Essentials of Hinduism - Bhagavad Gita

Essentials of Hinduism

Bhagavad Gita

Chapter 3 - The Karma Yoga

Arjuna’s duty was to work without getting himself preoccupied with its result. The Vedantic Philosophy is taught to the student during an intimate and free discussion between the Teacher and the Taught.The Masters encouraged doubts and invited discussions from the Students. It is during these discussions that the Student wrestled with the Teacher in the area of the Intellect and in this exercise he became spiritually stronger and perfectly agile in all the other layers of his Personality. Act we must, from birth to death. An uncultivated man acts entertaining sensuous desires, he acts in the World seeking joy and earning for himself the happiness, endless sorrows and inexhaustible Mental Impressions (Vasanas). These Vasanas invite new fields for exhaustion. The way out from this non-stop vicious circle of ego-motivated action which creates Vasanas is the Path of Right Action. God dedicated Selfless actions performed in a spirit of Devotion

and self su rrender to exhaust the existing Vasanas and do not create any more fresh tragic impressions. Through the Gita, Krishna is made to give out a reinterpretation of the Vedic Truths.

Stanza 3:

In this World there is a two-fold Path – the Path of Knowledge and the Path of Action- these are complementary and are to be practiced one after the other. Selfless Activity gives a chance to the Mind to exhaust many of its existing Mental Impressions. The Path of Action is prescribed to the Active and the Path of Knowledge to the Meditative.

Stanza 7:

The Lord says, whosoever controls the senses by the Mind engages in organs of action in Karma Yoga without Attachment. The Mind is fed, sustained, nurtured and nourished by the five organs with stimuli drawn from the outer World of Objects. The prescription contained in this stanza asks a seeker to control the sense organs by the Mind. This is achieved only by giving the Mind a Diviner Field. When the sense organs are controlled, we are conserving a large quantity of energy. These energies must be spent by the seeker in the appropriate fields of activities with perfect detachment. These actions result in the exhaustion of existing Vasana-dirt in our mental equipment, as well as, new impressions are not gathered.

Stanza 8:

You have to perform your bounden duty that includes all your obligatory actions (Nitya Karmas) – home, office and society duties. Inactivity brings about the physical sufferings and intellectual deterioration.

Stanza 17:

For the man who rejoices only in the Self, content in the Self Alone, for Him there is nothing to be done. His highest vocation in Life is Meditation and he gains an increasing amount of inner poise. Satisfaction and Contentment are the two wheels of his Life Chariot. When he gets himself ushered into the All-perfect Realm of the Spirit, he experiences a complete sense of contentment in the Divine Nature that provides eternal satisfaction for him.

Stanza 22:

Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: there is nothing in the three Worlds that has to be done by Me, nor is there anything unattained that should be attained by Me; yet, I engage Myself in action. Even though there was nothing He had not gained, nor had He anything further to gain – He was spending Himself constantly in activity, as though work was to Him a game of enthusiasm and joy.

Stanza 25:

The ignorant acts motivated in his actions by his attachments and anxieties for the fruits. A man of Godly intentions will work in the World without attachment. Here the Lord Krishna suggested to Arjuna that he should work, unattached. He must enter into the battle-field as a champion fighting against the armies for a noble and righteous cause.

Stanza 28:

A true warrior is only he who can tirelessly fight in the inner World, and gain a victory over his Mind and attachments. He never surrenders to the arrows of attachments that fly towards him from all directions. For a Wise Man, attachment has no place and he is not anxious for the fruits of action. Likes and dislikes are not his. Loves and hatreds are not in his Mind. For Him, the very enjoyment is in the sport and not in the score.

Stanza 30:

The Lord advises Arjuna that he should renounce all actions (giving up the wrong motives behind the actions or selfish desires) in Me, mind centered on the Supreme Self, the Divine, the Eternal and then fight. Krishna advises Arjuna to fight with his mind free from Hope and Egoism – hope is the expectation of a happening yet to manifest in a future time; ego refers to the lingering memory of the past. This means, Krishna is advising Arjuna to fight by getting his best out into the present moment. The term “fight” is not for Arjuna alone, but to all of us to live the present moment of our life fully and intelligently.

Stanza 31:

Here the Lord emphasizes Sraddha and Anasuyantah into the work. These words also have Sankara’s explanation. Sraddha is a very pregnant word in Sanskrit. Faith in Vedanta means the ability to digest mentally and comprehend intellectually. Without Faith no activity is possible; Faith cannot grow without the intellectual conviction. It is Krishna’s opinion that if the Karma Yoga is pursued with Sraddha (faith) and without Anasuyantah (caviling or caving in or giving up) it will add a glow of health and vitality to our inner personality. Finally, “Karma Yoga” is extolled (adorned) here as the “Path” that takes one ultimately to the Supreme, because through desireless activity one achieves Vasana-purgation, thus making the Mind purer and subtler for meditative purposes.

Stanza 39:

This stanza vividly explains to us the discrimination (the capacity to distinguish) between the Real and the Unreal, the Permanent from the Impermanent, the true from the false, which gives man his higher status in the scale of evolution.

Stanza 42:

They say that the senses are superior to the Body; superior to the senses is the Mind; superior to the Mind is the Intellect; one who is even superior to the intellect is the He, the Atma. This stanza and the next (not included here) gives a seeker the technique to capture his inner enemy, “desire”. Mind has a vast kingdom to roam about but has its limitations. Intellect wins the next frontier for the Mind of the “fresh Knowledge”. That which lies beyond the intellect is called the Supreme, the Atma. In the Upanishads, it is finally declared that there is nothing subtler than the Self, the Atma. The technique of Meditation lies in the conscious withdrawal of all our identifications with our Body, Mind and Intellect.

The term Yoga means the art of connecting the lower with the Higher, through one’s self- evolution. The training of Karma Yoga prepares us for the greater fights on our life’s battle-fields.

This is the end of KARMA YOGA.

This article is a snippet from the Book Essentials of Hinduism, Authored by G.S Nilakantan. Hinduism for All is available online at www.giri.in and across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture and Tradition.