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न मे
मृत्युः कुतो भीतिर्न मे व्याधिः कुतो व्यथा । नाहं बालो न वृद्धोऽहं न युवैतानि पुद्गले ॥
Verse 29
(29)
I do not die; what should I fear death for? I do not suffer from disease; what can cause me pain? I am not a child; I am not an old man; I am not a young man. All these attributes are found only in physical matter.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
The Acarya in this verse highlights that the modifications that our body is subjected to are not the modifications of the soul and, as such, he marks the body and the soul as two entirely distinct substances. The body is made up of sense organs but the soul is devoid of the senses. The body is devoid of knowledge but the soul is the essence of knowledge. The body is perishable but the soul is imperishable. The body experiences birth, survival and extinction. It has a beginning and an end but the soul has neither beginning nor end.
Our desires for the gratification of the senses - touch, taste, and the rest - cause us injury, bondage, disgrace, and anguish, which are responsible for plunging the soul into the ocean of misery. In different incarnations, due to bondage, the soul has suffered millions of afflictions. In the course of its mundane existence, innumerable bodies have been discarded by the soul. He who contemplates thus is alarmed at the transient nature of the body and miseries of transmigration.
When a man turns his consciousness exclusively to the Ideal of
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