A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.
[Continued from the previous page.]
avyaktaadeeni
bhootani vyakta-madhyaani bhaarata
avyakta-nidhanaany-eva tatra kaa paridevanaa
ll 2.28 ll
aashcharyavat
pashyati kashchid enam
aashcharyavad
vadati tathaiva chaanyah
aashcharyavac-chainam
anyah shrnoti
shrutwaapyenam veda na chaiva kaschit ll 2.29 ll
All beings come from the invisible beyond,
live in this visible world, and disappear into the invisible. Why then weep and
wail about them? It is a wonder that some people see this, the true self! It is
a wonder that some others speak of it and again it is a wonder that some others
hear of it! But alas! Some do not know
it even when they hear of it! 2.28-29
O0O
The Indian tradition in teaching is to begin at the highest level and
then gradually come down to the lower levels and end at the lowest level. The
Gita too follows the same tradition as even a casual reading of the Song of
Krishna shows. Thus the second chapter of the Gita where Krishna begins his
teachings contains the highest truths India discovered through the search of
the rishis over thousands of years – that we are deathless, immortal,
indestructible, imperishable, nothing can touch us. And in the eighteenth
chapter we have the most mundane things talked about – different kinds of food,
different kinds of charity, different kinds of action, how speech should be
such that it does not make others anxious, how we should always speak the truth
and how that truth should be spoken in such a way that not only does it benefit
[hita] others but also is pleasant to hear [priya] and so on. Within the second
chapter itself, we find this progression from the higher to the lower wisdom
[though towards the end Krishna once again soars into great heights].
As we saw, Krishna began his teaching in the second chapter by
discussing our deathless nature and now he has come down to the common man’s
wisdom, wisdom that is useful in consoling Arjuna and calming his mind that has
been hijacked by his emotions.
When the mind is hijacked, not only does it become impossible to learn
the higher truths, even ordinary day to day functioning of the mind becomes
near impossible. Arjuna’s mind is in utter confusion at the moment and a confused
mind is not ready for the absolute truth, so Krishna has to climb down to the
world of lower truths where Arjuna is.
A person deep in the life of samsara has first to be made to realize
the true nature of samsara before he can take the journey out of samsara. So
long as he is fascinated by samsara, enthralled by it, considers it as the only
truth, he is not ready for what is beyond samsara. That is why the rishis say
pareekshya lokaan nirvedam aayaan braahmano nasty akrtah krtena tad vijnaanaartham
sa gurumeva abhigachchhed samitpaanih shrotriyam brahmanishtham: “After living
the life of samsara, examining it and developing dispassion towards it, after
realizing the uncreated cannot be attained through actions, must a brahmana humbly
approach for the higher knowledge, with samit in hand, a guru who has studied
the scriptures and is rooted in Brahman.”
The higher truth – para vidya – is not a theory, not something that can
be understood intellectually. It is knowledge that can only be gained through direct
personal experience, the experience we call aparoksha anubhooti. And to have that experience, we need a still
mind. That is why Krishna is trying to calm Arjuna’s mind by giving him all
kinds of arguments, including some very mundane ones.
Indian wisdom speaks of three dimensions of truth – paramarthika satya,
vyavaharika satya, and pratibhasika satya.
Pratibhasika [praatibhaasika] satya is comparatively easy to understand
for what it is and to free oneself from. It is the rope we mistake for a snake
in semidarkness, the shapes we see in the clouds in the sky, the mirage we see
in the desert, the mass of sizzling water we see on the dry road ahead of us on
a hot day.
Paramarthika [paaramaarthika] satya comes from the word paramartha. Paramartha
means the absolute truth, truth as it is, truth that remains the same at all
times, the trikala-abadhita satya – truth that is unaffected by the three
tines, truth that remains the same in the past, present and future. This is the truth of the rishis, of Krishna, of
Mahavira and Buddha, of Jesus, Rumi, Hafis, Al Hallaj Mansoor, Bayazid Bastami
and Rubia al-Adaviyya. This is the truth all meditators realize in kensho,
satori, samadhi and nirvana, though they speak of it differently: ekam sat
vipraa bahudhaa vadanti – truth is one, though the wise speak of it
differently. Honestly, this is the only truth.
