understanding bhagavad gita

Practical Spirituality – The regulative principles

Everything in this universe, except for the Supreme Lord, has to follow rules and perform the prescribed duties. But Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that though he is not bound by any rules, he still executes his duties so as to set an example to all the souls.

BG 3.22: O son of Pṛthā, there is no work prescribed for Me within all the three planetary systems. Nor am I in want of anything, nor have I a need to obtain anything — and yet I am engaged in prescribed duties.

BG 3.23: For if I ever failed to engage in carefully performing prescribed duties, O Pārtha, certainly all men would follow My path.

Spiritual practice can be a different experience depending on which path one takes. In general, the best path to take would be and should be the easiest one, is it not?  This applies to spirituality as well. But easy does not mean “no rules”. There is a common misconception that is going around that you can do anything you want as long as you say a few prayers and ask for forgiveness. Some even go to the extent to say “Oh, Krishna is like my friend. He just wants us to enjoy like he did!” There are people who even seek to justify their bad habits using Vedic philosophy.

A story I heard: A Krishna devotee was visiting a home once. The lady of the house, during the course of her discussions, mentioned that her son was a good ‘naishtika brahmachari’ and a pious person but he smokes a lot. She requested this devotee to go and talk her son to put some sense in to him. The devotee went outside to the back of the house and found the lady’s son puffing out smoke like a steam engine. When he asked the son: “Sir, why do you smoke this much? Do you not know this is bad for health?” The son replied, “I am not smoking, my body is smoking!”

So, this kind of dangerous ideas can be the result of unguided, self improvised spiritual practice. Vedic Spirituality is not a simple “Be good, Get good” scheme. It is not a way to get material wealth and happiness through ‘grace of God’. Certainly, it is not wrong if someone prays to Krishna for protection in dire times or relief during extremely difficult financial or family situations, but treating Krishna or any of the devatas as “order suppliers” should be strongly discouraged and avoided.

Let’s get back to the topic. For any aspiring, sincere spiritualist, there are 4 basic regulatory principles that must be followed. These rules were followed as a matter of habit in the past, but Srila Prabhupada gave them prominence since he was preaching in a place which was abound with the below practices.

1)      No meat eating (meat, fish eggs etc.)

2)      No intoxication (smoking, drinking liquor, coffee and tea (yes, you read it right) etc.)

3)      No gambling

4)      No illicit sex

We will look at these one by one in detail in the order shown.

Before we get in to the details, here are some statements to consider.

From Śrī Īśopaniṣad:

Iso 1: Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.

From Upadeśāmṛta (The Nectar of Instruction) of Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī:

NoI 1: A sober person who can tolerate the urge to speak, the mind’s demands, the actions of anger and the urges of the tongue, belly and genitals is qualified to make disciples all over the world.

I will leave these at this point. We will come back to these as and when needed.

Now, for the first rule… being a vegetarian. There will be so many people who might have raised their eyebrows at the other rules, but I am sure the first one comes as no surprise.

Why vegetarianism? For spiritual practice, one of the goals is going beyond the control of the 3 modes of nature. But the first step is to be in the mode of goodness… sattva guna. The other two modes of nature are mode of passion (Rajas) and mode of ignorance (Tamas).

Ok. Quote time.

BG 9.26: If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.

BG 17.7: Even the food each person prefers is of three kinds, according to the three modes of material nature. The same is true of sacrifices, austerities and charity. Now hear of the distinctions between them.

BG 17.8: Foods dear to those in the mode of goodness increase the duration of life, purify one’s existence and give strength, health, happiness and satisfaction. Such foods are juicy, fatty, wholesome, and pleasing to the heart.

BG 17.9: Foods that are too bitter, too sour, salty, hot, pungent, dry and burning are dear to those in the mode of passion. Such foods cause distress, misery and disease.

BG 17.10: Food prepared more than three hours before being eaten, food that is tasteless, decomposed and putrid, and food consisting of remnants and untouchable things is dear to those in the mode of darkness.

You with me still? Good.

Basically, to get situated in the mode of goodness, one must avoid eating foods that are detrimental to such a progress. As such, non-vegetarian items are not categorized as ‘sattvic food’. There are several reasons why this is stressed by the Acharyas. I am not going to go in detail… but will briefly touch upon them.

There is no need to kill animals for food when the same is accomplished through grains, vegetables, fruits and milk. It is quite understandable that this is not possible for people who are desert nomads or Arctic Eskimos. But for people in civilization, where there is plenty of the vegetarian stuff available, to be eating meat is sheer indulgence which takes the animals for granted as being at our disposal. There will be some people who claim animals don’t have souls and hence ‘killing’ them is fine. That is very a foolish argument, as are the claims of some people that we cannot get all nutrition from vegetarian food.

