In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna asks you to undertake two inter-connected journeys to escape the cycle of birth & rebirth:
Yoga - The Inner Journey of Self-Realization
Yagna - The Outer Journey of Empathy, & Exchange
Both journeys require an individual to,
Detach oneself from the duality of life (good/bad, pleasure/pain, victory/defeat, happy/sad, innocent/guilty, & so on).
Observe the world as it is, while empathizing with how others perceive it.
Finally, perform all actions to the best of one’s ability without worrying about outcomes.
Arjuna, immerse your mind in me and I will uplift you from the ocean of recurring death.
If you cannot do that, then practice yoga and work on your mind.
If you cannot do that, then do your work as if it is my work.
If you cannot do that, then make yourself my instrument and do as I say.
If you cannot do that, then simply do your job and leave the results to me.
~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 12, verses 6 to 11
[Note: Except for the headings in bold, every word below is from the book My Gita. I haven’t used block quotes for the sake of readability.]
The Different Realities
Arjuna, the senses exist beyond the physical; mind beyond the senses; intelligence beyond the mind. Beyond intelligence is your sense of self. By knowing who you really are you will conquer all yearning.
~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 3, verses 42 and 43
These five containers create three realities: sensory reality that depends on the flesh (indriyas), emotional reality that depends on the heart (chitta) and conceptual reality that depends on imagination (manas) and intelligence (buddhi).
What distinguishes humans from the rest of nature is our ability to imagine reality. We can conjure up the opposite of what we experience. While the senses experience pain, our mind can imagine happiness. While the senses experience pleasure, our mind can imagine sorrow. While the senses experience form, our mind can imagine formlessness. While the senses experience finiteness, our mind can imagine infiniteness. While the senses experience mortality, our mind can imagine immortality.
Our thoughts and beliefs shape our emotions; our emotions also determine our thoughts and beliefs.
Your reality is different from my reality, because your body is different, your filters are different, your experiences are different, your knowledge is different.
Jiva-atma & Param-atma
The resident of the human body experiences its childhood, youth and old age before moving on to the next. This body gets attached to the world around it, and so fears death. But the wise, aware of the inner resident’s immortality, aware that the flesh goes through cycles of birth and death, do not fear change, or death.
With these words Krishna simply renders death irrelevant. He transforms the battlefield into one of the infinite experiences of the immortal resident (dehi) of the mortal body (deha).
The body we inhabit, and nature that is all around our body, is tangible (sa-guna). What resides in our body, and in nature, is not (nir-guna). Deha and prakriti are within the reach of the senses; they are bound by the rules of space and time, which means they can be measured and are impermanent. Dehi and purusha, however, are outside the reach of the senses, and are not bound by rules of space and time, which means they cannot be measured and are permanent.
Deha is that which separates us from other entities. Dehi is that which unites us to others. Deha establishes individuality, Dehi establishes universality.
Dehi is called jiva-atma and purusha is called param-atma. Dehi’s experience is limited by the deha it resides in, while purusha’s experience is unlimited, as it resides in limitless prakriti. The jiva-atma depends on the param-atma but the param-atma is not dependent on the jiva-atma.
Aham
When there is conceptual clarity, we experience tranquillity (ananda), no matter what the sensory experience is. In the absence of conceptual clarity, the dominant emotion is fear. The emotion of fear impacts the way we think and what we believe. It contaminates the filtering of sensations and choice of responses. The frightened, hence crumpled, hence disconnected, mind is referred to as aham. It creates a vicious cycle where atma is eclipsed by aham, our judgemental self.
Like animals that seek food for their survival, humans yearn for meaning for their sanity: what is our value, our purpose and our identity in this world? As long as we seek validation from the world around us, we are entrapped by aham. It gives rise to the notion of property and to hierarchies in society. Out of fear, we do not share. Due to fear, we fight over property. Identity based on what we have is aham.
When the mind outgrows its dependence on kshetra and deha, it discovers atma. When we die, the deha is cremated. The dehi/kshetragna/atma move on to the next life if it is still dependent on deha and kshetra, else it breaks free entirely from the unending waves of rebirths & deaths.
Judge vs Observer
The animal brain is rooted in fear, and focuses on survival, while the human brain is rooted in imagination, and so seeks to understand itself by understanding nature. Between survival and understanding comes judging—the state when everything and everyone around us is evaluated based on imagined benchmarks, in order to position oneself.
The animal wants to identify the other as predator or prey, rival or mate. The judge wants to classify the world as good or bad, innocent or guilty, right or wrong, oppressor or oppressed, based on his or her own framework. The observer wants to figure out what exactly is going on. Yoga is the journey from animal to judge to observer by uncrumpling of aham, the frightened mind, and the eventual discovery of atma.
