What action cannot touch

1 · Chapter 2 · Shloka 16

The unreal hath no being; the real never ceaseth to be; the truth about both hath been perceived by the seers of the essence of things.

Start with the distinction: what is real never stops being, what is unreal never started.

2 · Chapter 2 · Shloka 20

He is not born, nor doth he die; nor having been, ceaseth he any more to be; unborn, perpetual, eternal and ancient, he is not slain when the body is slaughtered.

The self is not born and does not die — it is not a thing that events happen to.

3 · Chapter 2 · Shloka 23

Weapons cleave him not, nor fire burneth him, nor waters wet him, nor wind drieth him away.

The standard destroyers — blade, fire, water, wind — get no purchase on it.

4 · Chapter 2 · Shloka 24

Uncleavable he, incombustible he, and indeed neither to be wetted nor dried away; perpetual, all-pervasive, stable, immovable, ancient.

So it earns the words unbreakable, unburnable: the ground fear cannot corrode.

5 · Chapter 13 · Shloka 31

When he perceiveth the diversified existence of beings as rooted in One, and spreading forth from it, then he reacheth the Eternal

Because it has no beginning and no qualities, it moves through the body without being stained by what the body does.

6 · Chapter 2 · Shloka 25

Unmanifest, unthinkable, immutable, he is called; therefore knowing him as such, thou shouldst not grieve.

Knowing this, Krishna says, the grief has nothing to stand on — the loss you fear is not a loss of this.