I know, O Arjuna, all beings, past, present and future, but none knows me.
In these verses Kṛṣhṇa is controverting a doctrine that has unfortunately created a good deal of confusion. I have already told you that the Sāṅkhyas have taken their Avyakṭam, or rather Parabrahmam veiled by Mūlaprakṛṭi, as Āṭmā or the real self. Their opinion was that this avyakṭam took on a kind of phenomenal differentiation on account of association with its upāḍhi, and when this phenomenal differentiation took place, the avyakṭam became the Aṭmā of the individual. They have thus altogether lost sight of the Logos. Startling consequences followed from this doctrine. They thought that there being but one avyakṭam, one soul, or one spirit, that existed, in every upāḍhi, appearing differentiated, though not differentiated in reality, if somehow we could control the action of the upāḍhi, and destroy the māyā it had created, the result would be the complete extinction of man's self and a final layam in this avyakṭam, Parabrahmam. It is this doctrine that has spoilt the Aḍwaita philosophy of this country, that has brought the Buḍḍhism of Ceylon, Burma and China to its present deplorable condition, and led so many Veḍānṭic writers to say that Nirvāṇa was in reality a condition of perfect layam or annihilation.
If those who say that Nirvāṇa is annihilation are right, then, so far as the individuality of the soul is concerned, it is completely annihilated, and what
