The first line of next verse connects with the previous verse as an explanation to “having gone to which, they do not return.”
The second line is to be read with the verse 8.
mamaivāṁśo jīvaloke jīvabhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ | line1 verse 7
In the world of living being, a part of Me alone exists as the jīva, which is eternal.
jīvabhūtaḥ - one who has become jīva is mamaivāṁśo - like a part of mine. This statement is not to be misunderstood. Here, when we say the jīva is an aṁśa of the Lord, it only means that the jīva is not another entity other than the Lord. As generally we do not think of our hand as an entity other than ourselves. If two things are brought together, they will dissociate in time. But by reaching which one does not return, means all the time I am that param brahman alone. There wasn’t a time of disassociation, only disassociation as though when I don’t know I am that limitless brahman.
One time Hanumanji was asked by Lord Rama, how he perceived him.
Hanumanji answered:
dehabuddhyā tu daso’mi jīvabuddhyā tvadamśakah
ātmabuddhyā tvameva ahamiti me niścitā matih
through the view point of the physical body, I am your servant
through the view point of the individual jīva, I am a part of you
through the view point of ātmā, I am you
this is my firm affirmation
If we identified with the body-mind-sense-complex, we are always limited by it and there is a huge distance between me and the Lord. If we know that the nature of individual jīva is not-different from limitless brahman, but by still having the individuality different from other individuals, I only can feel that I am only an amśa - part of the Lord who has many parts. When I own up the vision of non-duality, I am brahman alone.
There are infinite number of doers and enjoyers here as well as in other worlds. If they are not separated from brahman, how do we account for their numbers and each of them caries their own punya-pāpa? It is like the reflection of the sun in water. There is only one sun which appears many in different kinds of water body. Each water body reflects the sun differently based on the water condition. In the same way that only consciousness appears many and differently based on that confined subtle and gross body which we called upādhi. Consciousness is satya and upādhi are mithyā. When I am taking myself as an agent of doing, I am not another entity, but it is a notion which is mithya. Just like when I go to sleep, the agent is gone and the moment I wake up it returns. Where did the notion of being an agent go? It just resolves into consciousness.
Therefore we say agent is mithya, not satya. Satya ātmā can never be the agent because it is the one who illumines the agent which comes and goes. Ātmā is the one who is always there aware of its coming and going which is the nature which can’t be given up. Therefore in the wake of knowledge that I am not the agent of doing, all the experience of samsāra is also gone. The cognition knowing I am free no matter what happened to those which was considered to be I and mine, is important.
Even as a jīva with ignorance, he wouldn’t die until knowledge takes place, because he is born again and again in different bodies. Since the status of being a jīva is superimposition, there is no jīva to die. Therefore it is said here jīva is eternal - jīvabhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ.
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