Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 17, Verse 6
Verse 6
The Yoga of the Three Types of Faith
Torturing the elements of the body and Me who dwell within the body — know these unthinking ones to be of demonic resolve.
Context & Meaning
The conclusion of the thought begun in verse 5: those who torture their own bodies through extreme, ego-driven austerities are not only harming themselves but harming the Divine who dwells within them (ahaṃ antaḥ-śarīra-stham — I who dwell inside the body). This echoes the great teaching of Chapter 15, verse 7: every individual soul is a portion of the Divine. The body is the temple in which God resides; to torture it in the name of spirituality is to desecrate one's own shrine. Acetasaḥ — unthinking, unconscious — is the diagnosis: these practices arise from a fundamental failure of spiritual intelligence. They are called āsura-niścayāḥ — of demonic resolve — because the demonic nature always turns the instruments of life against themselves.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainMadhvacharya
DvaitaMāṃ caivāntaḥśarīrastham — Me who dwell within the body. God is the antaryāmin, the inner controller, seated within every physical form. To systematically destroy the body through misguided austerity is therefore not a spiritual act but an act of violence against the Divine indwelling. True austerity refines the body as an instrument of the Divine; false austerity destroys it while calling the destruction by a sacred name.