Gita summaries - chp 2 (Part one)

Of the eighteen chapters of Bhagavad Gita the second chapter and the eighteen chapters are considered very important. These two chapters give the condensed version of the entire Gita teaching. According to mimamsa, Sastric teaching, a guru must give the essence of the teaching in the beginning which is called upakrama sangrahah or sankshapahah. And at the conclusion of the teaching a teacher must summarize which is upasamharah. That is why the second chapter has 72 verses and the eighteen has 78 verses.

            The second chapter can be broadly classified into four sections: Arjuna saranagati (Arjuna surrendering at the feet of the Lord), Karma yoga (which I called as religious life or healthy dependence in chapter –1), Jnana yoga (which I called as philosophy) and finally mukthihi or liberation.

            If a person should get full benefit of the Gita teaching he must have gone through three stages beforehand. The first stage is samsara dharshanam, discovering I am suffering from samsara roga. Some people think: I am fine and everything around me is fine. For such a person no doctor is required. A doctor is required only when a person discovers he has some problem. Aham samsari discovery. The second stage is “karpanya bhavah”, discovery of helplessness. I have this samsara problem and I have to get out of samsara problem and I don’t know how to do that. The third stage is “saranagati”, surrendering at the feet of a guru who knows how to lift me out of the mire of samsara. If a person does not go through these three stages then the study of Gita will only be an academic study only. They will not get the full benefit. Vyasacharya wants to point that Arjuna has gone through all the three stages before Gita teaching takes place. In the first chapter Arjuna discovered the problem of samsara, stage one, in the form of raga-shokha-moha. He had not gone through the second and the third stage and so Krishna does not start the teaching. In the first ten verses of second chapter we find Arjuna going through the second and third stage. na caitad vidmaḥ kataran no garīyo yad vā jayema yadi vā no jayeyuḥ yān eva hatvā na jijīviṣāmas te ’vasthitāḥ pramukhe dhārtarāṣṭrāḥ. Hey, Krishna, I thought I could solve the problem of samsara and I have tried my best and even gave you a lecture of kula dharma. Now I am confused and I don’t know whether to fight or not. Arjuna feels this helplessness, second stage.  Looking at Drona who is my teacher and a great person (mahanubhavu) I feel I should not fight. I also know this is dharma yudtha and I should fight as a kshtriya. I am not in a position to decide. Then he openly declares in verse-7: kārpaṇya-doṣopahata-svabhāvaḥ pṛcchāmi tvāṁ dharma-sammūḍha-cetāḥ yac chreyaḥ syān niścitaṁ brūhi tan me śiṣyas te ’haṁ śādhi māṁ tvāṁ prapannam. Arjuna is humble enough, open enough to accept his helplessness. An egoistic mind will not accept that and be stiff necked, it will not bend. Arjuna is humble enough to accept his sorrow and confusion. Arjuna now goes to the third stage by saying,” I am now your disciple.” Earlier he was the master and Krishna was the servant. Earlier you were only my driver but now I am turning the tables. I am your shishya now. I am now ready to listen to you, ready to understand you and ready to follow you. I am surrendering to you which is called “prappatih” or “saranagati”. Here it is surrendering at the feet of the guru. Through this Vyasa conveys a very important message: a spiritual seeker needs a spiritual guide. Every seeker needs a guru.

