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Chapter 3
INTRODUCTION
The teaching of Gita is based on man's experience. While starting this gospel, (from 2/11), Lord Krsna first of all clarifies that the body and the soul are totally different from each other. The body is transitory, unreal, limited and perishable, while the soul is eternal, real, omnipresent and imperishable. Therefore, one should neither feel sad at the destruction of the perishable nor should have a desire to maintain the imperishable—this is called discrimination. This discrimination is very essential in all the three disciplines of Action, Knowledge and Devotion. When a man discriminates the self from the body, the desire for salvation is aroused. Not to speak of salvation even the desire for heaven etc., is aroused, when a man regards his own self as different from the body. Therefore, the Lord starts His gospel with discrimination.
This topic of discrimination, begins with the eleventh verse of the second chapter and continues upto the thirtieth verse. The Lord, instead of using philosophical terminology, has used simple terms to enable people to understand the topic easily. It means, that every person deserves God-realization because the human body has been bestowed upon us, only to realize Him. So, every human being can realize God, by giving due importance, to discrimination.
For this topic, even the term 'intellect', has not been used by the Lord. In order to distinguish the real from the unreal, the imperishable from the perishable, the eternal from the transitory and the soul (spirit) from the body, there is, need only for discrimination rather than intellect. Discrimination is beyond intellect. As prakrti (nature) and Purusa (spirit) both are without beginning (Gita 13/19), so is discrimination, which distinguishes, the real from the unreal. This discrimination has been bestowed upon all creatures by God, and it is revealed in the intellect. Birds and beasts, also know what should or should not be eaten. Even trees and creepering plants feel hot and cold and experience favourable and unfavourable circumstances. Human beings, are specially endowed with this discrimination, which can release them from the bondage of birth and death and leads them, to eternal quietude and bliss.
When this discrimination is aroused i.e., when a man can distinguish between the spirit and the body, his affinity for the world, including senses, mind and intellect, is renounced and his intellect, becomes purified and equanimous.
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