A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.
[Continued from
the previous post.]
I
have no desire for victory, Krishna, or for the kingdom or pleasures. What good
is the kingdom, Krishna, or pleasures, or life itself? Those for whose sake we
desire kingdoms, enjoyments and pleasures, they stand here before me staking
their wealth and life in the war – teachers, fathers, sons, grandfathers,
uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons and brothers-in-law and other kinsmen. I do
not want to kill them, Krishna, even if they kill me – no, not even for all the
three worlds, what to speak of this land.
BG 1.31-35
O0O
Before
we enter the verses, let us spend a minute or two with a major difference
between the Vedic way of living and subsequent Indian way of living, to both of
which spirituality was central.
Speaking
of the greatness of the Vedas, Dr Radha Kumud Mukherjee, one of the greatest
modern Indian Vedic scholars and author of several books based on the Vedas, says:
“The
Vedas and especially the primordial work known as the Rig Veda, represents not
merely the dawn of culture, but also its zenith. Indian thought is seen at its
highest in the Rig Veda… On the one hand it is the first book of India and also
of mankind. At the same time it shows the highest point of human wisdom…
“The Vedas accept life in its fullness. The
malaise caused by the loss of balance between the primary biological instincts
[the body] and man’s active and contemplative faculties [the mind] is
completely absent in them. There is no clash between the flesh and the spirit.”
The
highest ideal for the Vedic Indians was the rishi and for that reason ancient
Indian culture is frequently called arsha samskriti, culture with its
foundation on the rishi vision and way of life. The rishis accepted life in its
fullness and. as Dr Mukherjee points out, found no contradiction between the
flesh and the spirit. For them all our actions were essentially spiritual –
which included the sexual life too. Sex became non-spiritual only when it sank
to a life of the senses and we were reduced to slaves to our senses – only when
we were driven about blindly by our instincts and impulses, making us lose our
contact with the soul, only when we lived our lives unconsciously rather than
consciously. The Upanishads, for instance, speak of the sexual act between man
and woman as a sacred yajna, another sacrificial ritual.
However,
with the decline of the Vedic culture, our ancestors found this way of life too
difficult – conscious living, in which you live every moment wakefully, is
tough indeed, however great the rewards are. So over time a new way of life
evolved into being: the ashrama system. Life past early childhood was divided
into four ashramas or stages of life. The first was called brahmacharya, the
stage in which we devoted all our energy to acquiring knowledge, the word
brahma standing here for the Vedas or all knowledge worth acquiring in general.
This began with the initiation given by the guru between the ages five and
eight, after which the young boy or girl lived in the kula of the guru, as a
member of his extended family.
This
period usually lasted for about twelve years and then the next period, the
family life, called garhasthya, began. In the period of brahmacharya, sex was
forbidden and for that reason the word brahmacharya itself came to be known as
celibacy, though the word does not mean it. During garhasthya social relationships,
social commitments, sexual relations, production of wealth, service to others, religious
rituals, all became central.
At
the end of garhasthya, the third stage known as vanaprastha, life in the
seclusion of the forest away from the society began, though here too the
husband and the wife still lived together. Typically vanaprastha started when
your children had children of their own – apatyasya apatyam. And vanaprastha
eventually led to sannyasa, the final stage of your life.
Thus
the rishi way of life which did not divide life into separate ashrams was
subdivided into four stages for the convenience of people with the decline of
the Vedic culture But even in this period there was a provision for entering
the sannyasa way of life whenever one was ready for it because it was
considered the highest way. Yad ahareve
virajet, tad ahar eva pravrajet, brahmacharyat va grihat va vanat va, said the ancient
wisdom of India: Become a wanderer [on the spiritual path, a sannyasi] the very
day you develop vairagya – from brahmcharya, or garhasthya or from vanaprastha.
The
deciding factor was vairagya – absence of raga or longing for security, possessions,
relationships, sex, name, fame, power over others and so on. With vairagya came
readiness to surrender to Existence, to float with life, to let the current of
life carry you where it willed, to become a cloud in the sky freely going where
the wind takes you. You became a bird of the skies, a lily of the field.
O0O
And
this is way of life Arjuna chooses for himself as he stands and watches the
armies of his own people on both sides standing armed to the teeth, ready to die
or to slaughter one another in the terrible war. Arjuna here is choosing the
highest way of life when he says life is meaningless, kingdom is meaningless,
wealth is meaningless, pleasures are meaningless. [Soon he would use the word
bhaikshya, the way of living on alms, on the charity of other people, for what he
prefers to winning this terrible war.]