We are all one in this truth, you and I are not different, neither you
nor I am ever born, none of us ever dies, we are not different from existence, we
are the truth that sets the universe in motion, the sun and the moon rise
because of us, the innumerable milky ways all exist within us, night and day
happen because of us, we are every dust particle in the universe, every grain
of sand and every drop of water, we are the ananda which every beings seeks, we
are all joys and sorrows, we are all successes and all failures. And we are
beyond all these, as the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda says: after stretching
through everything, it still spreads beyond, atyatishthad dashaangulam. This is
what the ancient Sukta means when it says: purusha evedam sarvam yad bhootam
yachcha bhavyam sanaatanam. This is the Cosmic Purtusha from whose mind the
moon was born, from whose eyes the sun was born, from whose mouth the gods
Indra and Agni were born, from whose prana Vayu was born, from whose naval
regions the space between heaven and earth was born, from whose head the heaven
was born, from whose ears the directions were born and from whose feet the
earth was born.
chandramaa manaso jaatah chakshoh sooryo ajaayata
mukhaad indrashchagnishcha praannaad vaayur ajaayata
naabhyaa aaseed antariksham sheershnnoh dyauh samavartata
padbhyaam bhoomir dishah shrotraat [Purusha Sukta 13-14]
But at a lower level we have the vyavaharika satya, truth at the
transactional level, the level at which you and I live, which truth according
the rishis is no more real than a dream. You and I are different from each
other here, we are born at a particular time and will die at a particular
time, we have a particular name and a particular form; some of
us are tall, some short; some are ugly and some beautiful; some are men and
some women, some rich, some poor. Our joys and sorrows touch us, our victories
and failures touch us, our pains and pleasures touch us, we weep and wail and
sing and dance, we fight and make up, we kill and are killed, we become hungry
and thirsty, we pass through the six stages that ancient wisdom speaks in such
words as asti, jayate, vardhate, viparinamate, apaksheeyate and vinashyati
[exists, is born, grows, reproduces, declines, perishes]. As the Mahabharata
says, each one of us has had a thousand fathers and a thousand mothers in the
past, a thousand wives, a thousand
husbands and a thousand children in the past, and each of us has been born a
thousand times, has lived a thousand lives and have died a thousand deaths.
All this is true only at the vyavaharika level and none of these is true
at the paramarthika level, says ancient wisdom, according to which experiences
here are like our experiences in dream – they are all true so long as the dream
lasts, but once we wake up, we realize they have all been projections of our
mind.
Indian wisdom says that everyone is under the spell of a cosmic power
that shows the real as unreal, that shows the one as many, a power that we call
Maya, which is also called by another name: prakriti, a word that means the
power that creates the many, though in truth there is only one. The word
prakriti gives us the feeling that the creation is real and the word Maya gives
the feeling that it is illusory, but both Maya and prakriti are the same power:
maayaam tu prakrtim viddhi, as the scriptures say – understand Maya as
prakriti.
In a famous teaching story in the Bhagavata, the eternal, deathless
sage Narada – whose name is explained as ‘naaram, brahmavidyaam, dadaati iti naaradah’,
the giver of the highest knowledge – was once with Krishna. Narada told Krishna
that he wants to know what Maya is and Krishna told the sage he will do so
shortly and suggested they relax under the shade of a tree for while since it
was very hot. As they were relaxing under the cool shade of the tree, Krishna
asked Nerada if he would mind getting him a little water to drink and Narada
straight away went to fetch water for Krishna. He walked sprightly – both
because of the burning sun and because he had to hurry since Krishna was
thirsty.
