1 Gita Sloka Every Day - Chapter 18 - Moksha Sanyasa Yoga - Sloka 17

The entire content of this mail is from Shri V N Gopala Desikan's  Srimad Bhagavad Gita, published by Vishishtadvaita Research Centre, Chennai and The Bhagavad Gita by Swami Chidbhavananda published by Ramakrishna Mission

1 Gita Sloka  Every Day - Chapter 18 - Moksha Sanyasa Yoga - Sloka 17

Bhishma on his Bed of Arrows

Yasya na aham krutah bhavah buddhih yasya na lipyate I

Hatva api sah iman lokan na hanti na nibhadhyate II sloka 17

यस्य न अहं कृतः भावः बुद्धिः यस्य न लिप्यते I 

हत्वा अपि सः इमान् लोकान् न हन्ति न निभध्यते II अलोक्स 17

He who is free from the notion of egoism and whose understanding is not tainted - though he kills these people, he kills not, nor is he bound.

A person who does not think that he alone is the doer, realising the over-lordship of the Brahman; whose mind does not consider both action and the fruits of the action as belonging to him; such a person even when he kills these people, including Bhishma and other elders, in the war, he does not really kill them. He does not experience the consequences of his actions, of fighting the war.

Modifications such as agency and egotism create differences between one man and another. But as man evolves higher, he is able to outgrow all modifications and be established in the Brahman. Let us take examples of men affected by modifications  and those not affected by them. Men acting on the stage as murdering or as being murdered  know that it is pretence and hence agency and egoism is absent in them in that act. They are not affected by these modifications. But where an actual modification takes place  men are affected by it. 

In the same way a spiritually evolved man sees the stage and life as one and the same. Because of the absence of egoism, no modification of any kind takes place in his mind. There are instances of this in the Mahabharata war itself. When Arjuna vanquished his grandfather Bhishma he did not harbour any egotistical feeling that he had caiused the death of teh grandsire. His mind was free from that modification.  While waiting to give up his body in the auspicious northern passage of the sun, Bhishma did not feel that he was vanquished. Non-ego was the cause of it. As a man casts off worn out clothing, Bhishma cast off his old body, unattached as he was to it. 

The reflection of a moving body is seen in the mirror. That mirror is not the creator of the reflection or the movement. The reflection also does not leave any impression on the mirror. While reflecting things as they are, the mirror is ever itself, unattached, unffected and unmodified. Like the mirror is the atman. That jivatman who traces his original state of pure consciousness regains his taintless understanding. Freed from egoism he is not affected by the actions of the body or the senses.