Unfortunately
the very words in which he expresses his choice tells us he is not yet ready
that way of life. A sannyasi is one for whom the world is his home and all
people are his own people, even the animals and plants and birds and beasts are
his own people.
The
Bhagavata Mahatmya has one of the most beautiful verses in all of Sanskrit
literature as its first shloka. The shloka speaks of Shuka, who is so young
that his upanayana has not yet taken place, leaving his father Sage Vyasa and
going away as a pravrajaka, a wandering monk. Sage Vyasa calls back, agony in
his voice because his child is so young and still leaving him and going away.
As Vyasa calls out in pain “Oh Son,” it is not however Shuka who responds to him,
but the trees around because Shuka has become one with the trees, one with the
birds and the beasts, one with the moving wind, one with all existence,
In his incredibly beautiful poem Say I’m You, the great Sufi sage Jalaluddin
Rumi says:
I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun...
I am the round sun...
I am morning mist, and the breathing of
evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am wind in the top of a grove and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its
branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal...
This is what Shuka had become and that is what a sannyasi means in the ultimate sense. Rumi is a sannyasi, Shuka is a sannyasi.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal...
This is what Shuka had become and that is what a sannyasi means in the ultimate sense. Rumi is a sannyasi, Shuka is a sannyasi.
But by extension, we can call sannyasis even
those who are living lives leading to that vision, whose entire energies are devoted
to awakening into that state. The word ashrama means complete shrama, total
effort. Sannyasa ashrama is the lifestyle in which every drop of your energy,
every minute of your time is spent towards awakening into that vision in which
we are one with all, one with everything.
Arjuna is not at all ready to live such a
life. He just does not want to kill in battle his own people. He would like to
run away from the harsh responsibility, the very unpleasant reality facing him
at the moment.
Sannyasa is only for the bravest of people,
not for everyone. To let go of all securities and surrender to the winds of
life needs boundless courage. It is certainly not for people who want to run
away from responsibilities because they are not pleasant.
India speaks of what are known as prasooti
vairagya. Prasooti vairagya is the vairagya, dispassion, a woman experiences
towards sexual life in the moments she is giving birth to a baby – the
intolerable pain of giving birth kills all desire for sex in her. But that is
only a very temporary state, a passing thing. Soon the needs and longings
natural to being a woman will take her over again, her body and mind will make
demands on her again. And she will be driven to what she rejects now.
So is Arjuna’s vairagya. It is just a
passing thing. Very ephemeral, with no true substance to it.
O0O
Krishna has known Arjuna all his life. Apart
from being same age cousins and brothers-in-law, they are best friends and have
been so practically all their lives. Krishna knows Arjuna is not yet ready for
sannyasa.
Spirituality is the flowering of the highest
possibilities in man – something that happens, says in the Indian spiritual
tradition, only with the grace of God: ishwara-anugrahaad eva pumsaam
advaita-vaasanaa. Being blessed with spirituality is the greatest blessing man
can have – not being blessed with wealth, not being blessed with power or
position, not being blessed with fame or pleasures, not being blessed with
anything else for that matter. When we wake up from the dream we call samsara,
the life of illusion where we are dominated by the ego and made to run
helter-skelter to fulfill its constant endless demands, we do not just awaken
from this vicious dream that has held us prisoner for endless ages, says Indian
wisdom, but also make our mothers blessed, the families into which we are born
blessed, the very earth itself blessed. The very desire to wake up from the
illusion of samsara is the highest blessing God can give us.
Swami Vivekananda once approached his master
Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, deeply in distress because of the poor economic
conditions of his family. His family that was once well to do had by then been
reduced to extreme poverty and was finding even two meals day difficult.
Vivekananda, young Naren then, was a very sensitive young man and found unable
to focus on his sadhanas because of his family’s suffering. In this agony one
day he approached Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna and the master told him to go and ask
the Mother for wealth, the Mother would give him anything he asked for, after
all the Mother was all-giving and he was her child.
Young Naren went to the temple of Mother
Bhavatarini to ask her for wealth but once he stood before the mother, he was
bathed in such bliss he forgot everything. He stood there repeating the
Mother’s name endlessly and felt wave after wave of love for him emanating from
her and washing over him. After remaining in that samadhi-like state for a long
time, Naren pulled himself out of that state in order to ask her for wealth, as
he had originally intended, but what he asked for was spiritual knowledge and
unceasing devotion to her.