Arjuna, ignore the onslaught of external stimuli and focus between your eyebrows, regulating inhalation and exhalation at the nostrils, to liberate yourself from fear, desire and anger, and discover me within you, I who receive and consume every offering of your yagnas.
~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 5, verses 27 to 29
The point is to make one's way through the turbulence of the mind and discover the tranquillity beyond. While Patanjali’s Yoga-sutra speaks of samadhi as complete withdrawal from the material world, Krishna’s Gita speaks of samadhi very differently, as the ability to see the world with perfect equanimity, without judgement.
Brahmana represents a state when humans have totally overpowered the animal brain; in other words, outgrown fear. It’s the realization that our identity is independent, devoid of the need for props.
Dharma & Yagna
Yoga brings awareness and attention to fear. By recognizing the reality of his own fears, the yogi is able to appreciate the fears of those around him. Connecting with the other is not easy, especially when we look upon each other as predator or prey, rival or mate. In such a situation we trust no one but ourselves, as animals tend to do. When humans behave as animals do, despite the human ability to outgrow animal nature, it is adharma.
Humans are the only living creatures who can expand their mind and see the world from another person’s point of view. This ability enables humans to empathize, to care for the other. To empathize is dharma, failure to empathize is adharma.
Humans can help and expect to be helped, which comes from the ability to imagine and respond to other people’s suffering. When we value other people’s needs alongside our own, we are following dharma.
To enable anu-bhava, one has to simultaneously perform the inner journey of yoga and the outer journey of yagna.
Empathy enables exchange. I can satisfy a hunger of yours and you can satisfy a hunger of mine. This refers not just to physical hunger, but psychological hunger as well. This act of mutual feeding informs the yagna, the ancient Vedic ritual, which establishes the human ecosystem of mutuality, reciprocity, obligations and expectations.
In most writings, yagna is translated as ‘sacrifice’. This translation came from the European Orientalists of the eighteenth century who never really conducted the ritual or witnessed it. To do yagna is to recognize that we live in a sea of assumed expectations and obligations.
Exchange can be used to satisfy our desires, or repay our debts. It can entrap us, or liberate us. It depends not on the action, but on the thought underlying the action.
Karma
When understanding impacts action and action impacts understanding, then it is yoga. Hindu mythology sees destinations as artificial milestones. What is natural, however, is action. Every action has a reaction, immediate results and long-term repercussions. Karma refers to both action and reaction. It is cause as well as consequence. It is stimulus as well as response.
Each moment is a fruit (karma-phala) of the past and a seed (karma-bija) of the future. And just as every seed need not germinate, just as the quality of the fruit depends on various external factors like sunlight and quality of soil and availability of water, the reaction of every action is unpredictable. With unpredictability comes uncertainty, which amplifies fear.
Arjuna, there is appropriate action, incorrect action and inaction, each of which is difficult to distinguish.
The wise can spot action in inaction and inaction in action.
The wise act without clinging to the results of action, are content with whatever is the outcome, and so are unburdened by merit or demerit.
~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 4, verses 17 to 22
Maybe we can imagine control over our actions, but we have no control over other people’s actions, hence the results.
The Three Gunas
Arjuna, when sattva shines through all body gates, there is happiness and understanding;
When rajas shines through, there is greed, restlessness and lust;
When tamas shines through, there is confusion and indolence.
From sattva comes knowledge, from rajas desire and from tamas ignorance.
~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 14, verses 11 to 17
Depending on its guna, a tree bears mango fruit; this is not ambition or desire, it is simply realization of potential. If we expect a mango tree to bear apples, then problems start. We do not respect guna.
Guna impact both the matter & the mind. Thus, thought and emotions also display the three tendencies. In tamas, the tendency is to be lazy and confused, and so there is mimicry of the other. In rajas, the tendency is to achieve, dominate and impress, and so there is initiative and aggression towards the other. In sattva, the tendency is to understand and be happy, and so there is gentleness and affection for the other.
We are all a masala box of guna, with one guna dominating at different times. We can all be lazy, assertive, detached or engaged. Guna will continuously make people take decisions that even their mind opposes. Yoga makes us aware of the guna at work.
Yogi vs Sattvika
A judge tends to see sattva guna as superior and tamas guna as inferior, but the observer knows that sattva guna is the most desirable simply because it is least threatening while tamas guna is least desirable because it is burdensome. Rajas guna is glamorous and seductive, for it is associated with ambition and determination and is seen as far more proactive, compared to the reactive sattva guna.
The observer also distinguishes the sattvika from the yogi—the sattvika’s tranquillity is effortless and inborn, while the yogi’s tranquillity is the outcome of learning and effort. The yogi pays attention to the other, which distinguishes him from the sattvika.
