Bhagavadgita -Radhakrishnan 83

The Bhagavadgita -S. Radhakrishnan

CHAPTER 2 Samkhya Theory and Yoga Practice 12. na tv eva 'ham jatu 'sam na tvam ne 'me janadhiph na cai 'va na -bhavisyamah sarve vvayam atah param (12) Never was there a time when I was not, nor thou, nor these lords of men, nor will there ever be a time hereafter when we all shall cease to be. S. looks upon this reference to plurality as conventional. He argues that the plural number is used with reference to the bodies that are different and not with regard to the one Universal Self. R. lays stress on the distinction between Krsna, Arjuna, and the princes as ultimate and holds that each individual soul is Imperishable and coeval with the whole universe. The reference here is not to the eternity of the Absolute Spirit but to the per-existence and post-existence of the empirical egos. The plurality of egos is a fact of the empirical universe. Each individual is an ascent from initial non-existence to full existence as a real, from asat to sat. While the Samkhya system postulates a plurality of souls; the Gita reconciles this with the unity, the one Ksetrajna in whom we live, move and have our being. Brahman is the basis of all things and is not itself a thing. Brahman does not exist m time but time is in it. In this sense also, the egos have neither beginning nor end. Souls are like Brahman, for the cause and the effect are essentially one as the sayings, "I am Brahman," "That art Thou" indicate. Cp. Suso : "All creatures have existed eternally in the Divine essence as in their exemplar. So far as they conform to the Divine idea, all beings were before their creation, one with the essence of God "