Does this mean it is ok to gorge down on vegetarian food and kill plants as well as trees at our will?

No. Absolutely not! Here is where we refer to the quoted verse of Śrī Īśopaniṣad. Everything belongs to the Supreme Lord but we are allowed our quota for sustenance. Nothing more, nothing less.

There was a question from David on this topic. It is true that many vegetarians take pride in being so, and put down the other side. I was one too, to be honest. I have just one verse to quote on that.

Srimad Bhagavad Gita Canto 3, Verse 13

yajna-sishtasinah santo
mucyante sarva-kilbishaih
bhunjate te tv agham papa
ye pacanty atma-karanat

“The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.”

This is a direct statement from Krishna which is self explanatory. Anything that is prepared as food and eaten without offering it to the Lord is basically sinful. So, even it is vegetarian food, if it is not first offered as ‘nivedya’ and consumed later as ‘prasadam’, it is sinful. Obviously, non-vegetarian food cannot be offered as nivedya (as well as preparations with onion, garlic, mushrooms etc. but more on this later.) This concept of ‘prasadam’ is directly tied to the verse which mentions about controlling the urges of the tongue.

Trust me, in the current world, being a vegetarian is an austerity where one has to be very vigilant in what one eats. But I have seen the effects of food on one’s mental disposition, behavior and mood first hand as well as heard of the same from many others.

I will stop here for this article. In the next installment, we will look in what the other regulative principles are meant to accomplish.

Practical Spirituality – Introduction

(Fair warning: This series of article was born after some pretty nasty incidents that were reported in the news over the last couple of months. This would be of the very direct and no-holds barred kind of series. By the way, all opinions expressed in the articles are mine and my own.)

I am sure everyone would have heard (and probably seen the video courtesy of Sun TV) of Nithyananda and Ranjitha. No, these are not some yesteryear cinema stars. These two are just the most recent ‘famous personalities’ to be brought to disrepute by a hidden video camera, showing them in, let’s just say, compromising positions.

Were you were truly shocked upon hearing this news? Not me.

Did you also see the news item where the infamous ‘Amma Bhagavan’ – the one who named himself as ‘Kalki’ – and his ‘ashramites’ are indulging in some pretty weird stuff under drug induced frenzy?

Were you were truly shocked upon hearing this news? Not me.

(I just saw a news item again few days back  which showed Mr. Nithyananda doing some odd ritual… seems like he is undergoing some ‘deep’ penance. What a show!! I really pity his ‘followers’.)

Here he goes… What is the relevance of this sleaze news item to the topic? Ambi is in rambling mode again.

Hear me out, will you?

There is another ‘famous one’ who is very market savvy, and in the guise of teaching people to live, he has made a good living himself, trying to involve in politics now and then. I was at a store last week where I saw a CD of lectures by this person. It was something about contradictions in the Bhagavad Gita.  I was kind of amused, actually. Here is a person, who is ‘revered’ by oh-so-many, models himself as a spiritual teacher and yet instead of trying to teach the essence of Bhagavad Gita, he is trying to show himself to be scholarly and giving lectures on a topic which I have no doubt would simply confuse the people more.

Then, there are the VERY famous ones who actually let their followers claim them to be God himself (or sometimes they get followers by making that claim). They make statements like ‘not an ounce of dirt moves without me knowing it’ and create a mystic aura around themselves, make politicians and socialites kneel in front of them and project themselves to be the savior of the masses. It does not matter if such ‘Gods’ are confined to a wheelchair to be able to move around. The sad part is I get justifications for such a position saying ‘oh, it’s just the body. Swamiji is just acting his role in this jada (gross) world’.

The list of such people is only growing every day.

These swamis are no better than some of the fake missionaries who hold huge prayer meetings on the beach or an auditorium claiming to heal cancer and lame legs.  And the more I look in to such matters, the more I am convinced that ‘most’ of the people go to such ‘famous swamis’ only for instant gratification… be it wealth, cure from a disease, or generally showing off to the world that they are also ‘spiritual’. The highest and most dangerous form of such gratification comes when you are told “You are God”. But a disclaimer follows: “You haven’t realized that yet. But I have. So worship me.” How ridiculous is that!! Well, to be fair, these are just a small but growing lot of ‘gurus’ who take advantage of the growing lack of knowledge amongst people, on what real spiritual life is.

Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 12, Chapter 2, Verse 4:

A person’s spiritual position will be ascertained merely according to external symbols, and on that same basis people will change from one spiritual order to the next. A person’s propriety will be seriously questioned if he does not earn a good living. And one who is very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar.

Is this verse relevant here? Well, Canto 12 is titled as “The Age of Deterioration” and the chapter 2 is titled “The Symptoms of Kali Yuga”. Get the idea? In just 4 lines, this verse summarizes what we have been seeing for quite a while and what is getting more and more commonplace these days.