            There are a lot of misconceptions regarding the role of a guru. Many people say that a guru is optional and they are not required. Our sastras and even Krishna says that a guru is a must; a guru is necessarily required. Unfortunately some say that a guru is not required, some say that athma itself is a guru and there is no need to search for an external guru. Athma cannot be a guru for it is akartha and absolute principle. Athma is not capable of speaking or guiding or teaching or even blessing. Athma is neither guru nor shishyaha. Therefore to say that the athma is a guru is not correct. Then there are those who say that the world itself is a guru. They quote the Bhagavatham where a avadhoota learnt from the honeybee, deer, elephant etc. The world cannot be a teacher for different people will see the same experience in different ways. We will interpret the world according to our misconceptions. There is a story of a person wanting to correct alcoholics. He wanted to show that alcohol is poisonous and it will kill. He wanted to demonstrate this fact to an alcoholic’s audience. He brought two jars, one filled with water and another with alcohol. He dropped an insect in both vessels. The insect in the alcohol vessel struggled and died while the insect in the water was alive. The person who wanted to teach the alcoholic’s audience asked,” What lesson did you learn from this experience?” Then one intelligent drunkard said,” Whoever takes alcohol will not have insects in the stomach. He will have a clean stomach.”….laughs. The incident being the same and if the mind has got weaknesses it will perceive only to its advantage only. Learning from the world is not possible; if they had learnt from their experiences then they would have become wise long before. Therefore we should not take the Bhagavatham – it has its own significance- and wrongly conclude that a guru is not required. Both athma and world cannot be a teacher. Then people say that some Mahatmas became wise without any guru; then we say that they are exceptions and must not be taken as a rule. In every field there are geniuses who learnt without a teacher but that does not mean that we should close all the schools and colleges. For one Ramanujam or one Einstein there are millions of ordinary people who need schools and even need tuitions! So the general rule is that everyone needs a guru.

            Then the next question is: what type of a guru is required? In our culture the word guru is loosely defined. We will know the type of guru if we know the type of guidance that we require. Here we need spiritual knowledge and for knowledge to take place we need systematic, consistent teaching through communication and step by step; systematic study not for a day or two but for a length of time, like any other knowledge. If you want Physics knowledge you cannot get it in a day or so but need years of study. I will have a lot of doubts and I have to interact with lot of professors and I must have doubtless knowledge. It is not a task of days and months but it takes years. When ordinary worldly science needs systematic and consistent teaching for a length of time, when what to talk to spiritual education which is subtler than objective sciences. Therefore for spiritual knowledge to take place we need consistent teaching.

            We have gurus in other fields, say for mantra updesha or initiation then the type of guru required is different. Guru must be available for 15 or 20 minutes, either he comes to my place or I go to his place, do a pada puja and receive a mantra, and give a dakshina and initiation is over. In fact such a guru can initiate hundreds of people in one day. Then we only have to keep repeating that mantra, such a mantra initiation guru they have a different role to play. If I have to get a brahmacharya deeksha or sanyasa deeksha then another type of guru is required which is at best a one day or two days jobs. I can go to Rishikesh, go through the ritual, take the kashayam, get the maha vakhya upadesha, and the job is over. So taking a deeksha is a different matter and it requires a different kind of guru. Then I might take a guru who is not even alive. I use such a guru as an inspiration. I can take a photo of Shankaracharya and use for daily worship. But for spiritual education we need none of them – deeksha guru or inspiring gurus who are dead. It is not inspiration that we want, or mantra updesha or deeksha that we want. What we want is the knowledge of the scriptures therefore I need a “live” teacher and a teacher who is available for consistent interaction for a length of time. Unfortunately knowledge cannot be transferred in a second or so. We do hear in the shaktipada where a person transfers his powers to another person. This happens in a second as a sparsha deeksha or darshana deeksha etc. But when it comes to transference of knowledge then touching will not help, seeing will not help, changing the clothes will not help, and what is required is consistent teaching for a length of time. That is why Krishna wants to give knowledge to Arjuna, HE did not use shaktipada method like touching etc. Had there been a short cut method, Krishna would have used it like touching etc. As Swami Chinmaya used to say: Had there been method for transferring knowledge like electrocution then the Lord would have used that method in the battlefield to educate Arjuna. He touches, the spiritual energy flows from him to the student and the student’s ego gets dissolved. But we find that Krishna teaches for a length of time. It is not a monologue but a dialogue and Krishna asks repeatedly,” Have you understood?” Arjuna keeps asking often and at times repeating the same doubt again and again. What question he asked in the beginning of third chapter, he asks the same question in the beginning of fifth chapter and to Krishna’s surprise even at the beginning of the eighteenth chapter. You must imagine the amount of patience required on the part of the guru. A guru is one who teaches about the self. The letter “gu” stands for darkness and “ru” means illuminator. A guru is an illuminator of darkness which is ignorance. Therefore we require a teaching guru who is physically alive and available. For deeksha you may have one guru, for inspiration you may have one guru in your puja room but for learning spiritual knowledge you need a guru for constant interaction. To such a guru a student has to surrender and that is what Arjuna did at the beginning of the second chapter. With this all the three stages of saranagati is over and now the teaching begins. As I said before the teaching is in two stages: karma yoga for religious lifestyle which is a lifestyle of healthy dependence that leads to independence and jnana yoga or the philosophical stage. An irreligious living is unhealthy dependence and I don’t know how to come out of it. An irreligious makes me dependent forever while a religious life makes me dependent for a while before it learn to be independent.

