Sankhya-yoga (Yoga of Knowledge)
This chapter is said to contain all the essential teachings of the whole Gita, decayable body, immortal soul, importance of doing one’s duty, selfless action and the Man of Perfect Wisdom.
Krishna, so far a silent listener, now spoke to Arjuna to cheer him up and to revive his spirits.
Lord Krişhņa says “Arjuna, are you not ashamed to behave in this disgraceful way at this critical moment, now in the face of a war? Do not become a slave to such weakness. It does not suit you, O Prince! Shake off this silly weakness. Stand up and fight”.
Arjuna says “How can you ask me to discharge deadly arrows at Bhisma and Drona, who deserve only devotion and reverence from me? . I do not also know which is better, to win or to lose. We would not wish even to live, after killing the Kauravas. I cannot distinguish the right from the wrong. Tell me, Krishna, what is good for me.
[The Lord, smiling, explains to him the immortal nature of the soul and the decayable nature of the body and thus shows him the correct path of duty.]
Lord Krishna says “You are unnecessarily wasting your grief upon a fact which deserves it the least. You seem to speak like a wise person. The really wise do neither grieve for the ‘departed’ nor for the ‘not yet departed’, (that is, the living). The body will die one day but we still remain forever”.
Arjuna asked “How can you say so, Krishna, when we see death all around us?”
Lord Krishna says “In this body do we not experience childhood, youth and old age? The death of childhood is the birth of youth; the death of youth is the birth of old age. Do these changes affect you? So too, is death. Rebirth is only a change of residence for the soul. There is no pain; and there is a perfect continuity.
The wise understand this and hence, do not get sad for these unavoidable things. Nobody can escape them. The wise are not affected by them, and qualify themselves for immortality.
Arjuna asked “What is it, that is real and always existent?”
Lord Krishna says “Know that the spirit exist forever. Nobody can destroy it. But the body through which this eternal, indestructible Spirit expresses is perishable. So why do you not fight? One who thinks that the Spirit kills or that the Spirit is killed is a fool. The Spirit does not kill, nor can it ever be killed. It knows neither birth nor death. When one knows the Self to be indestructible, tell me, Arjuna, who kills whom?
Just as we discard old clothes and put on new ones, the ’embodied’ casts off its useless body taking on new one. Weapons do not injure the Self. Fire does not burn it. Water does not drench it. Wind does not dry it. Thus, the Self cannot be affected by anything. It, at all times, remains as ever lasting, all-pervading, stable, immovable and ancient. It cannot be perceived by the naked eye. It cannot be defined in words. It cannot be changed by time. When you know the nature of the soul, where is the scope for grief?
Even if you do not accept the presence of the eternal Self and consider that each individual undergoes birth and death, why should you give way to grief? For the one that undergoes birth, experience of death also must come. Change is inevitable”.
The Spirit is always indestructible, and hence, it is futile to grieve at the death of the perishable creatures”.
[The necessity for doing one’s duty: the unavoidable compulsion in life that one must do one’s duties.]
Arjuna asked “If birth and death are inevitable, then what should I do with this life, Krishna?”
Lord Krsna answered “Arjuna! As a kshatriya, it is your duty by birth to fight every righteous war. If you do not take part in this righteous war, not only will you fail in discharging your duty to the society, but you will also be foolishly rejecting all fame in life and perpetrating unconsciously a meaningless crime. That disgrace will last for ever. What worse lot than disgrace and dishonour can befall you, who has been always honoured as the greatest hero! Dishonour is indeed more tragic than death for a hero! Those who have honoured you in the past will speak ill of you. Can there be anything more painful than this? Arjuna, my friend, just think of this. If you are killed, you gain heaven; if you win you gain the kingdom. Therefore, get up, determined to fight. Look at joy and sorrow, gain and loss, victory and defeat with the same attitude. With such determination and faith, fight you shall not thereby, commit any sin.
[ Krişhņa after expounding the eternal nature of the soul and the importance of doing one’s duty, teaches Arjuna the art of Self- perfection attained through selfless, dedicated work in serving society. Manava-sevā with devotion and humility is Mādhava-pūjā.]
So far, I was explaining to you the philosophy of wisdom (jñāna-yoga). I shall now teach you the philosophy of ‘action’ (karma-yoga) – how in a spirit of dedication, you can wholeheartedly plunge into action with a mind free from all anxieties for enjoying the fruits that might come out of them. One performs such actions with single-minded devotion and, therefore, one succeeds easily and enjoys peace and joy, whereas the mind usually gets confused and distracted in the process of action by endless thoughts.
Besides, the scope of Vedas is limited to the three ‘temperaments’ (gunas): sattva, rajas and tamas. You must transcend these. Be ever pure and free from the effects of the pairs of ‘opposites’ -joy and sorrow, health and disease, success and failure, honour and disgrace, praise and censure – the relative experiences. You must also be free from the thought of acquisition and aggrandisement. Be always established in the Supreme.
[Dedicated action is the path to knowledge. Through selfless service to the world we can grow within to experience the supreme Lord]
Our duty is only to work, to act. Never to worry and have anxieties regarding all the possible results. Do not work with a motive to gain something. At the same time, remember, you do not turn away from your duty and remain idle. With single. minded determination, do your duty, regardless of success and failure. One who acts for the sake of action is the happiest. Others, who act for results are most miserable.
[Here, Arjuna interrupts and asks Krihsna to define the Man of Steady Wisdom (sthitaprajña), to explain what is perfect wisdom, and to describe the characteristics of such a great saint.]
One who is always content, abandoning all desires and cravings for worldly objects is a Man of Perfect Wisdom. He is not sad in sorrows. He does not rejoice in joys. He is free from attachments, fear and anger. His mind is completely unattached to anything. He is the pure one, in whom cravings are totally dead.
But Arjuna, do not think one can cultivate and develop this attitude easily. The senses are very powerful. They pull the mind in the opposite direction. So, one must try hard to bring one’s senses well under control and fix one’s mind on Me. One who can thus conquer his unruly senses is a Man of Perfect Wisdom“.
Arjuna asked “The process which you explained to me to bring the senses under control, seems to be easy. But then, I cannot understand why so many do fail in their attempt“.
Lord Krişhņa says “Arjuna, constant thought – mental association of an object – produces an attachment or love in course of time, that leads to an all-consuming desire (kāma) to possess it. The obstacles that beset the path of its possession create anger (krodha). An angry person gets quite confused to know clearly what is good and what is bad. When he is thus blind to the good values of life, he is ruined . Thus, one’s downfall and ruin come from wrong thought.
On the contrary, a Man of Perfect Wisdom, though surrounded by desirable objects is not affected by them. They cannot create in him any desire to possess them. He remains ever pure and peaceful.
As long as there is a clinging desire for earthly objects, there can never come true knowledge. He does not acquire the power of concentration. Consequently peace and happiness are strangers to him. A Man of Perfect Knowledge sees everything clearly and there is nothing that he does not know. He knows what is real, the truth, and what is unreal, the false.
The ocean is always full. It does not crave for the continuous inflow of waters from the rivers. It does not undergo any change by the constant flowing in of waters from the rivers.