Commentary

Commentary

A clear understanding of material nature (prakriti), the Supersoul (Paramatma), the individual soul (atma), and their interrelationship qualifies a person for liberation. This knowledge is meant for understanding that by divine arrangement, the living entities arrive in this material world, and by understanding the process through which they can return to the spiritual world, one becomes eligible for that return.

This knowledge should be understood through authoritative persons — saintly teachers (sadhu-purusha), spiritual masters (guru), and the study of the Bhagavad Gita as it has been presented. Once one understands the form in which the Lord has described it, one should accept it as spiritual consciousness or Krishna consciousness, and use it to attain spiritual realization. Then it is certain that one will never again come into this material world — one will be transferred to the spiritual world for a life of eternal bliss.

The result of this knowledge is decisive: na sa bhooyobhijaayate — he will not take birth again. The cycle of birth and death, which has been going on since time immemorial due to false identification with the body and attachment to the material modes, comes to a permanent end. Just as a person who has awakened from sleep never returns to the same dream, one who has genuinely understood the relationship between prakriti, purusha, and the Supreme Lord never falls back into the cycle of material existence.

The Lord emphasizes sarvathaa vartamaanah — regardless of one’s present position. Whether one is a householder, a renunciant, a king, or a pauper, this knowledge liberates. The condition is not one’s external situation but the depth of one’s internal understanding and surrender.