If someone wants to feed you poison, they will not give it for you to drink saying that it is poison. They will say it is nectar and by the time its true nature is revealed, the damage is done on you. It is even more dangerous if the person feeding you thinks the poison to be nectar. So, we need to be aware of what is conducive and what is not for spiritual well being. And for that, I have to do my fair duty in pointing out the poisons from the nectar, and justifying the distinctions. And this is exactly what I will try to address in this series.

I am aware that some people might get offended or feel irritated that I go against ‘established’ Gurus or some popular siddhantas. But that is just a small inconvenience compared to the satisfaction I gain by doing my part to disperse the knowledge which I have received by the mercy of my teachers.

The next article in this series will deal with very basic information on what is spirituality, what it does it take to actually understand spiritual science, what are the first steps that someone can take in getting on to the spiritual path. Of course, all of this will be from the perspective of the Vedic teachings.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern relevance – Perfection of Yoga

  Ancient Wisdom, Modern relevance – Perfection of Yoga

In my last article, I had addressed the details on who can be a Guru and how to identify a bonafide spiritual master. In the article before that, we saw Lord Krishna addressing Arjuna’s despondent pleas. Instead of going through a chapter-wise discussion as I had planned earlier, I am taking a thematic approach on presenting the conclusions made by the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna on various paths of Yoga as he explained in the Bhagavad Gita. This will reduce my effort significantly, thereby helping me to spend time on the discussions that might follow.

“Yoga” means “linking of our consciousness with the Supreme Absolute Truth”. When the linking process is predominantly through fruitive activities, it is called Karma Yoga. If it is done through empirical means, it is called Jnana Yoga. If it is done through unalloyed devotional service to the Supreme Lord, it is called Bhakti Yoga.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches us of a “Yoga Ladder”, a series of steps made of yoga practices which ultimately lead to the Perfection of Yoga. Following this process, a conditioned soul can purify its existence gradually in this material world and reawaken its spiritual consciousness.

The first step in the ladder is called “Karma-Kanda”. This step has no spiritual objective. In this stage, a conditioned soul/ person, is introduced to regulated sense enjoyment, and to the Vedas which dictate the performance of sacrifices for the sake of results. This basically increases faith in the sastras.

Read BG 2.31, BG 3.11, BG 3.16.

Next is the step of “Karma Yoga”, which is performance of fruitive activities. The person begins to get frustrated with the sense enjoyment and shows inclinations of detachment. But he is still too attached to completely stop working for his own enjoyment.

When a person works for his own enjoyment but has a spiritual objective interlinked to the effort, the stage is called Sakama Karma. Continued practice of work in partial detachment to the results of fruitive activities leads to Nishkama Karma, work which is uncontaminated with material desires and has a pure spiritual objective.

Since any sense enjoyment leads to frustration in the end, a person gradually elevates himself through Karma Yoga to a stage where he begins to examine the ‘Jnana’ section of the Vedic literature. Here, as described by Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 06, one gives up all societal obligations and sets on a pursuit in search of knowledge of the Brahman. This path of realization is not easy at all to follow, as correctly pointed out by Arjuna and Lord Krishna in the chapter 06 of Bhagavad Gita.

Read BG 5.2.

Beyond Jnana Yoga, once the Jnani achieves knowledge of the Supersoul, the Paramatma, and begins to lead a life of austerity and meditation on the Paramatma, he enters the stage of “Ashtanga Yoga”, an eight fold process as the name implies. Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Prathyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi are the 8 steps.

Read BG 6.30, BG 6.31

At the pinnacle of this Yoga ladder is “Bhakti Yoga” or “Unalloyed, pure devotional service to the Supreme Lord”. This is best summarized by Lord Krishna himself:

BG 9.34: Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, become My devotee, offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me.

BG 18.65: Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.

BG 18.66: Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.

And what does the Lord have to say about the other paths?

BG 6.46: A yogī is greater than the ascetic, greater than the empiricist and greater than the fruitive worker. Therefore, O Arjuna, in all circumstances, be a yogī.

Note: The ascetic is the ‘tapasvi’, the empiricist is the ‘jnani’ and the fruitive worker is the ‘karmi’.

BG 6.47: And of all yogīs, the one with great faith who always abides in Me, thinks of Me within himself, and renders transcendental loving service to Me — he is the most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all. That is My opinion.

So, you see, the Bhagavad Gita offers devotional service to Lord Krishna as the Perfection of Yoga, with pure devotional service being the goal. There are several stages of Bhakti too, but this is too premature a point in this series to get in to that. Bhakti Yoga is the path recommended for this age of quarrel, the Kali-Yuga. We do not reject the other paths, but making progress in them is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in this age. This was stated very clearly by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Although one passes through one level or another of the previous stages even while trying to take to the path of Bhakti, it is much easier and the effect seen on oneself as well as the progress gained towards liberation is permanent.

I have tried to summarize the entire siddhanta of Bhagavad Gita within 900 words above. Now, there are certain issues which I would like to clarify upon.

I have read several articles on Bhagavad Gita where the author has very elaborately discussed on the merits of Bhakti Yoga as described in the Bhagavad Gita. Throughout the text, the author says “Krishna said this, Krishna said that”… and finally concludes “Krishna is instructing us to be surrender to the impersonal, all pervasive, inscrutable Brahman”. Throughout the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says “Surrender unto me”, means surrender unto Krishna… not something within him. I am sure the Lord as well as Vyasadev knew enough Sanskrit to state exactly what they wanted to state. Sure, Lord Krishna talks about people who want to ‘mingle’ with the Brahman as their final goal… but he does NOT conclude it is the ultimate goal or is the easiest way. Here’s what he says on that issue:

BG 12.5: For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied.

BG 12.6-7: But those who worship Me, giving up all their activities unto Me and being devoted to Me without deviation, engaged in devotional service and always meditating upon Me, having fixed their minds upon Me, O son of Pṛthā — for them I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death.

I have stressed upon one point so many times in the series till now and I am doing so again. The current trend seen among ‘spiritualists’ is basically to take the Bhagavad Gita, pick and interpret just a few specific verses completely out of context to suit their own philosophy, and present their own speculation in an (pseudo)authoritative manner. If one has to take reference from Bhagavad Gita, the conclusion arrived at MUST be the one presented by Lord Krishna and as it is accepted by Arjuna, as below.

BG 18.73: Arjuna said: My dear Kṛṣṇa, O infallible one, my illusion is now gone. I have regained my memory by Your mercy. I am now firm and free from doubt and am prepared to act according to Your instructions.

Giving any other conclusion on the Bhagavad Gita, anything different from what is being said by Lord Krishna, is akin to cheating, no matter how popular or scholarly the person giving the different conclusion might be.

With this article, I would like say that enough foundation has been laid for any sincere seekers of Truth to go forward on their own. I hope the comments and the discussion in my previous articles as well as the ones that are to follow would add more fuel to their interest. If and when required, my help would always be available.

From here, I would like to get in to addressing issues that we face on a day to day basis and how the knowledge received through our ancient scriptures can help us even now. So, if the readers have any topics on which they would like me to elaborate with relevance to our current position in time, please feel free to add the suggestion as a comment.

The next article title from me would be “The Caste System – as it should have been”. I hope to complete it another week or so.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern relevance – śrī-bhagavān uvāca

Śrī-bhagavān uvāca means “The Supreme Personality of Godhead said”.

Bhagavān is how Lord Krishna is addressed by Srimad Bhagavad Gita. It means one who has the six opulences, namely Wealth, Strength, Fame, Beauty, Knowledge and Renunciation, unlimitedly. If you read the list carefully, you will see that almost all so-called celebrities of this world are known for having the opulences stated above, one or more at any time. But even they do not compare to Bhagavān, who is the Lord of everything that is and has all the opulence in unlimited quantity.

In my last article, we saw how Arjuna is overcome by grief and refuses to take up arms against his kinsmen. Being such a ‘nice person’, one would have thought that Lord Krishna, as God, would have been very happy and said “Arjuna, I am so proud of you! You are non-violent! That’s just great!”

Did he? NO. Krishna, in fact, scolds Arjuna in the strongest of words. Here it is, Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02, verse 2-3:

śrī-bhagavān uvāca
kutas tvā kaśmalam idaḿ
viṣame samupasthitam
anārya-juṣṭam asvargyam
akīrti-karam arjuna

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Arjuna, how have these impurities come upon you? They are not at all befitting a man who knows the value of life. They lead not to higher planets but to infamy.

klaibyaḿ mā sma gamaḥ pārtha
naitat tvayy upapadyate
kṣudraḿ hṛdaya-daurbalyaḿ
tyaktvottiṣṭha parantapa

O son of Pṛthā, do not yield to this degrading impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy.

I do not think that Krishna’s words need any explanation here.

Arjuna is shocked! He asks Krishna how can he encourage slaying men worthy of worship, being his teachers. He declares it’s better to live of begging than to live at the cost of these great souls. Then he accepts that he is confused with miserly weakness and that he is now Krishna’s disciple and then requests Krishna to dispel his grief. Then he says “Govinda, I shall not fight” and became silent.

What comes next is a very, very important section of Bhagavad Gita. The Supreme Lord begins his instruction to his surrendered devotee. Since his instructions carry the essence of the entire Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 02 is termed as a summary of the contents of the Bhagavad Gita. This will be quite a long article if I were to address all the instructions, so I will summarize on the main topics that are being addressed.

Lord Krishna begins with the explanation of the soul or atma by reprimanding Arjuna and calling him unwise for speaking like a learned man (because he made so many emotional arguments) but grieving for things that don’t deserve grief and also that the wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead. The very next statement he makes to Arjuna on this topic is this:

na tv evāhaḿ jātu nāsaḿ
na tvaḿ neme janādhipāḥ
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ
sarve vayam ataḥ param

“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” – BG2.12

This statement is a damning rebuttal of the theory which states that all souls merge in to the brahma-jyoti, losing their identity, and also of the theory where individuality is said to be an effect of illusion or Maya. In a way, it also is a statement that refutes the theory of evolution, where life is proclaimed to come from matter and has no purpose or prior or future existence. The next statement explains the core principle of Transmigration of the Soul:

dehino ‘smin yathā dehe
kaumāraḿ yauvanaḿ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” – BG2.13

So, what are the characteristics of this spirit soul? In Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, verses 16-25, this is described clearly. A spirit soul is eternal, indestructible, cannot be cut in to pieces, cannot be burnt by fire, cannot be moistened by water or withered by wind, immutable, invisible and inconceivable.

And so, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna that he shouldn’t lament for the person who dies, since it’s only the body that is slain. After that, Krishna explains why Arjuna must fight, by telling how people would speak ill of Arjuna if he didn’t do his duty, and how the generals would think him to be weak. Krishna also begins talking about how Arjuna should do his duty for the sake of doing it, without considering the result. This, Lord Krishna says, would let Arjuna avoid sin.

He also conveys to Arjuna that what he has heard till now was only from the analytical point of view. So, Krishna begins explaining the same principles in terms of working without fruitive results. It is in this section he speaks the famous verse 47 in Chapter 02 (made popular, thanks to the Mahabharata serial on TV and countless pseudo-philosophers who claim this as the essence of Bhagavad Gita)

karmaṇy evādhikāras te
mā phaleṣu kadācana
mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr
mā te sańgo ‘stv akarmaṇi

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.”

The Acharyas explain that the Lord is talking about prescribed duties here, but we normally, wrongly, take this to mean that Krishna is talking about day to day mundane activities. So, one must do his prescribed duty, without attachment to success or failure. Allow me to deal in this a bit more. Lord Krishna does not say here that results are to be ignored or that we should carry out our duties carelessly. Since the Supreme Lord is the proprietor of everything, he owns the results too. We must understand that our self is just one of the five factors that influence action. This is from Chapter 18, verse 14.

adhiṣṭhānaḿ tathā kartā
karaṇaḿ ca pṛthag-vidham
vividhāś ca pṛthak ceṣṭā
daivaḿ caivātra pañcamam

“The place of action [the body], the performer, the various senses, the many different kinds of endeavor, and ultimately the Supersoul — these are the five factors of action.”

So, unless the results are dedicated to the Supreme Lord, Krishna, then that work causes bondage and suffering. How we should understand this is simply that as a spirit soul, we have to be engaged in activity. We have capacity for work and are intermediate causes, but material nature creates result and it is controlled by Lord Krishna. This is mentioned in Chapter 09, verse 10.

mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ
sūyate sa-carācaram
hetunānena kaunteya
jagad viparivartate

“This material nature, which is one of My energies, is working under My direction, O son of Kuntī, producing all moving and nonmoving beings. Under its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again.”

So, we don’t really have a claim over results which are actually created by something which is not under our control. If we align our freewill through actions based on the Lord’s instructions, it does not cause any bondage.

One other important point to be noted from Krishna’s response is how he explains the root cause of all problems. Let’s hear it from him directly, shall we?

Lord Krishna says in Chapter 02, verses 62-64:

“While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool. But a person free from all attachment and aversion and able to control his senses through regulative principles of freedom can obtain the complete mercy of the Lord.”

So, Lord Krishna declares that attachment and the lust that arises from it to be the real problem. The senses must be engaged in some real activity, and if they are not used in the service of the Supreme Lord, then they will be engaged in service of materialism. But for a person who is devoid of attachment or aversion and follows the regulative principles properly, he can achieve the highest state of becoming conscious of the Supreme Lord. Artificial renunciation won’t help when the desire to enjoy is still present in the mind and even the slightest agitation of the mind will pull down a person who is even on the verge of the ‘liberation’ often spoken about as the goal of life.

I will end this article with one of the verses which has influenced me in my personal life very much. Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 02, verse 66:

nāsti buddhir ayuktasya
na cāyuktasya bhāvanā
na cābhāvayataḥ śāntir
aśāntasya kutaḥ sukham

“One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Kṛṣṇa consciousness] can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?”