Unfortunately for a long while Narada could find no water – no ponds or
pools nearby, no rivers, no wells. And he was now perspiring profusely and was
himself very thirsty. It was then that he spotted the signs of a village
nearby.
He knocked on the door of the first house in the village and it was
opened by the most beautiful girl he had ever seen! She looked like an
incarnation of womanhood itself – of medium height, slim, of dark complexion, with
beautiful teeth, rich lips, thick, dark, curly hair, slender arms, an exquisite
nose and glorious eyes that took your breath away. She was the classic beauty,
with a slender middle, well-shaped hips and budding breasts.
And when she smiled and spoke, Narada felt he would melt. All his
thirst was forgotten, the hot sun outside was forgotten, Krishna was forgotten,
everything was forgotten. The words that came out of the muni were not “Can I
have some water/” but “Will you be my wife?”
The young woman took a step forward and fell into his hands, her head
resting on his chest. The scent of her hair intoxicated him, transported him
into worlds he had never known before. He breathed in the scent deeply and time
was forgotten, his own existence was forgotten; a strange kind of lightness and
happiness filled him, he was now in a world where no cares existed, where he
felt all his senses were alive for the first time, where he felt he is fully
alive for the first time.
Soon Narada was a family man – wealthy, with a beautiful wife whom he
adored, and children of their own.
It was then that the terrible flood came – a huge flood that inundated
everything: fields, homes, cattle, the entire village. The roaring flood picked
up his wife and children and carried them away shrieking and screaming, his own
voice choked in pain as he had never known before. In his despair he collapsed
on the ground and just one word came out of the depths of being – “Krishna!” a
word that he repeated again and again
“Yes, Narada, I’m here,” came Krishna’s voice. He was still sitting
under the tree. “ But aren’t you going to get the water?”
That’s when Narada realized he hadn’t moved one step from where he was
standing when Krishna had asked for water and the village he had seen, the girl
he had married, the children he had and the terrible flood had never existed.
O0O
That is Maya and the life we live is of Maya, It is very real so long
we experience it. It creates for us what has never existed. Wise men speak of Maya
as aghatita-ghatanaa pateeyasee – the power that gives birth to what has no
existence – in the past, the present, or the future.
Just as on Narada, the effect of Maya on us can be so powerful that it
can take over our whole life. Under the delusions it creates, we believe in the
impossible and run after illusions all our life. In fact, all the life we live
until we wake up, all the chasing after name and fame and success and
possessions we do, is Maya’s play. She tells us, “Do this and you will be happy
and at peace with yourself, get this and you will be happy and at peace with
yourself,” and we start the chase, just as a kitten chases a shadow in the hope
of capturing it. And just as all our chases are because of Maya, all our fears,
all our lust and anger, all our hatred and hostility, all our lust and greed
are also Maya’s work. Such is her power that even the wise do not easily escape
her.
jnaaninaam api chetaamsi
devee bhagavatee hi saa balad aakrshya mohaaya mahaamaaya prayachati
“She, the Goddess Mahamaya, draws by force into her illusions even the
minds of wise men.” [Saptashloki Durga]
Robin Sharma in his celebrated book The Monk Who
Sold His Ferrari speaks of an advocate named with Julian Mantle obsessed with
success and kept working for it tirelessly. “For the first few years,” writes
Robin Sharma about him, “he justified his long hours by saying that he was ‘doing
it for the good of the firm’, and that he planned to take a month off and go to
the Caymans ‘next winter for
sure.’ As time passed, however, Julian’s reputation for brilliance spread and
his workload continued to increase. The cases just kept on getting bigger and
better, and Julian, never one to back down from a good challenge, continued to
push himself harder and harder. In his rare moments of quiet, he confided that
he could no longer sleep for more than a couple of hours without waking up
feeling guilty that he was not working on a file. It soon became clear to me
that he was being consumed by the hunger for more: more prestige, more glory
and more money.”
