February 2, 2026
kṣaṇaṁ kalpīkarotyetat taccā ‘lpaṁ kurute bahu
asat satkurute kṣipram itīyaṁ bhrāntirutthitā (23)
The LORD continues to instruct Arjuna:
Thus abandoning mental conditioning, be a liberated soul. Be calm and cool within and give up sorrow caused by relationship. Abandon even the least doubt concerning old age and death, have a vision as expansive as the sky, be free from attraction and hence from aversion, too. Whatever action is natural to you, do that. Nothing perishes here. This is the nature of a liberated sage. It is only the fool who thinks, “I shall do this now” and “I shall abandon this now”.
The senses of a liberated sage are naturally and firmly established in his own heart. It is the mind (heart) that paints the picture known as the three worlds on the canvas of the omnipresent being. The mind creates fragmentation and division. In fact there is no such fragmentation, but the fragmentation that is observed in this creation is but the mind’s own painting. Space is absolute emptiness. However, in the mind the world-appearance rises and falls in the twinkling of an eye! Since the self (on which the world is painted by the mind) pervades the whole creation, creation appears to be real. But, on right enquiry, it dissolves in the self.
Neither do “they” exist nor do you exist. Why then do you grieve? In pure space there is no action or motion, for such motion or action is itself void. Hence, pure space is untainted by such concepts as time, action, etc. All this is only in the mind whose idea is spread as these images. The pure space is empty. That space cannot be divided at any time.
Now that fancied creation has been dissolved, O Arjuna. It came into being by momentary delusion. It is unreal; yet, the mind is capable of creating this phantasy in a moment. It (the mind) makes a moment appear like an epoch, it makes a little look like very much, it makes the unreal appear real instantly: thus has this delusion arisen. It is that momentary delusion that seems to have remained as the illusion known as the world which, in the eyes of the ignorant, is an undeniable and solid reality.
However, since this world-appearance is based on the reality of the infinite consciousness, arguments concerning its real or unreal nature are of little consequence. It is indeed a great wonder that this world of diversity appears in the indivisible infinite consciousness. Yet, it is no more than the painting of a dancer with all the phenomena as the different parts, and the gods and the demons and other beings as her limbs. All these are indeed nothing but their substratum which has never undergone any change. It is the infinite, indivisible consciousness.