9. Beyond All Destruction

19. If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks he is slain, neither know the ways of truth. The Eternal in man cannot kill: the Eternal in man cannot die.
20.He is never born, and he never dies. He is in Eternity: he is for evermore. Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies.
21. When a man knows him as never-born, everlasting, never-changing, beyond all destruction, how can that man kill a man, or cause another to kill?
22. As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts on one that is new.
23. Weapons cannot hurt the Spirit and fire can never burn him. Untouched is he by drenching waters, untouched is he by parching winds.
24. Beyond the power of sword and fire, beyond the power of waters and winds, the Spirit is everlasting, omnipresent, never-changing, never-moving, ever One. -- Chapter 2, verses 19-24, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

We are embodyings of the lifeforce, of Spirit. We are the Spirit clothed in flesh. We forget this as we sink into the stupor of our subjective personalities. Then we become Spirit clothed in flesh dreaming s/he is a certain person in a certain time -- a person who is simultaneously magnificent and horrifying. We live out our adventures of pain and loss, of joy and suffering, which are real, all too real, unless we awaken to the one who breathes us. We are that one.

Verse 19 is no justification for killing (which has no justification). Only humans caught in the stupor of a dream state kill. The Eternal never kills and never dies. When we identify with the Eternal, when we open to our Source, when we know that we are the Source sourcing, we do not kill and we know we do not die.

Jesus called this "laying up treasures in heaven" where moths and rust do not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. He also said that where our treasure is, there our heart will be.

When our heart is in our subjective personality, this fictional story we create and cling to, our narrative and resume' of who we are and what we have done and what we are going to do, our demands that others recognize our quirkiness as genius, that is where we have placed our treasure, and that place is mothy and thievish.

This series of Gita verses points to the true bank, a bank that is wide open and needs no guarding. Weapons, fire, water, and wind cannot touch it.

When we are no longer arrogant penitents, protoplasmic blobs shaking our fists at an unheeding sky or falling on our knees in wretched despair, when we open to the lifeforce that energizes us and calls us into being, then we know we are "beyond all destruction."