As
an individual Julian suffers – he loses his sense of humour, his wit, even his
brilliance and he starts aging prematurely. His family life suffers – “his
marriage failed, he no longer spoke with his father, and though he had every
material possession anyone could want, he still had not found whatever it was
that he was looking for.”
“And
then it happened,” concludes Robin Sharma. “This massive heart attack that
brought the brilliant Julian Mantle back down to earth and reconnected him to
his mortality. Right in the middle of courtroom number seven on a Monday
morning, the same courtroom where we had won the Mother of All Murder Trials.”
That
is Maya.
O0O
All our struggles, all our joys and sorrows, all our gains and losses
are within the world of Maya, whether it is the joys and sorrows of family
life, the successes and failures and the stress and strain of the professional
life or the lying and cheating and backstabbing and betrayals of political
life.
And this Maya is difficult to wake up from. Our tradition says that it
is only through divine grace that we can wake up from it. Krishna says in the
Gita:
daivee hyeshaa
gunamayee mama maayaa duratyayaa
maam
eva ye prapadyante maayaam etaam taranti te ll BG 7.14 ll
“This Maya of mine is divine and difficult to cross over. Only those
who take refuge in me crosses over this Maya.”
But to take refuge in Krishna, to stop the chasing after the world, to
awaken to the higher truth, our mind has to become quiet, at least relatively
quiet, at peace with itself. And at the moment Arjuna’s mind is restless. And
it is to quiet Arjuna’s mind that Krishna says:
avyaktaadeeni
bhootani vyaktamadhyaani bhaarata
avyakta nidhanaanyeva tatra kaa paridevanaa ll
2.28 ll
Krishna is telling Arjuna that even if he
does not believe that we are all eternal, and instead believes we have a
beginning and end, he still does not have any reason to worry about the death
of Bhishma etc. “All beings come from the invisible beyond,
live in this visible world, and disappear into the invisible. Why then weep and
wail about them?” asks Krishna.
Admittedly not a very strong argument,
Krishna knows, but he is willing to try even that.
And now Krishna, the master of Maya, adds to
his argument a beautiful shloka here more like a soliloquy than something
addressed to Arjuna.
“It is a wonder that some people see the true
self! It is a wonder that some others speak of it and again it is a wonder that
some others hear of it! Alas! Some do
not know it even when they hear of it!” ll 2.29 ll
We are created in such a way that there is no way we can see it. We are
so completely deluded by Maya that ordinarily there is no way we can see our
true nature. Paraanchi khaani vyatrnat swayambhooh, tasmaad paraang pashyati
nantaratman, says the Katha Upanishad: “The creator created the sense organs
facing outward and therefore man sees whatever is outside, not his own inner
self.” And the Upanishad adds that it is a rare intelligent person – kaschid
dheerah – who closes his eyes and sees the inner self, motivated by the desire
to attain immortality.”
So it is in the nature of things that we do not see our inner self, we
do not even suspect that there is an inner self to us. As far as most of us are
concerned, we are the body. If the body is tall, we are tall, if it is short we
are short, if it is beautiful, we are beautiful. I am an Indian, I am an Asian,
I am a European, a Chinese, and an African – we say these because that is what our
bodies are. The body decides whether I am a man or a woman. So completely
identified with the body are we, we have forgotten that each one of us has lived innumerable
lifetimes in the past – bahooni me vyateetaani jan,maani tava charjuna, as
Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita itself, some as men and some as women, some as
rich and some as poor, some as beautiful and some as ugly. Maataa-pitr-sahasraani putra-daara-shataani cha,
samsaareshv-anubhootaani yaati yaasyanti chaapare, says Sage Vyasa in the
Bharata Savitri verse in the concluding part of the Mahabharata – “Each one of
us have already had numerous mothers and fathers, numerous wives and children
in this world, and we are going to have numerous more.”
