Shloka 52
अव्यक्त-गुण-पुरुषविवेकः | Avyakta, Guṇas, and Discrimination of Puruṣa
अमृत्युर्मुत्युमात्मानमचरश्नचरमात्मन: । अक्षेत्र: क्षेत्रमात्मानमसर्ग: सर्गमात्मन:
amṛtyur mṛtyum ātmānam acaraś caram ātmanaḥ | akṣetraḥ kṣetram ātmānam asargaḥ sargam ātmanaḥ ||
Vasiṣṭha said: “Though in truth he is free from death, he imagines himself as subject to death. Though unmoving, he takes himself to be a mover. Though distinct from the ‘field’ (the body and its conditions), he identifies himself as that field. Though unrelated to creation, he takes creation to be his very self. Thus, through misapprehension, the Self is mistaken for what it merely illumines, and bondage is born from false identification rather than from reality.”
वसिष्ठ उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that bondage arises from misidentification: the deathless, unmoving Self is mistakenly taken to be the mortal, moving body-mind and the world of creation. Recognizing the Self as distinct from kṣetra (the field of experience) dissolves fear of death and the sense of limitation.
In Śānti Parva’s instruction on peace and liberation, Vasiṣṭha explains to his listener that the true Self is untouched by death, motion, embodiment, and creation; the apparent suffering of the individual comes from taking these non-self attributes to be ‘I’.