Kṛṣṇa advised Arjuna that avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam: "Arjuna, My dear Arjuna, you have, so long you have spoken, you have argued with Me in so many ways, but such argument is not for . . . not to be entertained in learned circle. Now just try to be a learned man." And what is that? Now, avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam: "You just try to understand. In your body there is something which is spread all over body, all over your body. And that is eternal. And what is that thing which is spread all over your body? That is your consciousness. Your consciousness."
Just like this electric bulb is here, and the light of the electric bulb is diffused all over the, I mean to say, room. We can see. Similarly, the spirit soul is within your heart. It is situated there. But it is so powerful that its light is spread all over this body so that wherever you pinch, you feel, by consciousness, "Oh, I am feeling some pain." That consciousness. And as soon as that consciousness is gone from this body, if your head is cut off or your leg is cut off, by chopped off, you don't feel anything.
So this instruction was first given to Arjuna, that "Arjuna, you are arguing with Me just like a very learned scholar, but you are fool number one, and you just try to understand this first of all, that that thing which is spread all over . . ." Avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam (BG 2.17). Yena sarvam idam. Sarvam idam means the whole body, idam. But your consciousness is not spread in others bodies. You must know it.
If you say that, "My consciousness is spread all over the universe," that is also another mistake. Your consciousness is limited within your body. Just like my consciousness is limited within my body, your consciousness is limited within your body. And everyone . . . we are all living entities and we are, everyone, conscious, but our consciousness is limited.
We should not falsely claim that, "I am the supreme consciousness." That is another mistake. I am not the supreme consciousness. Supreme consciousness means that . . . just like with my consciousness I can feel what is happening in my body, but with my consciousness I cannot feel what is going on in your body—similarly, you also cannot feel what is going on in my body. But the supreme consciousness is that which can know what is going on in your body, which is going on in my body, which is going on universally, everyone's body, He is . . . He knows. That is supreme consciousness.
Supreme consciousness, He has distinguished in this way, that we, the . . . in the battlefield . . . He first of all made this clear, that "My dear Arjuna, yourself, Myself and all these people who have assembled before us for fighting, all of them as living entities, they existed, and they are existing at present, and they'll continue to exist." "They will continue to exist." That means the soul is eternal. Then He has described the nature of the soul and the nature of the body very nicely and has concluded that soul is eternal, but the body is not eternal. Antavanta ime dehā nityasyoktāḥ śarīriṇaḥ (BG 2.18). Śarīriṇaḥ means one who possesses this body.
This thing we have discussed in the Second Chapter, and in the Third Chapter Arjuna is advised to adopt the means of karma-yoga. For spiritual emancipation we have to act on the platform of consciousness, and because we are now engaged in material engagement, it is not possible for us to at once get rid of this material consciousness, but we have gradually to get out of it. And that is called karma-yoga. Karma-yoga means you have to adopt this process of karma-yoga in such a way that even within your material body you shall be able to act on spiritual platform, consciousness. That we have already discussed.