The moment we judge, attribute agency to others or ourselves, for fortune or misfortune, we disconnect from atma and give rise to aham. In aham, we don’t accept the power of guna and blame people for our problems. We then seek leaders if we are tamasika, followers if we are rajasika or simply disconnect if we are sattvika.
Maya
Animals and plants do not measure or compare. They fight for as much territory as they need to survive. But humans can measure the size of their property and hence compare. This ability to measure and delimit reality is called maya. Maya establishes the structures, divisions and hierarchies of society, in which we locate our identity and the identities of those whom we compare ourselves with.
The word maya is commonly translated as illusion, or delusion, but its root ‘ma’ means to ‘to measure’. Maya is the delusion when we look at the world through the filter of measurement.
It is our imagination that gives value to things, purpose to an activity and identity to a thing. We can give meaning or wipe it away. That is the power of maya.
The world can be whatever we imagine it to be—valuable or valueless, fueling ambition or cynicism. We can manufacture depression and joy in our lives by the way we measure, delimit and apportion the world. The world itself has no intrinsic measurement.
Arishad Varga
The Buddha spoke of desire (tanha, in Pali) as the cause of all suffering. Hence he advised people to shun desire by accepting the truth of life—nothing is fixed or permanent, not even identity.
The Gita, however, speaks of two kinds of identity: external identity or aham, based on property, and internal identity or atma, based on wisdom. Aham is the fruit of fear. Atma is the fruit of wisdom. Aham is the seed of kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and matsarya. Atma results in moksha. With atma, we don’t cling. We don’t seek control. We simply let go.
To be told that our true identity is intangible and immeasurable (kshetragna) seems quite unbelievable, as it can never be proven, only believed. So we cling to goals or rules, to property or relatives, to titles or ideas, and fight over them as animals fight over territory.
Animals fight because the survival of their body depends on it. Humans fight as the survival of their identity (aham) depends on it. Clinging is comforting. Insecurity fuels desire (kama) for more, and so acquiring more becomes the purpose of life. We get angry (krodha) when we don’t get them, become greedy (lobha) once we get them, get attached (moha) to them, become intoxicated with pride (mada) because we possess things, feel jealous of those who have more and insecure around those who have less (matsarya).
Amongst humans, since we identify ourselves through things, an attack on what we consider ours becomes a violation of our identity. Human society conditions us to cling to things around us, gain identity through relationships, titles and estates. In other words, culture celebrates moha and mada.
Material reality thus enchants us and crumples our mind several times over. These are called the six obstacles (arishad-varga) that prevent the mind from expanding, the aham from transforming into atma and discovering bhagavan.
Wisdom is enjoying things that drift in and letting go of things that drift away, like watching the waves drift in and out of the beach.
Brahma Nirvana
The Buddhist concept of nirvana offers freedom from suffering by realizing that even the idea of the self is manufactured by the mind. The Gita’s concept of brahma-nirvana offers awareness of, and empathy for, the manufactured anxieties of the other, their need to control and dominate and cling, their inability to let go despite being enabled and empowered to do so. The more we observe the other, without judgement, the more we see ourselves mirrored in them. We realize our manufactured anxieties that indulge our manufactured selves.
While artha, kama and moksha focus primarily on the self, dharma alone is about the other. This is why Krishna keeps speaking about action, not inaction, engagement, not withdrawal.
The hermit may seek zero (shunya), hence withdrawal and oblivion (nirvana). But the householder can seek infinity (ananta), hence participation, which leads to expansion of the mind to accommodate the infinite truths of those around (brahma-nirvana). Krishna thus makes moksha an outcome of dharma. Craving cannot be destroyed, but it can be put to good use by locating it in dharma. So seek to destroy craving with the pursuit of dharma.
Conclusion
The Gita does not aspire for perfection. Hence, there are no rules in The Gita, only three paths to establish relationships with the self and the others: karma yoga, bhakti yoga and gyana yoga that deal with human conduct, human emotions and human identity.
These three routes are interdependent. One cannot exist without the other. Without karma yoga, we have nothing to give, or receive from, the other. Without bhakti yoga, we are machines that feel nothing for the other. Without gyana yoga, we have no value, purpose or meaning.
The optimal functioning of the hands (karma) depends on the head (gyana) and the heart (bhakti). A yogi simultaneously does, feels and understands.
P.S. Why you should never stop learning… 😉
Knowledge acquired in the past plays a role in the wisdom of future lives.
Arjuna, the exchange of knowledge is greater than the exchange of things for ultimately all exchange culminates in the mind.
~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 4, Verse 33
I will write another post with highlights from Eknath Easwaran’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita