Gita - intersection of paths and philosophies

Krishna has referred Kapil Muni's Sankhya in Gita. In fact most of Gita's adhyatma (spiritual basis) comes out of Sankhya.

The Sankhya philosophy is based on the premise that this universe is made of one single element. That one element which is called Prakriti takes various shapes and creates universe. In Sankhya, this Prakriti is independent of Purush (or Brahma) but works as per His sankalpa (wish). However, this Prakriti is responsible for the wish in Purush to start with. This philosophy matches well with principles of modern physics. The duality which says that the matter and energy are interchangeable, fits well into this philosophy of Sankhya. 

Gita later goes on proposing that everything is Brahma. Which borders to the Advaita (oneness of universe with no independent Prakriti).  Gita says -

"Brahmarpanam, Brahma-havir, Brahmagnau, Brahmanahutam,
Brahmaiva ten gantvyam, Brahma Karma Samadhina"

Meaning, the offering is Brahma, the fire where offering is given is Brahma, the one who receives this offering is Brahma. The offering goes to Brahma and the whole action of offering itself is Brahma. So it undoubtedly pronounces the oneness of universe. It pronounces that everything and every action is God and there is nothing else but God.

Now the question is how can you agree with both Dvaita of Sankhya and Advaita?

Gita in itself looks to be reconciling the confrontations of various paths. It has at one point said Gnyan (knowledge) to be supreme of paths and at other it has said Bhakti (Devotion) to be best. Of course it gives different reasons for both. Then with Gnyan and Bhakti it also tries to establish utmost importance Karma (action). Ultimately the conclusion it draws is that actions with full knowledge of good and bad should be performed with utmost devotion so that ego of a Karta (doer) does not gets attached to the actions.

Similarly it tries to reconcile the Dvaita with Advaita. It takes from Sankhya the principle of this universe being real with one element creating this whole universe. It also takes the principle of one God from Adviata.  It then establishes that the universe is made of one element and that one element is God himself. That the creator is the creation Himself and the act of creation is also Him. So in Gita's Advaita as against Shankar's Advaita, the universe and all actions in this universe are real. They are not illusory. But everything and every action is manifestation of only one single reality.

Thus when Krishna says he himself is God in later chapters he is not saying anything new. He is merely saying that he has realized this principle that everything is manifestation of that one reality. When he shows the Virat rupam (celestial form). He is not showing any miracle. He is merely making Arjuna realize that the universe is made of that one element which is God. This he achieves by giving him different eyes. Giving different eyes is metaphoric and it merely means giving a different point of view which makes Arjuna realize the oneness of universe.

Hence, Gita seems to be a book which reconciles different philosophies and paths within Hinduism. It acts as a concise form of entire philosohical wisdom from Vedic texts and also acts as intersection point for various philosophies.

||Shri Krishnachandrarpanmastu||

Chapter II - What's Happiness?

We all use the words happiness and sorrow, but do we know the true meaning of these words? You might say that who does not know the meaning of happiness and sorrow, and that everyone in life experiences it frequently.

Alright, so let’s take the commonly used definition of happiness and sorrow. We get happy when we get what we desire and feel sorrow when we don't get it.  Let me now narrate a short story. You went for a tour to a jungle and you lose your way. You keep walking for kilometers together; you are tired and are losing all hopes of returning back safe. Suddenly you see a small hut right in the middle of the jungle. You go inside the hut and request the hut owner to let you stay in the hut. He not only lets you in and gives you a bread, some water and a worn-out bed-sheet to sleep on. What do you feel, happiness or a sorrow?  Now, isn't it happiness that you get something to eat and a shelter to spend the night in a deep forest!

Now imagine that nothing of that sort has happened and you are actually watching some sitcom on your TV and I visit you with a picture of the same hut as explained above. I tell you that you will have to spend couple of nights in this hut and eat some dry bread next month as per astrology! Now what do you feel? The forest, the hut and the bread is same but the suggestion that you will have to spend a night or two in this condition makes you worried right from current moment. You not only "will" feel the sorrow in hut but you start feeling it right from current moment and keep worrying about it at least till  you forget what I had prophesized.

So as we see that this definition of happiness and sorrow, that what you desire you get bring happiness, is relative. What we desire and what we need to get to bring in happiness is absolutely relative!

Now if you look at it from another angle, some say that sorrow happens only when we desire something and don't get it. That means desire is the source of sorrow. So if we can kill all desires we should be able to come out of the cycle of happiness and sorrow. So some of the scriptures tell us that renunciation is the only way not to feel any sorrow!

But don't we feel happy after getting something we did not desire for? If you put some sugar on a child's tongue would she not be happy? She was neither expecting the sugar nor was she feeling any sorrow for not getting it earlier. So absence of desire may not be the guarantee that we will not feel any happiness or sorrow. Another example can be of a person who has never seen any poverty. The one who is as rich as Richie Rich! He can get everything which is available in the world. So whatever he desires he gets. In that case, by the definition that sorrow happens when desires are unfulfilled, he should not feel sorrow at all. But does it happen? Rich also feel sorrow on various accounts. Though that's not to say we should not be rich! I would much rather cry in a sprawling bungalow than in a small hut.  

But the two points which stand out very clearly are these - one, the happiness and sorrow are relative and also they are most likely independent of each other and the desire.

So if fulfilling the desire or slinging the desire out in a deep sea is not the answer for a life time of blissful state that what is? Let’s spend a bit of time on this point.

