15. God is not responsible either for anyone's virtuous deeds or sinful actions. God's work in this regard is threefold: 1) He provides the soul with the power to act. 2) Once we have performed actions with the power supplied to us, He notes our actions. 3) He gives us the results of our karmas.
The individual soul has the freedom to perform good or bad actions by the exercise of its own free will. That free will is the basis of the play of creation and it accounts for the varieties of consciousness amongst the souls in existence. God's work is like that of an umpire in a cricket match. He keeps giving the results, "Four runs!" "Six runs!" "He's out!" The umpire cannot be blamed for the decision, for it was based upon the way the player performed.
One may ask why God granted free will to the soul. It is because the soul is a tiny part of God and it possesses His qualities to a minuscule extent. God is abhijña swarāṭ (supremely independent), and so the soul also possesses a tiny amount of independence to utilize its senses, mind, and intellect in the manner it wishes.
Also, without free will there can be no love. A machine cannot love since it has no independence to choose. Only a personality that has the ability to choose possesses the option to love. Since God has created us to love Him, He has endowed us with free will. The exercise of our own free will results in good and bad deeds, and we must not blame God for them.
In ignorance, some souls do not even realize that they possess the freedom to choose their actions and hold God responsible for their mistakes. Others realize they possess a free will, but they harbor the pride of doership in the egoistic notion of being the body. This is again a sign of ignorance. Shree Krishna explains next how such ignorance can be dispelled.
16. The sun's power in removing the darkness of night is incomparable. The Ramayan states:
"Despite the combined light of the full moon and all the visible stars in a cloudless sky, the night does not go. But the moment the sun rises, the night makes a hasty exit." The light of the sun is such that the darkness cannot remain before it. The light of God's knowledge has a similar effect in dispelling the darkness of ignorance.
Darkness is responsible for creating illusions. In the darkness of the cinema hall, the light falling on the screen creates the illusion of reality, and people get absorbed in watching it. However, when the main lights in the cinema hall are switched on, the illusion is dispelled and people wake up from their reverie to realize that they were only watching a movie. Similarly, in the darkness of ignorance, we identify ourselves with the body, and consider ourselves to be the doers and enjoyers of our actions. When the light of God's knowledge begins shining brightly, the illusion beats a hasty retreat, and the soul wakes up to its true spiritual identity, even while it lives in the city of nine gates. The soul had fallen into illusion because God's material energy (avidyā śhakti) had covered it in darkness. The illusion is dispelled when God's spiritual energy (vidyā śhakti) illumines it with the light of knowledge.
17. Just as ignorance causes one to suffer in samsara, or the perpetual cycle of life and death, knowledge has the power to release one from material bondage. Such knowledge is always accompanied with devotion to God. This verse makes very emphatic use of words denoting complete God-consciousness.
Tadbuddhayaḥ means the intellect is directed toward God.
Tadātmanaḥ means the heart (mind and intellect) is solely absorbed in God.
Tanniṣhṭhāḥ means the intellect has firm faith in God.
Tatparāyaṇaḥ means striving after God as the supreme goal and refuge.
Thus, the sign of true knowledge is that it leads to love for God. Imbued with such love, devotees see Him everywhere.
18. When we perceive things through the perspective of knowledge, it is called prajñā chakṣhu, which means "with the eyes of knowledge." Shree Krishna uses the words vidyā sampanne to the same effect, but He also adds vinaya, meaning "humbleness." The sign of divine knowledge is that it is accompanied by a sense of humility, while shallow bookish knowledge is accompanied with the pride of scholarship.
Shree Krishna reveals in this verse how divine knowledge bestows a vision so different from physical sight. Endowed with knowledge, devotees see all living beings as souls who are fragments of God, and are therefore divine in nature. The examples given by Shree Krishna are of diametrically contrasting species and life forms. A Vedic Brahmin who conducts worship ceremonies is respected, while a dog-eater is usually looked down upon as an outcaste; a cow is milked for human consumption, but not a dog; an elephant is used for ceremonial parades, while neither the cow or the dog are. From the physical perspective, these species are sharp contrasts in the spectrum of life on our planet. However, a truly learned person endowed with spiritual knowledge sees them all as eternal souls, and hence views them with an equal eye.
The Vedas do not support the view that the Brahmins (priestly class) are of higher caste, while the Shudras (labor class) are of lower caste. The perspective of knowledge is that even though the Brahmins conduct worship ceremonies, the Kṣhatriyas administer society, the Vaiśhyas conduct business, and the Shudras engage in labor, yet they are all eternal souls, who are tiny parts of God, and hence alike.
19. Sri Krishna uses the word sāmye to mean one possessed of an equal vision toward all living beings, as explained in the previous verse. Further, equality in vision also means to rise beyond likes and dislikes, happiness and misery, pleasure and pain. Shree Krishna says that those who are able to do so transcend the samsara of repeated birth and death.
So long as we think of ourselves as the body, we cannot attain this equality of vision because we will experience continued desires and aversions for bodily pleasures and discomforts. Saints rise above bodily consciousness and absorb their minds in God, giving up all worldly attachments. The Ramayan states:
"Lakshman served Lord Ram and Sita, just as an ignorant person serves his body."
When one's mind is situated in this divine consciousness, attachment to bodily pleasures and pains get transcended, and one reaches a state of equanimity. This equipoise that comes through the sacrifice of selfish bodily desires makes one godlike in demeanor. The Mahabharat states: yo na kāmayate kiñchit brahma bhūyāya kalpate "One who gives up desires becomes like God."
20. The section of this verse—neither rejoicing in pleasure, nor lamenting the unpleasant—is the highest ideal of the Vipassanā tradition of meditation in Buddhism. Rigorous training is undertaken to reach this state of clarity and precision, ultimately leading to equanimity, and destruction of self-will. However, the same state is naturally reached in devotion to God, when we surrender our will to the divine. In accordance with verse 5.17, when we unite our will to the will of God, then both pleasure and pain are serenely accepted as His grace.
A beautiful story illustrates this attitude. A wild horse once ran into a farm. People congratulated the farmer on his good luck. He said, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows? It is all the will of God." A few days later, the horse ran away, back into the forest. His neighbors commiserated with his bad luck. He said, "Bad luck, good luck, who knows? It is all God's will." A few more days went by, and the horse returned with twenty more wild horses. Again people congratulated the farmer on his stroke of good luck. He wisely reflected, "What is good and bad luck? This is all God's will." A few days later, the farmer's son broke his leg while riding one of the horses. The neighbors came to express grief. The wise farmer responded, "Pleasant and unpleasant, it is only God's will." Some more days went by, and the king's soldiers came to recruit all young men into the army for the war that had just broken out. All the young men in the neighborhood were taken into the army, but the farmer's son was left behind because his leg was broken.
Divine knowledge brings the understanding that our self-interest lies in giving pleasure to God. This leads to surrender to the will of God, and when the self-will gets merged in the divine will, one develops the equanimity to serenely accept both pleasure and pain as His grace. This is the symptom of a person situated in transcendence.