Bhagavad Gita 2.19
य एनं वेत्ति हन्तारं यश्चैनं मन्यते हतम् । उभौ तौ न विजानीतो नायं हन्ति न हन्यते ॥
ya enaṃ vetti hantāraṃ yaś cainaṃ manyate hatam | ubhau tau na vijānīto nāyaṃ hanti na hanyate ||
Translation
He who thinks this to be the slayer, and he who thinks this to be slain, both do not know. It neither slays nor is slain.
Reflection
Who in your story are you treating as the killer or the killed that is neither?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Two
The verse cancels both sides of the killing transaction. The killer is not the killer. The killed is not the killed. What dies is the costume; what wore it neither holds a sword nor receives one. The line is not asking Arjuna to feel nothing on the field. It is locating where the feeling belongs. He can grieve the bodies that will fall; he cannot grieve the men in the deepest sense of the word "men," because the deepest sense of man in this teaching is the atman, and that cannot be reached by a weapon. Aurobindo cautions against using the verse as a license. The verse is a clarification, not a permission slip.