“The Blessed Lord said: Many are my births and so are thine, O Arjuna. I can remember each and every one of them, but thou canst not, O subduer of the foe!”

Context of the Verse:

            Krishna responds to this at verse 4.4 where Arjuna poses the question of how Krishna could have taught Vivasvan (the Sun-God) in the opening verses of Chapter 4 when Krishna’s birth was recent. This is where Krishna is starting to show that He is not an ordinary person, He has full awareness of all of His previous incarnations, whereas other characters (any other character, such as Arjuna) do not. This verse prepares us for the doctrine of the divine incarnation (Avatara) which Krishna will present in the following verses.

Key Teachings in This Verse:

• Rebirth of Souls: There is reincarnation, suggested by the many births of both Krishna and Arjuna.
• Divine Memory: Krishna, who is extraordinary; He is not an ordinary Jiva, remembering all preceding ones and all other births as well, to whatever extent there might be, addressing His Omniscience and Divinity.
• Human Limitation: Krishna may remember his past lives, Arjuna doesn’t, which is a characteristic of mortal beings.
• Introducing Avatara doctrine without a lot of fuss: Krishna alludes to His uniqueness, priming the pump, if you will, for Arjuna (and the readers) to have their understanding of His divinity in human form, so to speak, transformed in Chapter 4.

Relevance to Arjuna:

• Arjuna is being directed to learn to see through Krishna’s human form and see His divine nature.
• This verse assures Arjuna that Krishna is speaking from actual truth, not mythical or imagined.
• It shows Arjuna his mortality and his forgetfulness, as opposed to Krishna’s eternal consciousness.
• Assists Arjuna in developing faith and surrender, which are necessary for accepting a more advanced spiritual instruction.

Explanation:

            This is the distinction between Jiva, the tiny spark, minute living being, all of us, and God. We continue to trade our bodies like dresses. We have been looking in the preceding chapter, that no sooner this body is changed, than everything of the past life is forgotten. As we get identified with a dream-body, we remember none of what is happening to this body, where its situation is. And in waking up from the dream, we forget that the dream has happened to the dream in the dream. If you do start to wake up in the middle of it, sometimes we do wake up in the middle of it, you know. Likewise, as our bodies change, we all forget all our relationships. Thus, every life may be likened to a dream. A dream appears to be real. We’re communicating with people who feel so real, but everything evaporates when we wake. Also, we can become extremely rich, become a billionaire, or we can stay poor and not so well known. But it doesn’t matter because this whole thing is going away as soon as we’re out of this body. So, this life is like a dream.

            So, this body only temporarily wraps around us. But reality is, even though it’s just like a dream, a transient reality. The moment we shed a body, all is forgotten. In former lives, we had parents, children, kindred, friends, enemies. We’ve dismissed all of them. We were condemned; we were cursed; we forget it all. But Krishna remembers because it is not a change of body. As we have already established that Krishna’s body and soul are one and the same. Krishna is talking in the same body, therefore he does not forget. So, it wasn’t like Krishna was an ordinary man, as in a lot of these things, Krishna was just, you know, a guy, and then everyone said he was so good that he became God. No, here he is laying it down. He knew this spiritual wisdom, and so was Vivasvan, spoken of in the past. Who is older than Arjuna by millions of years? So, in this way, Krishna starts explaining his character. Who is Krishna actually? He has dropped a few clues in the previous chapters. He will explain now, very clearly. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am an usual person. Who was born as twins, and born along with you.