            Now we have to analyze: What is karma yoga? I will divide this word into two “karma” and “yoga”. The word “yoga” has different meanings in different contexts. In the context of karma this word “yoga” has a specific meaning which Bhagawan gives in the second chapter. He defines yoga as “samatvam yogah uchathe”. A religious life is one in which we learn to remain poise, equanimity, tranquility in our daily life. Not samatvam at the body for the body is active but “samatvam” of the mind. An equanimous mind while facing different experiences of life is a healthy response and state of mind. How should one remain samatvam when different situation causes different intensity of reaction in the mind? Frustration comes, anger, passion, depression they all come in the mind. If we observe the mind in a day you’ll find that it goes through a lot of turbulence. Karma yoga is avoidance of that turbulence and maintenance of tranquility. How do we learn that poise? To maintain samatvam we must realize some fundamental truths of life. Not only know but remember these facts all the time.

            First fact: Life is a mixture of sukham and dukham; neither is it uniformly sukham or uniformly dukham. And no human being can avoid this sukham-dukham pair which Krishna calls “dwandva”. The first fact we must remember is no one can avoid pleasure and pain and try to get uniform pleasure. This we find in the Puranic stories where even great emperors were not able to avoid painful difficult situations. Even the omniscient and omnipotent Bhagwan when HE comes down as a human being was not able to escape pain and suffering. If there is a way or method of avoiding sorrowful situations totally then Nala, the king, would not have faced difficulty, Lord Rama would have avoided difficulty and Yudhishtra would have avoided sorrow. But what do we find? Even such great emperors and avataras could not avoid pain and sorrow. From this we know that pleasure-pain mixture is life. Therefore the scriptures do not teach us a method of avoiding pain; scriptures only teach us an efficient method of handling and managing the pain. Intelligently responding to the pain. Even Krishna when he talks about “jeevan muktah” or a liberated person HE never says that a wise man is free from pleasure and pain. HE only says how to face pleasure and pain. He has immunized himself, safe-guarded himself; he knows how to respond.

            The second fact: Our future is never unpredictable; whether pleasure is going to come tomorrow or sorrow is going to come. Why? Because pleasure and pain depend on an infinite number of factors and there are many which is not in our control. As human beings are not omniscient but only a limited being with limited knowledge he cannot control or know all the factors that determine what he or she will experience. Therefore we never know what is going to happen. If you want an example then I will mention about weather forecasters. Billions of dollars are spent, satellites are sent, photos are taken and the Met department has data for over hundreds of years. They have statistical models and predict that south-west monsoons have withdrawn and then the next day it rains floods! What I am saying is that despite so much of knowledge and scientific advancement there will be certain factors unknown to us. If this is true in one branch of life then it is true in every aspect of life. There are too many factors that we do not know that shapes our experiences. Our future is unpredictable. There is no guarantee that you’ll even reach home safe after this lecture. Can anyone fix all the external circumstances to suit oneself totally? And even if it is possible, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way.

            Third fact: There are many situations beyond our control. Take the Met department; even if they know that a cyclone is going to pass through Madras – they have the knowledge – but what method or way do they have it to stop it from coming? They will issue warnings and ask a few people to vacate their homes but they cannot control the destruction of what is going to happen. There are many choiceless situations in life which are painful, which are difficult, which we would like to avoid but which we will not be able to avoid.

