"The Blessed Lord said: While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor the dead." [2.11]
If life and death are not worth mourning over, are these anxieties and hygiene concerns worth it? Absolutely not. We are forgetting that the purpose of life is building a relationship with Krishna and understanding Him to be the Lord of Creation. The purport says, "The body is born and is destined to be vanquished today or tomorrow; therefore the body is not as important as the soul." Cleanliness is important, but not so much that it occupies all my time! I ought to be spending more time feeding my soul with knowledge of Krishna!
Krishna goes on to explain more about the nature of the soul. Krishna says that there never was a time when we did not exist and never will there be a time when we will cease to exist. The body is continually changing. It grows, it becomes ill, our souls change bodies... But our souls are always the same. Our souls are indestructible. The body will change its state of being clean and dirty at different points in time, but our soul remains pure. Krishna says that self-realized souls are not bewildered by such bodily changes.
"O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed." [2.14]
Yes. This is Krishna's golden advice to us, applicable in any situation. We live in world of duality. Hot or cold, happy or unhappy, clean or dirty. Vaishnavas must overcome this duality and tolerate them with a steady mind. Yes, yes, yes. We must remember this. All of this arises from sense perception. I remember learning about this in my Psychology class - the way we feel is due to our perception of things. What psychologists have started realizing in the recent past, Krishna spoke thousands of years ago! Timeless wisdom, don't you think? Krishna goes on to say that those who are steady in this world of duality are certainly eligible for liberation. So there we have it - further motivation to rise above this duality!