This relates directly to how I started writing this sequence of articles, on request from our very own Lakshmi Rajan. I started off by saying everyone wants to be happy, forever. And above is the clear solution to that! Without the mind being peaceful, there can be no happiness. And for the mind to be peaceful, one must be on the devotional platform.

So, how does Arjuna respond to Lord Krishna and what question he put forth to the Lord? What does Lord Krishna say about Karma Yoga? These I will address in the next article, which should be ready by early next week.

This completes the brief summary of Chapter 02 of Srimad Bhagavad Gita. I have tried to compress the whole chapter of 72 verses in to less than 1800 words. So if I have missed out on any important aspects or given incomplete explanations, it is only due to my fault and oversight, for which I pray forgiveness and understanding from my teachers as well as the readers. Please do not hesitate to ask for any clarification as required and I will try to clarify to the best of my ability.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern relevance – Arjuna’s Dilemma

In my previous article, we saw the 5 main topics that Bhagavad Gita deals with. That forms the foundation for understanding the conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna. Now, let us see why Arjuna loses his composure just before the battle began and what his dilemma was about. This article mainly covers Srimad Bhagavad Gita Chapter 01 – Observing the Armies on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra. This sets the scene for the Krishna’s response to Arjuna’s questions.

The first chapter of Bhagavad Gita begins with the blind King Dhrtarashtra enquiring to his charioteer, Sanjaya, as to what the Pandavas and his own sons, the Kauravas, did after assembling at the pilgrimage site of Kurukṣetra with the desire to fight. It is significant that the King mentions the holy nature of Kurukṣetra, since he knows Lord Krishna is on the side of the Pandavas, and he was wondering if these factors would influence his sons in to a compromise, which he did not want.

Sanjaya, who was blessed by Sage Vyasadev with divine sight, could view the happenings on the battlefield and narrates them to his King. Sanjaya assures the King that his sons did not ask for any compromise, by terming Duryodhana, the eldest son as ‘Raja’ or ‘King’. Then he describes what Duryodhana speaks to his teacher, Dronacharya. At the end of the talk with Drona, the Grand Sire of the Kuru dynasty, Bhisma blows his conch-shell, signalling the start of the war. His call is drowned by the transcendental sounds of Lord Krishna blowing his own conch-shell, Pancajanya and that of other Pandava warriors.

Then Arjuna, in a chariot with the flag of Hanuman on its spire, with Lord Krishna as his charioteer, takes his bow, looks at the army assembled on the other side and suddenly makes a request.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 1 verse 21-22

arjuna uvāca
senayor ubhayor madhye
rathaḿ sthāpaya me ‘cyuta
yāvad etān nirīkṣe ‘haḿ
yoddhu-kāmān avasthitān
kair mayā saha yoddhavyam
asmin raṇa-samudyame

“Arjuna said: O infallible one, please draw my chariot between the two armies so that I may see those present here, who desire to fight, and with whom I must contend in this great trial of arms.”

It is explained that Arjuna was put in to illusion by Krishna at this crucial moment for the benefit of the world, so that Krishna himself can speak out his instructions. Though the Pandavas were dragged in to this Great War by their evil cousins, their assent for the war was based on consultation with many saintly persons and finally with Lord Krishna himself. Arjuna wanted to have a good look at his family members who were assembled against him, but he was overwhelmed by grief at the thought of the deaths that were to ensue. It was the best moment for spiritual instruction. And seeing the great warrior and his transcendental charioteer engaged in a discussion in the middle of the battlefield, the generals of both sides held their ground and watched with respect and curiosity.

From the middle of the battlefield Arjuna saw his grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers, friends, teachers, sons, grandsons and well wishers all arrayed on the opposing side. Compassion filled him. His body began quivering, hair stood on its end, mouth dried up, skin felt like burning and his mighty bow, Gandiva, slipped from his grip. Then he addresses the Lord.

He asks of what use are a kingdom, happiness or even life when all those for whom it is desired for are now arrayed on this battlefield. He also says he is not prepared to fight with them even in exchange for the three worlds, let alone this earth.

Then Arjuna begins to substantiate his claims with what he thinks will happen if he goes with the war. He says that “With the destruction of dynasty, the eternal family tradition gets vanquished, and thus the rest of the family becomes involved in irreligion. When irreligion is prominent in the family the women of the family become polluted, and from the degradation of womanhood comes unwanted progeny. An increase of unwanted population certainly causes hellish life both for the family and for those who destroy the family tradition. The ancestors of such corrupt families fall down, because the performances for offering them food and water are entirely stopped. “

Arjuna continues, saying that he has heard by disciplic succession that those who destroy family traditions dwell always in hell and so it is better for him if the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, weapons in hand, were to kill him unarmed and unresisting on the battlefield. And thus, Arjuna cast aside his bow and arrows, and sat down in the chariot.