            Once we have realized these three facts then we will change our attitude towards our present and future. Most of our fears are due to anxieties of the future; but once we realize that our futures are unpredictable, or even the predictable future is unavoidable I decide to face the future when it comes to the present. As they nicely say: let us cross the bridge when it comes. We can hope for the best and work our best for a bright future. Hoping for the best is what we are good at. But we don’t prepare for the worst. When there are choiceless and unavoidable situations I have to prepare my mind to go through that. If you could avoid then great do your best to finding a remedy. The sastras are not against it. Here we are only talking about “choiceless unavoidable” situations. There are situations you have to prepare your mind and make it strong to face these situations. Samatvam is being “prepared for the worst”. Don’t try to strengthen the mind when crisis come. Strengthening of the mind should be done in advance. For the financial crisis we are preparing by investing in shares, long term deposits, mutual funds etc but for psychological crisis we don’t prepare. Don’t try to dig a well when the house is on fire. So preparing for the unpredictable future and accepting unavoidable choiceless situations, there are two methods of maintaining samatvam. How do I make the mind strong? It is only a weak mind that becomes anxious and fearful of the future. And it is the weak mind that is not willing to accept the painful present.

            Strengthening the mind can be done in two ways. One, by tapping one’s own higher nature for we all have infinite strength within ourselves. Just as the athletes and gymnasts have physical endurance that we see in Olympics we also have the same potential. We can also run one kilometer even if you cannot get up from a seated position now! We have that potential however. That method is sankalpah or auto-suggestion. I tell myself: I AM READY TO FACE ANY SITUATION. I have the strength to face any unavoidable painful situations. Even the psychologists say that this method works. As a man thinks so he becomes. You can call it sankalpah shakti or willpower or auto-suggestion.

            The second method is instead of tapping from one’s higher nature we tap from God outside who is nothing but who symbolizes our own higher nature. The lord is our own higher nature only. And we can choose lord in any form as our ishta devata. And I draw strength from that ishta devata. So I pray to the lord daily: I have to face difficult situations in life depending on my prarabda karma. I am not asking you to change my karma, I don’t want you to change the laws for my sake, but I am only praying that you may give strength to face any choiceless and painful situations. Give me strength to face whatever comes according to the law. If I pray to the Lord to change the law in one way then there will be another devotee who will pray to the same lord to change the law in another way. Then the Lord himself would be confused. So that prayer is illogical and improper; so I pray: give me the strength to face whatever is to come. I can install the ishta devata in my heart as Anjeneya did and draw strength from it. So either through sankalpah or through bhakti we can strengthen our mind. With that mental strength you can avoid anxiety of the future and learn acceptance to face painful situations. And if we succeed in developing samatvam then it is called yogah. A religious life helps in developing that poise or samatvam.

            Now we will see the second part: karma. Just like we saw in “yoga” the word “karma” has also many meanings. Here it means “action”.  This karma or action can be broadly classified into two kinds. One is action for material benefits, called karma phallam, and such actions are called sakama karma. Then there is second kind of karma meant for spiritual benefits – mental purity or spiritual refinement -and they are called Nishkama karma.  Krishna points out that we must reduce sakama karma –wealth, entertainment etc- as much as possible because they have so many doshas or defects.  They are three principal defects:

            Dosa number one: Any material acquisition is mixed with pain or sorrow. They don’t give pure pleasure but there is an element of pain mixed in them; dukha mishritatvam. There is pain in acquisition; remember your EMIs for your car purchase or working overtime or touring all over the world so as to earn money to buy a house. After working so hard for twenty years you will find that you cannot enjoy the richness. Because of pressure you cannot have salt, no tamarind due to ulcer, no sugar because of diabetes. You can only drink “bhushinika juice” only, he worked hard for twenty years and who is there to enjoy. Only the servants have a full range of meals! Once acquired, maintenance is lot more difficult. We are all the time planning how to avoid taxes or reduce it to the minimum with various investments. Once we get old, the children start fighting and they argue as to how they should distribute the wealth even when we are alive. Therefore acquisition results in pain, preservation results in pain and in spite of all our efforts when the wealth is lost it is the greatest pain.

