Chapter 2 Verse 18

Chapter 2, Verse 18

“These bodies come to an end.
That dweller in the body
Is unfathomable and eternal.
Therefore fight the battle, Arjuna.”

Paramahansa Yogananda:

“When an adobe house is shattered by an earthquake, the clay does not change its nature. Similarly, when this cosmic clay-house of change is touched by dissolution, the essence remains unchanged. Kingdoms topple and oceans evaporate, while spirit remains untouched, hidden, and indestructible. When we choose to be identified with unchangeable spirit, we are no longer confused by the pandemonium of change.”

Ram Dass:

“An expression that is used for consciously merging into the Self is Chitta Vritti Nirodhah [Patanjali’s second Yoga Sutra], which means ‘control of thought-waves in the mind’. A helpful image is of the ocean, on which there are waves of all shapes and sizes. The waves are thought-forms: feelings, personality traits, sense data, ideas…wave after wave. Gradually, in meditation, the waves quiet into ripples. Slowly, the ripples get quieter and quieter, until there is just a vast, calm ocean, out of which the ripples arise, and back into which they subside. That vast, calm, still, endless ocean is an image of the Self.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

“Re: ‘dweller in the body’: this verse underlines the distinction between the body and the spirit that dwells within it. The aim is to note the difference between the unchangeable inner substratum of life and the destructible nature of the outer body.”


The one remains.
The many change and pass.
Heaven’s light forever shines.
Earth’s shadows fly.
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.

Percy Shelley (1792-1822)