O0O
Again, to understand that there is something beyond the mind, we need
inner stillness. And inner stillness is possible only when we live untouched by
what we call samsara. But unfortunately, as the Katha Upanishad teaches us, in
the words of Yama, the lord of death and Nachiketa’s teacher in the Upanishad:
na saamparaayaḥ pratibhaati baalam pramaadyantam vittamohena
mooḍham;
ayam loko naasti para iti maanee, punaḥ punar vasham aapadyate me.
“What is beyond the senses does not appear to the ‘child’
deluded and fooled by desire for wealth. He considers this is the entire world,
this alone, and there is nothing beyond this – and comes into my grips again
and again”
When riches and all that riches can provide you become our life
goal, we become blind to everything that is beyond them. So indeed it is a
wonder that even a rare person sees the self that no eyes can see, no ears can
hear, no tongue can taste, no nose can smell and no touch can reveal because it
is ashabdam, soundless, asparsham, beyond touch, aroopam, beyond forms,
avyayam, changeless, arasam, tasteless, nityam, eternal, agandham, odorless,
anaadyanta, without a beginning and an end.
So very few people indeed even hear of it, and even among those
who hear of it, the vast majority does not understand it. Logic does not lead you to that – na tarkena
matir-aapaneyaaa, it can only be understood when told by someone who has known
it – known not from books buy from their own personal experience.
The wise way of living then, says Krishna, is
to live knowing that you, the indweller of the body, the dehi, is nitya,
eternal and avadhya, unslayable, deathless. And not live a body-centered life.
O0O
As the Gita teaches us, trust the wise, trust the teaching of masters
like Krishna, and live and act in the world in such a way that we awaken to the
reality of our true nature as immortals, what we have to do, make it an
offering to the Highest and perform it without attachment and if you do so, you
will be untouched by sins, by negative karmas, by negative life scripts.
Play your role in the cosmic drama, knowing it is only a drama. Be an
actor – an excellent actor. After all, as Krishna says in the Gita, yoga is
excellence in action: yogah karmasu kaushalam. Be a nimitta, an instrument in
the hands of the Total, as Krishna asks Arjuna to be: nimitta-matram bhava
savyasachin. Be a tool for dharma, a warrior for dharma, a fearless warrior
asKrishna wants Arjuna to be. And Krishna’s guarantee is there with all of us:
those who do good never come to a bad
end: na hi kalyaanakrit kaschid durgatim taata gachchati.
Krishna calls dharma his son. So when you fight for dharma, you are
fighting for Krishna.
We live in a world where adharma abounds, whether it is in the world of
business, of politics, of administration. Even the medical and pharmaceutical
world, which should be the most human-friendly since it is a world dedicated to
saving lives, abound in corruption. So opportunities for fighting for dharma is
everywhere. What Krishna is asking us, through Arjuna, is join hands with him
in his battle against adharma. It does not matter whether you are an Indian or
an American, a man or a woman, young or old, if you do that you will be
worshipping Krishna.
In the Gita Krishna says patram pushpam phalam toyam yo me bhaktyaa
prayachchati tad aham bhaktyupahrdam ashnaami prayataatmanah: “Whatever you
offer me with devotion, whether it is a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, if
it is offered with devotion, I accept it.” [BG 9.26]
Krishna is not particular what you offer him, anything is fine, so long
as the offering is done with devotion. What can be a better offering to him
than joining him in his battle for dharma? Oppose adharma wherever you find it.
Oppose corruption wherever you find it. Oppose ugliness, darkness, wickedness,
exploitation, ignorance and other forms of evil wherever you find it. Be a
dharma-warrior where you are. That is the highest offering you can make to
Krishna, the highest form of worshipping him.
The ancient sages call us children of immortality. “Listen
ye children of immortality,” they tell us. And what they tell us is that there
is no other life worth living, there is no other path worth traveling: na anyah
panthaa vidyate ayanaaya.
Transforming our life into constant worship of
Krishna through our actions is an unerring path that leads to immortality.
O0O
Photo courtesy: Unknown artist
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