            Dosa number two: The second defect is “atripti tatvam”. There is no contentment in material pursuits; your demands keep increasing. A beggar wants to find Rs.10 for a next meal, a clerk slaves for thousands, businessmen work for lacs, and crores. Then one wants to be a MLA or MP (that way, more money!!!) and them become a Minister and then aspire to become a PM. The devas aspire to be Brahma; Brahma wants to become Vishnu; and Vishnu wants to be Shiva!!! Or the other way Shiva wants to become Vishnu. I don’t want to enter into nama-vibhuti kalagam here. What I want to point is that there is no contentment at all; dissatisfaction is the second defect of any amount of material acquisitions.  

            Dosa number three: The third defect is “banda tatvam”. I get so used to those comforts that I cannot survive without them. Anything that I buy enters my house as a luxury (say an AC or a car) and after sometime it becomes a necessity. They come as a guest then remain as a host. Can a person owning a car ever be comfortable in a bus? Which means; earlier I was a master and now I have become its servant!!!!

            Hence Sakama Karma comes with these defects and so any amount of material benefits is always mixed with defects. So the aim of the spiritual seeker is reduction of sakama karma. I am not saying total cessation for we need all of them. What we must realize that material things will not give “purnatvam” or “fulfillment”.

            Now we shall see the second type of karma, nishkama karma (actions meant for spiritual purity). For this the scriptures have prescribed certain compulsory actions. These karma are called PanchamahaYagnas which everyone is supposed to do for spiritual progress. They are deva yagna, pitru yagna, brahma yagna, manushya yagna, and bhoota yagna. These yagnas are prescribed in the scriptures and everyone must necessarily perform them. We shall briefly see each one. Deva yagna is the worship for the Lord’s grace, duritha shayartham, purity of the mind. We don’t ask for material benefits in the form pashu, patru, shatha samastam etc; instead we just ask for mental purity and removing obstacles in spiritual progress. Deva yagna can either be a homam or chanting or going to a temple etc. Only thing to be kept in mind is that daily worship of the Lord is a must. Sandhyavandanam is a great yagna. Pitru yagna is praying for the grace of our forefathers. If we have got the gift of a healthy physical body it is the gift of the parents. If the parents are alive we are supposed to do namaskarams to them regularly. And shradha and tharpanam when they are departed. Brahma yagna or rishi yagna is an expression of our gratitude to the sages from whom we have inherited this wonderful culture. Whether we can use of them or not it should be preserved for the later generations. It is in the form or Brahma yagna where we thank the rishis for the four vedas, itihasa, puranas etc. We also thank the rishis wives for they supported their husbands and did not nag them. At the end of the Brahma yagna I chant a portion of the scriptures to maintain the tradition. Here Brahma means Veda and this ritual is for the study, preservation, and propagation of the Vedas. Manushya yagna is our service to humanity. If I am living now it is because of the contribution of so many people. The clothes I wear someone has made the yarn, the coffee I drink is cultivated by someone in the fields, for any activity I perform I need the help of so many people. That is why we have to show gratitude to others by at least supporting a few poor people. Therefore manushya yagna (which is popularly known as social service) is athithi pujanam. Some people ask me whether instead of shradham would be right if they do social service or feed the poor. You cannot replace one yagna with another. Social service is a separate yagna recommended in the scriptures and so is pitru yagna. Finally bhoota yagna is supporting the animals and plants. Be it keeping water for stray cows or feeding the crows or planting and maintaining plants etc. Now even Science says that for ecology reasons we have to take care of the environment. In our tradition we always respected the environment. Thus panchamaha yagna comes under nishkama karma which are actions not done for material benefits but spiritual education and expansion of the mind. A person has to reduce sakama karma and diligently follow nishkama karma. If a person follows them then the benefit is purification of the mind and spiritual refinement. Karma yoga is skill in action; and the skill is choosing the action. That is called healthy dependence. If a person chooses sakama karma then that action is unskillful for it will bind a person. Some people choose to work even after retirement; sakama karma will make us workholics and greedy for material acquisitions. But when I take a religious life I take to actions initially and I also know how to get out of it and enter the second stage of life called jnana yoga which we shall see in the next part.