Bhagavad Gita Chapter 14, Verse 2 (BG 14.2) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

The significance of the knowledge expounded in this chapter lies not so much in its theoretical importance as in the benefits it brings to spiritual practice. The seeker who truly understands the profound meanings of this chapter attains the state of perfection. The Blessed Lord says: they attain My nature. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna employs the word "I" from the perspective of spiritual perfection. The subject of this chapter is to study the play of those qualities that bind us through limitations and ego. If once we free ourselves from them and end their influence upon our mind, then immediately, liberated from the sense of individual selfhood, we can experience our transcendent nature. Just as the suffering that appears real to the dreamer in the dream state becomes unreal upon waking, so too is this principle: the experiences of pleasure and pain in one state of consciousness do not affect another state. Therefore, the identification with limitations and the resulting bondage of the world appear real only to one in ignorance of the Self, not to the illumined one. The wise person recognizes that eternal, all-pervading nature of truth, which has neither birth nor dissolution. This is indicated here in a single statement: they are not born at the beginning of creation. Creation is a play of the mind. When we cease to identify with the mind, we shall not be bound to it, and thus we shall have no experience of creation. For example, when a person becomes angry, they behave as an angry person; but once the anger subsides and the mind becomes calm, such behavior is no longer possible. The mind's strategy is to imagine a creation through thoughts, then identify with it and bind itself as if liberation were forever impossible. As long as we remain immersed in the mind, we shall be disturbed by its turbulence. Beyond the mind—that is, freed from it—in the pure Self there is no creation; how then could we experience birth? And in that state, what fear of dissolution? That is the state of complete liberation. Yet to conquer the mind, the seeker must have complete understanding of the mind's strategies and schemes by which it continually deceives. Before attacking an enemy, one must know their tactics. From this perspective, the Blessed Lord's statement is also fitting: complete knowledge of these three qualities will aid the seeker in conquering the mind, and thus they shall be freed from all imperfections. Now the Blessed Lord explains how, through the relationship between the inert and the conscious, this sorrowful world comes into being.