When Naren comes out and answering Bhagavan
Ramakrishna’s question tells him what happened, the master sends him back to
the Mother a second time and then a third time, instructing him to make sure he
asked for wealth. But precisely the same thing happens again both the times and
Naren came out of the temple rather shamefacedly. But of course this is
precisely what the master wanted and he hugged his disciple happily and
congratulating him for his devotion assured him that his family would always
have enough for their food and clothing, he should not worry about them.
There is a story about a man who prayed to
Goddess Lakshmi for wealth. Day after day for years he prayed to Mother Lakshmi
asking her for wealth and finally, disappointed, stopped all the prayers and
became a monk, making fast spiritual progress by practicing sadhana with the
same commitment with which he had prayed for wealth for years. One day as he
sat bathed in the bliss of meditation, the goddess appeared before him with a
beautiful smile on her face, her eyes aglow with love and the whole place radiant
with her brilliance. She offered him all the wealth he wanted and more. He told
her he did not want wealth anymore and asked her why she did not bless him
wealth when he prayed for it. Smiling, the goddess asked him what would have
been batter – her giving him wealth at that time, or not giving him wealth and
making what he has now become possible. In deep reverence, the man bent and
touched the mother’s feet with his head.
Krishna is not just the greatest statesman
of the day but the greatest guru, spiritual master India has known. And a
spiritual master never misses an opportunity to awaken his disciple, to help
him grow spiritually. The greatest blessing Krishna can shower on Arjuna is
leading him to spiritual awakening, giving him spiritual knowledge, making him
realize his true nature, his swaroopa, as the atman that is never born, never
dies, about which he says in the Gita: It
is never born nor does It ever die; after having become, It does not ever cease
to be again. Unborn, eternal, changeless and primeval, It is not killed when
the body is killed. [BG 2.20]
That is what Krishna does to Arjuna in the
Bhagavad Gita at the highest level: seizing . He senses an opportunity to
awaken his friend Arjuna from his illusions and makes the best use of it.
In the Mahabharata there is a story about
Krishna taking Arjuna through a world where darkness is so thick that, in the
words of the epic, if you stretch your hand out you will feel you are pushing
it through wet clay. Here Krishna is taking Arjuna through a world in which
light is so bright it is as though a thousand suns have simultaneously risen up
in the sky – divi soorya-sahasrasya
bhaved yugapad utthitaa.
At the highest level, Gita is spiritual
scripture. It is guidance given by God to man, his friend, to wake up from the drugged
dream in which he has been from the beginning of time. As we shall see as we
proceed, Arjuna asks scores of questions in the Bhagavad Gita and not a single
one of them is about anything other than spirituality.
O0O
As Krishna teaches Arjuna here, he has simultaneously
two purposes. He wants Arjuna to wake up from the illusion of the ego, from
maya, from ignorance and realize his true nature. He also wants Arjuna to
successfully fight the war for the sake of dharma and win it. He wants Arjuna
to master his emotions, to overcome the emotional hijack he is suffering from,
to regain his mental focus, to become sama, calm and centered, to retain his
mental balance, to attain again performance excellence, and fight the war
without feverishness – yuddhyasva vigatajvarah – so he can win the victory for goodness
in the world, particularly among leaders of men, for which Krishna himself has
been waging wars all his life.
What Krishna does for achieving these dual
purposes of his is instructing Arjuna in the Vedic way of spiritual life where
everything you do becomes spirituality, where you do not have to do any special
spiritual acts but do whatever you have always been doing with a changed
attitude, whereby everything you do – yad yad karma karomi tattad akhilam –
becomes your spiritual sadhana. Krishna calls this by several names, the most
common of which is karma yoga, where your karma itself becomes your yoga, your
ordinary actions themselves become your yoga, your meditation, your spiritual
path.
And Krishna tells Arjuna he is not teaching
him anything new, this is what he has taught leaders of men from the beginning
of time, this is the arsha way, the way of the rishis, what he taught the great
rajarshis of the past beginning with the first rajarshi Vivaswan and then his
son Manu and then his son Ikshwaku.
I taught this eternal Yoga to Vivasvan, he taught
it to Manu and Manu taught it to Ikshvaku. This knowledge, thus handed down from
one generation to the next was known to all royal sages. Over a long time this yoga
was lost to the world. It is the same ancient wisdom, Arjuna, this yoga that is
a supreme secret, that I taught you today, because you are my devotee and my
friend. BG 4.1-3
For that reason, as we shall see, throughout
the Gita, at every stage, we are both invited to practice spirituality as well
as are shown ways to achieve performance excellence, to excel in whatever we
choose to do.
The Bhagavad Gita is simultaneously the
highest book of spirituality and best book of performance excellence in
existence.
O0O
