यस्य नाहंकृतो भावो बुद्धिर्यस्य न लिप्यते ।
हत्वापि स इमाँल्लोकान्न हन्ति न निबध्यते ॥ १८.१७ ॥

yasya nāhaṅkṛto bhāvo buddhir-yasya na lipyate |
hatvāpi sa imāllokān-na hanti na nibadhyate || 18.17 ||

Unaffectedness through non-doership

With this vision, many of the negative traits such as dislike, disgust and repulsion, will drop from the mind. A level of fullness and radiance will be reached. None, not even one’s enemy causes irritation or resentment in the mind of one who has reached this exalted level. At the same time, such a Knower will be able to respond in the most appropriate manner to every situation. Freed of their deterring or tormenting notes, activities become most effective and benign. With effort and striving, this refinement and sublimation can be actualized by any good seeker.

To be lost in activity to such an extent that one does not care to think of the non-acting Supreme Soul within, is to fall a victim to akṛta-buddhi (impure intelligence) and even durmati (perverse intelligence). Krishna uses very strong words to denounce these negative traits, so that the seeker will be persuaded to eschew them in all earnestness.

Now comes the summary statement of Krishna on how all actions lose their binding effects when the mind reaches the pinnacle of the Soul-state:

Even if one kills all these people, he does not verily kill, nor is he bound by his killing, provided he has outgrown the sense of doership (and ego), and his intelligence is not tainted.

The Soul is Impersonal, Impartial and Neutral to the core. It is so in spite of whatever seemingly takes place in the world around. Naturally nothing in the level of the body, mind, intelligence and speech involves It at all, either in the form of an activity or its consequence.

On this basis, one who is able to incorporate the Soul-dimension in his mind and intelligence, will virtually be a “non-actor”. Consequently, he will be unaffected by the actions and their results. In fact, Krishna has been speaking about this kind of spiritual poise and freedom throughout.

What Krishna states next may be stunning. Nevertheless, that is the supreme Truth of spirituality. “Even if such a Self-knower kills the entire world, he does not really kill; and he is not bound by any effects thereof.”

What a sweeping negation of physical acts and their mental consequences! Is it possible, one may wonder! But the entire purpose of spirituality is to enlighten the seeker and steep him in a state of unaffectedness. Nothing short of non-doership will be concomitant with Self-perception, Self-realization and sthita-prajñatā. Self-vision is such that it negates all actions and interactions, even while one is intensely involved in them. What the body does is not true of the body-different Soul! The feeling of non-doer (akartṛtva) and non-enjoyer (abhoktṛtva) has to emerge from Soul-perception and Soul-realization. To realize the Soul is to be freed of all the feelings of doership about anything and all.

Even if one becomes free from the sense of doership while acting, it is possible that the action assails his mind some time later, may be after months, years or even decades. While any action passes away with the march of time, its memory in the actor will persist. That can afflict and torment the mind any time later. Krishna emphasizes that Self-vision is a safeguard against all such torments. What a powerful pronouncement!

Yudhiṣṭhira’s episode is the best illustration on this. The Kurukṣetra war was over. Of the nearly 47 lakhs (18 akṣauhiṇīs) of warriors assembled in the battlefield, all but 10 were killed. That means, annihilation was almost complete on both sides. The fight came to an end.

The survivors had to perform post-death ceremonies, udaka-tarpaṇa for the departed. Yudhiṣṭhira stepped into the holy river Bhāgīrathi along with many others to offer ceremonial water. Just as he began the ceremonial offering, there came running his mother Kunti in visible distress, shouting: “Dear son, perform tarpaṇa for Karṇa, your elder brother, too”.

The words plunged Yudhiṣṭhira into untold grief, torment and self-condemnation. “What? Was Karṇa my elder brother? Why did not my mother tell me this all these years? Accursed am I! Had I known it earlier, would I not have placed myself at his feet and asked him to lead us as the ruler? Was this huge bloodshed called for? What can I do now? How? Where?”

Yudhiṣṭhira even cursed that no woman should be able to keep any secret in her heart! This is an instance of kartṛtva tormenting the mind after the performance of an action.

Keeping all such possibilities in mind, Krishna emphasizes that the practice of the two-fold virtue – non-doership and non-enjoyership – should be ensured. Self-realization alone will enable this. Thus Krishna gives a full answer to the bewilderment that Arjuna expressed in the beginning: “Ah, we are out to perpetrate the greatest sin. For, due to greed for kingdom and comforts of life, we are ready to destroy our own relatives”(1.45).

All that Arjuna said would have been true if his mind was vitiated by greed, as he confessed. But Krishna was out to instill in Arjuna’s mind the true spiritual vision of nobility, non-action and immortality. The entire dialogue was to this end.

The very kartṛtva, the root of these, is wrong, untrue, says Krishna. Dismiss it! Be illumined! Then all psychological and intellectual taints will drop. If the actorhood itself vanishes from the mind, then the action ceases to have any sinful or virtuous effects. The mind becomes synonymous with the Impersonal, Impartial Soul. No religious or spiritual consequences can then befall the mind. So, the only redress for you is to set right your mind, its attitude and your intelligence, its perception. In doing so, the whole confrontation and distress will dissolve and harmony surge forth in abundance.

Thus, a singular thread runs from the first chapter to here now in the 18th chapter (1.45 to 18.17), radiating the full brilliance of the entire dialogue.