ajo'api sann-avyay'ātmā bhūtānām īśvaro'pi san ।
prakṛtiṁ svām-adhiṣṭhāya sambhavāmy-ātmā-māyayā ।। 4.06 ।।

Audio-BG-4.6

Krishna has made it clear that to think of him or Arjuna or any other person, as merely the transitory body is wrong, untrue. Everyone is truly the immortal Soul. To confirm this fact, Krishna has begun to speak from his Absolute position. How can something be immortal on the one hand and mortal on the other, as in man himself? Man, the Soul, is indestructible, but his body through which his existence becomes manifest constantly changes and decays. Is it not a contradiction? But Krishna says that the very creational display is such contradictions manifested. And that is the whole mystery of existence too! A seeker has to penetrate this mystery and realize its content. Only then his quest will be properly fulfilled.

Although I am unborn, of indestructible nature, and the Lord of all beings, I, by dint of my inscrutable power, get born again and again, wielding over my own immutable nature.

All the things in the world are born. Only after getting born, an object can exist. Thus the cause and effect sequences are there for us to see, reflect upon and probe into. But if the same search is traced to its origin, we are bound to reach a stage wherein the very source of the entire creation itself defies this law to shine as birthless. So we call it ajah (unborn). If we were to think of that first cause also as born, then the chain of enquiry will extend further back and will never end. Thus the source from which all the born originate has itself to be unborn. That is why God, or Supreme Reality, the source of the entire creation, is considered as Unborn

A question arises here. If the source is unborn, how is it that it has given rise to birth? By giving rise to births, does it not get born? ‘Unbornness’ will be true only when Brahman itself does not get born from another source and also it does not permit any birth from it. In so far as we hold Brahman or God to be the source of all the born objects, does it not lose its unborn character?

It is here that Krishna uses the word atma-maya. Maya denotes the power that is inscrutable, incomprehensible. Being so, any effort to understand it, specify it will be in vain. Because of its inscrutability, it can cause or project any phenomenon. If you observe the objective existence, you will be inevitably driven to think of space, endless in every way, within which alone the entire creation exists. How does such all-inclusive space come to be at all? Judged on the basis of our visible objective standards, the ground of visible existence remains incomprehensible; the creation too becomes equally unauthentic.

To bring about such a self-defying existence and to make us a part of the whole process is the power which Brahman, the Supreme Reality, holds within it, says Krishna. The word atma-maya is meant to represent the whole process.

Every form of existence, be it matter or energy, is constantly changing. To change means to go out of existence or expression on the one hand and equally so to come into expression anew. One part of nature disappears and another part takes its place. How can such constant changefulness ever be? How does the new expression get related to the earlier one?

This is solely because of the indestructible Brahman, which is the substratum of the whole changeful creation. Brahman itself brings all the existence into expression by virtue of its maya, the inscrutable power. To understand this relationship between the changeful visible creation and the invisible causeless Brahman may appear to be elusive to begin with. But as the seeker grows in his sharpness, purity and concentration, the elusiveness will decline and clarity will begin to dawn.