, second chapter, verse 23. It is written in Sanskrit language and reads:

nainam chindanti sastrani                                                                                                                 nainam dahati pavakah                                                                                                                              na cainam kledayanty apo                                                                                                                                                       na sosayati marutah

This means, “The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can                     he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. 

If you have any questions or comments on this verse, then, if you’d like to, we can discuss it? Anything?

Young girl: Well … if the Soul is indestructible , then what happens to it when a person dies? And what happens to the body when a person dies?

Analogies based on ‘The Story of Pinnocchio’ by Carlo Colldi Lorenzini

Mommy: In order to understand the relationship of the soul with the body, let me make it very simple by asking you to play the part of the wooden puppet Pinocchio. 

(picking up a puppet) If we want Pinocchio, the wooden puppet, to be alive, and be able to behave like us, then Pinocchio will have to be provided with some highly specialized equipment.

 Let us begin with the tongue. Pinocchio will have to have a tongue with which to experience different tastes such as sweet, bitter, sour, salty, pungent (hot) etc.

 Going up the face from the tongue, we come to the nostrils. Pinocchio can smell different types of smells, fragrances and odors. When Pinocchio comes home from school, at times he can tell by the smell of the delicious food from the kitchen that his Mommy has prepared his favorite dish.

 Going further up the face, we come to the eyes. Pinocchio will acquire the power of vision that will enable him to see different types of shapes (forms), and different types of colors as well as intensity of light (bright or dark).

 Next to the eyes are the ears. Without the ability to hear, Pinocchio will not be able to learn how to speak. His ability to communicate with people will be restricted. Without the hearing abilities of the ears, Pinocchio will not be able to listen to the sounds of
 musical instruments or hear songs. In the wilds, he will not be able to hear and thereby be warned of the presence of wild animals.

 So far we have talked about the tongue, the nostrils, the eyes, and the ears. One more, from amongst the five types of highly specialized equipment is still to be considered. Can you tell me what it can be?

Young girl: Something to do with touch?

Mommy: You are absolutely right. Touching by the skin provides information such as cold or hot, sharp or blunt, hard or rough or soft etc.

 These five types of equipment are known as organs of sense perception.
Gnana indriya. Gnana means knowledge and indriya means organ.

 These five organs of perception gather information or knowledge relating to taste, smells, vision, sounds and touch. The eyes are like the lenses of cameras, capturing the vista before the cameras; and the ears are like microphones capturing sound.

Young girl: Mommy, are there any more kinds of equipment besides these five organs of perception?

Mommy: Oh yes! Again, to make the explanations very simple, I will relate about an incident in the life of Pinocchio.

 One day, Pinocchio was very naughty and did not want to listen to his mother. So his mother scolded him and Pinocchio got upset and was very cross.

Can Pinocchio get cross with his skin or with his ears? Obviously not. Pinocchio will have to be provided with the mind to take care of his emotional needs.

 Another day, Pinocchio was very helpful to his mother, and upon being praised by his mother, he was feeling happy and elated. The mind was feeling the emotion of happiness. The mind provides the emotional needs which produce joy and sorrow, happiness and unhappiness anger and peacefulness etc. .

The mind is also an equipment but it is not visible and therefore it is called subtle. The mind’s work is far more specialized and complex than that of the five organs of perception. In fact, without the mind, the organs of perception will become powerless to register the information or knowledge they gather.

And yet, there is still one more highly specialized equipment, without which Pinocchio will be greatly handicapped in life. To illustrate the point:

 One day, Pinocchio was at school and the teacher was teaching mathematics to his class. The teacher wanted to test the pupils and asked them to spot an error. 

 On the black board the teacher had written 2 + 2 = 5. Many of the pupils raised their hands to point out to the teacher that two plus two makes four and not five. These pupils demonstrated the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

 Now, for doing the job of distinguishing (discriminating) between the right and the wrong, Pinocchio will have to be provided with intellect.

 Intellect is also an equipment. It’s more subtler than the mind. The intellect will exercise the faculty of discrimination. It can be trained to tell the difference between what is Real and what is unreal. It can make out what is right and what is wrong in the spiritual and social fields connected with ethics, morality, justice, conduct or behavior, speech
 etc.

The big question is: If the five organs of perception attached to the body, plus the mind, plus the intellect are all equipment, then WHO AM I?

 I am the Soul or the Atman also known as the Self. The indwelling (embodied) Soul enables these types of equipment to function. Often the example of electricity is cited. Electricity is invisible but the effects of electricity are seen or felt as in an electric light bulb or a heater, an electric fan or a hot plate on an electric cooking stove. A radio or a
television set is enabled to function when powered by electricity. Similarly the bodily  equipment , the sense organs are powered by the Soul.

 The body can remain functioning even when some of these types of equipment are damaged. The body can function without the power of vision in the eyes or the power of hearing in the ears. A person can be mentally deranged and can still be living. Another can be brain damaged, but still be alive. The presence of the indwelling Soul keeps
it alive.

 The indwelling Soul or the embodied Self is described in the Bhagavad Gita as being:

 Eternal, indestructible, and immeasurable. 
 (Gita, Ch.2. verse18.) 

 Unborn and inexhaustible (Gita, Ch.2 Verse 21).

 Stable, immovable, ancient. (Gita Ch.2 verse 24.)

 Unmanifested, unthinkable, unchangeable 
 (Gita Ch.2. verse 25.)

 The Soul passes unchanged from the baby into childhood, from childhood to youth
 to middle age to old age. Thereafter, the Soul passes unchanged from one body and
 enters into another body. 
 (Gita Ch.2, Verse 13.)

But, the embodied Self or the Soul is not killed when the physical body is killed. (Gita
 Ch.2. verse 20.) 

Young girl: Mommy, how nice! I would really like to get to know how to make the best use of this equipment. Please tell me where I can find this manual?

Mommy: Well, we call the manual the Bhagavad Gita. We usually refer to it as the Gita.
Bhagavad Gita means the song of God. Krishna the Supreme Personality of Godhead spoke this to Arjuna so it could be studied by all people for all time and look

(holds up a new Bhagavad Gita As It Is.) Here, darling is your very own copy of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is! Please take care to keep it nicely; it is a very sacred scripture!

Young Girl: (leaving with Bhagavad Gita) Thank you, Mommy!!