We use our senses to see, smell, hear or feel what is happening around us in this world. Though, it is the mind which actually experiences the happiness and sorrow. While two people can see the same thing they perceive it differently in their minds. If for some reason there is no connection between the senses and mind then we will not feel anything although our eyes, ears and other senses may be working fine. Therefore whether we feel happiness or sorrow depends on what our mind makes us feel.  So if we can train our mind properly we can probably be able to have a blissful life.

There are multiple ways our scriptures have shown to train our mind. One is of  ”Santosh"  this means being contended with what you have. Being contended is a beautiful concept however many a times it hinders the progress. If all scientists say that they are contended with the discoveries happened so far or all businessmen say that they are happy with progress happened so far then we will have a world which is not having any innovation or economic progress! In India when elders bless they say "Shanti: Pushti-stushti - shchastu", meaning have peace, be contend and progress.

So the aim of our life is not just happiness but also progress. But to progress we need to do our "karma" or in other words we need to work. While doing our day-to-day work we are also bound to face failures and heartbreaks. This will again result in sorrow. When we closely observe this cycle we will understand that the sorrow generated is actually the outcome of results not matching up with our imagined successful scenarios. Whenever we take a task in hand we first think of the results and create the scenes in our mind, imagining out what the success will or should look like. When results in reality do not match our created scenes we feel the sorrow.

It’s when we detach ourselves, not from desire but from the result of our "Karma", we stop feeling this sorrow. So

1. The work we need to do needs to be right thing to do in a given situaion (one which benefits most and does not have any inferior motive).

2. Plan your work for right results but do not get attached to the mental picture of success

3. Understand that result is not in our hands so dont brood over the expected results

Once the activity is over leave everything  to that Higher Power!!

"ShriKrishn-arpanam-astu" is a powerful "Mantra".

All efforts of “Bhakti (or devotion)” or “Yoga”  are focused in training the mind to understand and stick to this simple principle of “Anasakt Karma” or detached work. We will discuss these in coming chapters.

Chapter 1 - Curiosity (Karma Jigyasa)

The entire period of human evolution, from the time first human being evolved from apes, every thing has been changing and improving, with only one thing remaining constant throughout this period is the "human curiousity". This curiosity led to various inventions. Man saw the forest fire and feared, but the curiosity led him to ultimately control, produce and utilize this fire. The Sun and the Moon made him curious and he went on uncovering the universe with keen observation and experimentation. While it is said that necessity is the mother of invention, I beleive that the root of all invention has been this curiosity. Without this curiosity we would not have taken the first step towards the well developed society which we see today. We would not have invented so many machines for our comfort and also we would not have the curiosity of the spiritual kind. The curiosity to know and make sense of what we are, where we go after our death and other similar ones set us apart from the animals which survive on the fullfilment of basic needs.

One such spiritual curiosity is to know what path one should be choosing when he or she is given choices. What is the right thing to do when we get to decide the course of our actions. This curiosity is called "Karm Jigyasa" in Gita.

In the course of our lives we come across many situations which make us choose a course of action. Many a times the choice is not very clear and is affected by crossing interests of our loved one. I know of a peron who settled abroad for his career after an education in a good USA university. He took his wife after marriage to his place of work, while his parents remained back in USA. The parents were healthy, the father had a job and things were all rosy for both son and father's families in USA and abroad. Slowly as time passed my friend got a beautiful daugther, who grew up and started going to school. In the meantime, my friends father got retired and started living on his pension fund. One day the father suffered a stroke while mother was taking care of him. But she was also suffering from asthama. My friend wanted to take them to the place he lived in, but due to visa issues he was unable to do so. He was also not in a position to come back to USA as this would have disrupted his family's life. The daughter would have to leave her school course, the wife and him would have to change the jobs. So now here was a tough choice to make. Whether to come back to take care of parents or leave them on the mercy of old age home? While old age home was a difficult choice for parents to be in,  in choosing the second option of coimng back, he had multiple questions to anwer. Such conditions do not have a single right answer for the question of what to choose. When Arjuna in Mahabharata war was depressed after seeing his kins in the opponent army, he had choice to fight or run away from war. Nobody would have been able to judge a perfect right choice in such case. It took a Krishna to answer his questions and help him make choice.

For the common people like us, Krishna is not available. We have to fight our own wars and make our own choices. There are many ways to choose the course of action. The most common one is to make a choice purely on a "business case" basis. Make a trial balance of the benefits and cost invoved with each of choices and take a decision based on extent of benefit. This is what we can call as a "Physical" way. This is calld "Adhibhautik" way in Hindu tradition.

Other way to look at it is from what is written in scriptures, what Bible says or what Kuran says or what Ramayana says and do accordingly. By taking the account balance of sins or the good deeds. By thinking of the day of judgment. This is in a way taking "Metaphysical" route. Thinking of sin (Paap) and good deeds (Punya). This is called "Aadhidaivik" way of thinking.

There is a third way, which is to look beyond physical or metaphysical benefits of our actions. This way of thinking makes one to identify with the universe. It is to know that through everything in this universe, one consciousness flows. The action and the result gets dissolved in this larger consciousness and this renders the question itself useless as the answer reveals itself as part of a greater integrated reality of the universe. this is spiritual way of thinking, called "Aadhiatmik" way.

While again there is nothing right or wrong in taking any route of decision making, it can always be examined as to which way is best. We will see that in next chapters.