Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16, Verse 6 (BG 16.6) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

Although the Blessed Lord Sri Krishna mentions here only two types of people—the divine and the demonic—in reality, creation contains yet another category of beings who are entirely incapable of reformation. These are those of demoniacal nature, concerning whom the Lord maintains complete silence. This silence of His is, perhaps, more eloquent than speech itself. The teachings on dharma and the disciplines of spiritual development are intended for the first two categories of people, not for the demons. This is because they have not yet undergone sufficient evolution; they remain still in the hands of Nature, which shapes all creatures, and they must yet be refined in the fire of life's torturous experiences. Once they attain adequate development, these demoniacal beings enter the category of the asuras, from which point dharma itself guides them forward. Thus, when divine nature awakens within them, the path to Self-realization through self-inquiry becomes open to them. In the fourth verse of this chapter, only a brief sketch of demoniacal wealth was drawn; the present section provides its complete and detailed description. In nearly all the scriptures of the world, the virtues of morality and righteousness are celebrated, yet a detailed account of the vices of the demoniacal person is rarely found. When certain critics of Hindu dharma encounter such descriptions in our scriptures, they become pleased to find matter worthy of commentary. According to their view, the description of demons is a blemish upon the dharma-shastras and the teachings of the sages. Such criticism was particularly prevalent among nineteenth-century scholars. But now, in the twentieth century, owing to the findings of research in the field of psychology, they have been compelled to remain silent. According to psychology, keen awareness of one's own vices and the arising of aversion toward one's base tendencies is itself the simple remedy for their elimination. Successful experiments have been conducted on this basis in the field of psychology. The inauspicious is not merely the opposite of the auspicious. It is not that auspicious nature possesses one type of quality while inauspicious nature possesses different characteristics. Human tendencies are of a specific nature, and both the auspicious and the inauspicious are expressions of the human heart. The inauspicious is merely a flawed expression of the auspicious. Therefore, in this list of demoniacal qualities, we shall not find a mere tedious enumeration of characteristics opposed to the divine qualities mentioned earlier. Upon studying the nature of the asuras, it becomes evident that fundamentally their qualities are the same as those of the virtuous, but through misuse arising from flawed valuation, they are directed toward the opposite end. Virtue poisoned by ignorance becomes vice, and when vice is treated, it becomes freed from poison and regains the health of virtue. Thus, in the very first verse of this section, which describes demoniacal nature, the Blessed Lord Sri Krishna speaks—as if seeking forgiveness on their behalf and revealing the compassion hidden within our hearts toward them.