It is to be noted that such a compassionate and soft-hearted soul, like Arjuna, is fit to receive self-knowledge. There are a couple of significant points to be noted in Arjuna’s lament. He points out that if the women of a family are not protected and the chastity of women is not maintained, it will bring down the entire family line in which they live in.

Arjuna’s laments hold a lot of relevance in these days, when it has become fashionable to be ‘broad minded’ and ‘progressive’ in every sense. I don’t think this point needs any further elaboration since I believe anyone reading these blogs can understand it clearly.

Arjuna also mentions that he has gained knowledge through a disciplic succession. This is a prime requirement to ensure that the knowledge is passed on unchanged! Imagine there is a mango tree with ripe mangoes at the top. At different heights, on branches, there are people seated and all are relishing the ripe mangoes! How? The person on the topmost part is plucking the mangoes and passing it down carefully. Now, you go to the tree and wish to get some of the mangoes. What do you do? There are several choices. One, you can take some stones and try to hit some of the mangoes and collect them from the ground, in whatever shape they are in after falling through. Or request the person in the lowermost branch for a mango, and he shares what he is getting from the top.

The first case, where you throw stones, is akin to the way people are trying to get scientific knowledge. You may or may not get the mango and even if you do, you will not find the mango intact. The second case, where you get the mango by the mercy of the person on the lowest branch, is akin to the disciplic succession. You get the mango properly and intact. Consider the mangoes to be Knowledge and people in the tree as the guru-disciple line… you get the idea. (Don’t even think of climbing the tree yourself… it indicates time!)

Therefore, one has to stress on the importance of hearing from a bonafide sampradaya or disciplic succession. The specialty in our Vedic system is that nothing is taken for granted. A philosophical theory is not just accepted on whim and wish. It has to be verified by the standard checks and balances, namely acceptance by one’s Guru, other Sadhus and then by the final anchor, Sastra.

Although anyone and everyone can claim to be enlightened, using the flowery words of the Vedas or by putting forth pure speculation as a philosophy, one must enquire about which parampara or sampradaya such a person belongs to… just like you don’t accept any tom, dick and harry to be a doctor or an engineer! Accepting someone as a Guru is no simple task. It is not a sentimental activity involving blind faith. One has to enquire in to the qualifications of such a person, his spiritual background, what is the siddhanta he follows, does he compromise on his philosophy to earn cheap adoration, is the philosophy he advocates or his modifications accepted or endorsed by other bonafide Sadhus and Sastra etc. For that, one must have some basic understanding on who can be considered as a Guru or Acharya.

The fact that the even Lord Krishna in, his Lila, also accepted a Guru, even though he is the fountainhead of all knowledge, demonstrates the importance of a Guru. Krishna also mentions this in Chapter 04, verse 34. As well, Arjuna demonstrates this again in the middle of the battlefield by accepting the Supreme Lord as his Guru.

So, how did Lord Krishna respond to such a grief stricken plea? How did he begin to clear Arjuna’s doubts? These I will address in my next article.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern relevance – Introduction to Srimad Bhagavad Gita

What is happiness?

If you ask anyone, ‘what is happiness?’ I am sure that the answers that you would get from most people would be similar. Good health, nice family, enough money, time to enjoy the little pleasures of this world, love, peace… it is not hard to imagine what would make people happy. Everyone in this world aspires to be happy all the time. The only problem is what WE define and seek as happiness, once gotten, doesn’t last forever. A few hours or days at best, that’s all. And then the rigors of the material world seize and engage us.

We use so many tools to aid us in our search for happiness, good health and why, even immortality! As a result of that relentless endeavor, modern science has enabled us to do so many things seemingly better than before, compared to natural alternatives. Life has become so dynamic that many people started professing that ‘change’ is the only constant in this world.

All these attempts at improving our condition of life, all the progress that we made, ignore the four other constants that come by nature in material life: Birth, disease, old age and death. Whatever efforts we make to improve our lives, and to be happy, the four constants always manage to get the better of us. And with death, everything comes to a very efficient end.

An intelligent person begins to think as to why he is forced to suffer, when all he wants is to be happy. A natural progress of that thought process would lead to questions like where did I come from, what am I doing here, where I would go after death and culminates in asking the most fundamental question which forms the basis of Vedic philosophy:

‘Who am I?’

The Vedas and associated Vedic scriptures offer great insight in to life’s mysteries. These ancient treasure troves of wisdom and knowledge, being coeternal with God and infallible in their own right, direct us to change our attention from the temporary towards the permanent, from matter to spirit, from the body to the soul.

