Grieving

Krishna's first words to a man in pieces. Read them as diagnosis rather than dismissal: you are speaking wisely and coming apart, and those two facts are both true.

अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे
गतासूनगतासूंश्च नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिताः

You grieve for those who should not be grieved for — and you speak, meanwhile, like a wise man. The wise mourn neither the living nor the dead.

Childhood to youth to age — changes you have already survived without noticing. The verse asks you to place this one in the same series.

देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति

As a person passes from childhood to youth to age, so the embodied one passes from body to body. The steady are not confused by this.

Of every possible image, the Gita picks worn-out clothes. That plainness is deliberate: awe is not what grief needs, and something domestic enough to hold is.

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही

As a person lays aside worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so the embodied one lays aside worn-out bodies and takes up others.

Blunt, and oddly steadying. For the born, death is certain; for the dead, birth. It does not console so much as remove the argument you were having with reality.

जातस्य हि ध्रुवो मृत्युर्ध्रुवं जन्म मृतस्य च
तस्मादपरिहार्येऽर्थे न त्वं शोचितुमर्हसि

For the born, death is certain; for the dead, birth is certain. So do not grieve over what cannot be avoided.