They teach us that our endeavors to be happy through gratifying our senses would lead to only misery. They also inform us about our original spiritual nature – that each of us are not the body but infinitesimal spiritual sparks, Spirit Souls, that are not of this material world and that the only way to have eternal happiness to revive our natural relationship with the Supreme Soul, God, of whom we are all part and parcel of, yet different.

The Vedic knowledge was primarily transmitted orally in the previous ages. In order to make the Vedic knowledge easily accessible to the people in the Kali Yuga (the present age), the great literary incarnation, Sage Vyasa, compiled the entire knowledge in to principally the 4 Vedas, 108 Upanishads, 18 Puranas and 2 Itihaasas (epics, namely Ramayana and Mahabharata).

Understanding the Vedas, which are compiled in exquisitely perfected Sanskrit, is a nightmare even for the most erudite scholar these days. Learning Sanskrit itself would take close to 12 years of study and then one has to study the various siddhantas (philosophies) and Bhashyas (commentaries) as expounded by the great Acharyas of the past, to grasp even the basics of complex texts like Vedanta Sutras.

Of the texts that form the Vedic scriptures, Srimad Bhagavad Gita, which is found in Mahabharata, is the most important section. It is the essence of all Vedic knowledge. It is also called Gitopanishad, and is the consolidated description of the most intense, hair-raising dialogue between the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna and his dearest friend, the warrior-archer, Arjuna. Running in to 700 verses over 18 chapters, it is described in much simpler Sanskrit, which leaves absolutely no room for interpretation and logical debating which is allowed by the Vedanta sutras.

This dialogue starts with questions asked by Arjuna, who is feeling very confused, dejected and sad on the eve of a great battle against his cousins, the Kauravas and their army. Arjuna is one of the ‘Mahajanas’, and being a friend to the Lord, he is above all ignorance. But the Acharyas explain that he was put in to this situation specifically to enquire about problems of life so that Sri Krishna himself can explain it for the benefit for future generations, namely, us.

(It is to be noted that this great dialogue was spoken on the eve of battle, in the middle of two armies standing ready to fight. It lends credence to the practicality of such a philosophy, much against a common belief that any spirituality or philosophical pursuit is meant for practice only in peaceful times or in a forest away from common day to day works.)

The spirit with which one should hear and accept the teachings of Srimad Bhagavad Gita is shown by Arjuna in the course of his discussion with Lord Krishna. When a physician gives a medicine, you take it only by following his directions. Similarly, the instructions given in Bhagavad Gita are to be taken only as Lord Krishna means it and not as per one’s own whim and wish. The perfect example for such a proper acceptance is shown by Arjuna himself. In the second chapter, verse 7, Arjuna surrenders:

kārpaṇya-doṣopahata-svabhāvaḥ
pṛcchāmi tvāḿ dharma-sammūḍha-cetāḥ
yac chreyaḥ syān niścitaḿ brūhi tan me
śiṣyas te ‘haḿ śādhi māḿ tvāḿ prapannam

“Now I am confused about my duty and have lost all composure because of miserly weakness. In this condition I am asking You to tell me for certain what is best for me. Now I am Your disciple, and a soul surrendered unto You. Please instruct me.”

Here’s how Arjuna accepts Lord Krishna’s instructions, in chapter 10, verse 12 thru 14:

arjuna uvāca
paraḿ brahma paraḿ dhāma
pavitraḿ paramaḿ bhavān
puruṣaḿ śāśvataḿ divyam
ādi-devam ajaḿ vibhum
āhus tvām ṛṣayaḥ sarve
devarṣir nāradas tathā
asito devalo vyāsaḥ
svayaḿ caiva bravīṣi me

“Arjuna said: You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the ultimate abode, the purest, the Absolute Truth. You are the eternal, transcendental, original person, the unborn, the greatest. All the great sages such as Nārada, Asita, Devala, and Vyāsa confirm this truth about You, and now You Yourself are declaring it to me.”

sarvam etad ṛtaḿ manye
yan māḿ vadasi keśava
na hi te bhagavan vyaktiḿ
vidur devā na dānavāḥ

“O Kṛṣṇa, I totally accept as truth all that You have told me. Neither the demigods nor the demons, O Lord, can understand Your personality.”

So, to conclude, one must understand the teachings of Bhagavad Gita as Arjuna understood it. Only then, that understanding is considered perfect. Only when one hears it in a submissive mood, in devotion to the Supreme Lord, one can understand the teachings of Bhagavad Gita as understood by Arjuna, which is to say, correctly and perfectly.

What do Arjuna and Lord Krishna talk about? What subject matters does Bhagavad Gita address? How does one go about getting this knowledge perfectly? These I will address in the next article.