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Bhagavat
Geetha
(in present day environment)
(By
Achala Bhakthan)
Background:
Preface:
Whilst
Our Upanishads have originated from great seers in the silent and cool Himalayan
top, the Bhagavat Geeta had its origin in the battlefield of Mahabharata.
Whereas the Upanishads and other scriptures were the result of revelations to
the great seers through Tapas and speak about Realisation of God – the unknown
invisible phenomena – Bhagavat Geeta is the direct advice by the Supreme to
the Jeevaatma and clearly reveals the paths for living a contented and
meaningful life in this world and speaks about the path of human evolution.
Therefore, Bhagavat Geeta is said to be the Cream of Life Principle
handed over to the Jeevaas by the Paramatma and is considered to be the best and
easy to assimilate scripture. Any
book on any subject has to have a sound and strong base, which should be the
central point throughout the discussions in that book.
The main central point covered by the book must penetrate throughout the
discussion in the book. Bhagavat Geeta fulfils this requirement and it also stands
the test of time, since the problems discussed therein and the solutions given
apply equally to all times – past, present and future.
Hence it is called the Eternal Gospel.
It contains the essense of all Vedas and Upanishads in a nutshell.
It is also called the fifth Veda.
Origination:
Bhagavat Geeta, which
blossomed at the battlefield of Mahabharata in Kurukshethra, is in a question
and answer form as is in Upanishads. When
the two sides, Kauravaas and Paandavaas were ready to commence the war, when the
call for war was given out through the sounding of conches, Lord Krishna gave
this Upadesa to Arjuna. Lord
Krishna had been depicted as the Paramaatma and Arjuna as the Jeeva.
It is not to be considered as a personal address to Arjuna, since the
human beings undergo the same status like Arjuna and the principles enunciated
therein apply equally to the entire humanity.
Arjuna represents the entire jeevaatmas in the universe and Krishna poses
as the Supreme SELF. What a scene!
Arjuna, the Jeevatma, seeing the ocean of warriors and the relatives on
the other side (problems), got totally deluded and depressed and lost his sense
of discrimination and felt that he had to win the Kingdom by killing his kith
and kin (relatives) and such success was not glorious and would like to withdraw
from the war. In fact, he was afraid of treachery, infame and rath by others.
He lamented at the thought of becoming the annihilator of many lives in
the war and that too his own relatives. He
was thus shunning his responsibility as a Kshathriya, not seeing the Dharma in
his duties and not realising his responsibilities to re-establish Dharma.
Krishna advised him to be courageous and go ahead and do his duties
unattached and without bothering about the results and revealed the cream of
Sanatana Dharma through this great scripture to encourage him to act.
The Geeta starts with Arjuna’s Vishada Yoga, i.e. the state of mind of
Arjuna - lamenting on things, which are impermanent and having misconceptions
about duties and responsibilities, caused by delusion, attachment, Egoistic etc.
His Intellect was crippled with indiscrimination caused by mental strain
and stress and ignorance about the life principle.
Concepts
covered:
Arjuna,
being not convinced about the points put forward by Krishna, shot many questions
on human responsibility, duties, dharma, adharma, action, results of action,
papa, punya, life, death and so on. Lord Krishna explained to him the right
attitude in facing life, problems in life and solutions through the concepts of
Kartha, Karma, Kriya, Akarma, Bhala, Bhoga, Bhokta, Kama Krodaadi Gunas
(negative), all dualities like Pleasure & Pain, Sukha & Dhukha, Paapa
& Punya etc. the concept of Courage, Fear, Delusion, Deep Sleep, Dream and
Waking states, the various Lokhaas (planets), the Body, Mind, Intellect, the
Performer, Feeler and Thinker, Ego, God etc. , the negative qualities of Mind,
the positive attitude one should have while doing his Dharma (duties), the
concept of four Varnaasrama Dharmaas etc. Krishna enunciated the Cause and
Effect theory that our Science is now adopting to prove heir experiments.
Krishna spoke about the four paths for human evolution and to convince Arjuna,
He made Arjuna visualize the Universal figure of Krishna himself (Vishwa Roopa),
where Arjuna saw everything in the Universe in the body of Krishna, including
Krishna and Arjuna himself. This revelation took Arjuna into the state of SELF
Realisation and he fought the war unattachedly and with no doer_ship feeling and
won the war.
Don’t you feel that all
human beings are put into – one time or other – in similar situations like
that of Arjuna? The war was
pasteurized as external, but if we consider it as a war between our Mind (Jeeva)
and Intellect (Supreme) in the warfield of Samsara, don’t you feel that we go
through similar situations like that faced by Arjuna? It is not possible for all
to go through the Upanishads and other scriptures, due to the language used and
the high level at which they are written and over all the time and intellectual
ability needed to assimilate them is lacking in us.
However, the entire theme discussed therein – centuries back –
applies to all situations and at all times.
What is required is to take the gist, the cream, and apply it in
today’s scenerio instead of looking into the literary meaning.
There is no situation left over in Bhagavat Geeta where one cannot find a
solution. Every aspect of life is
discussed, every problem faced by human beings are enumerated and apt solutions
are prescribed in this great text. All
the stages of life; the faculty of mind, intellect, senses; the problems
confronting human beings; solutions for overcoming them; what is right &
wrong; duties & responsibilities; work & results, attitude & actions
and what not. It is a treasure for all our problems and solutions. There is nothing left out nor lacking for solutions.
It is the way one assimilates the theme discussed therein and applies the
theory/concept suitably to today’s situations.
Bhagavagt Geeta is invaluable since it has self-revealed to a deluded man
lacking discriminative ability and while facing mountainous problems that are
common at all times. The
entire principles enumerated in Bhagavat Geeta can be applied in a present day
situation of war – war between the Mind and Intellect.
GEETA
IN TODAY’S SCENERIO
We
as Arjunas:
Let
us look at the concepts of Geeta from today’s scenario.
For an interesting reading, let us picturise the entire Geeta scene as
applicable to us. Let us
imagine the Samsara as Kurukshethra, the mind and Intellect as Kauravaas and
Pandavaas respectively (Negative and Positive thoughts and actions), SELF as
Krishna Jeevatma as Arjuna and the problems confronting us as the war.
The Jeevatma, sunk in ocean of samsaara and deluded by Maya lost sight of
SELF and got entangled in the problems of the world through Egotism, i.e.
feeling of ownership of all actions and senses.
Let us analyse the concepts from the standpoint of this battlefield.
Our status:
From
birth, we are brought up in a given surrounding and nurtured by our family
culture/customs established/followed by our forefathers.
We learnt many things by hearing from others – parents, relatives,
society etc. – and by our own observations while going through the life.
Thus we have accumulated certain beliefs and values of life, which are
personal to us and need not tally with the scriptural dictates.
Also we have gained certain knowledge about our Sanatana Dharma through
practice and observation of others. We
have become materialistic in nature and lost sight of the real values of life
described in our sanatana Dharma. In
our pursuit for our livelihood, we have lost the vision of SELF and have taken
the world of objects as real, which we enjoy through our sense organs.
When a wish comes in our mind, we brood over it and get attached to it
and long to possess it. We try to
get it through any means and enjoy it. Thus, to live a comfortable and happy
life, we run around in te world of objects in earning and accumulating wealth
and enjoy the impermanent pleasures, taking them mistakenly as true and lasting.
We face various obstacles and problems from others in this pursuit and
fight for our success and existence. This
way we have become Egoistic (self-centered) and do not see the welfare of the
society, of which we are the members. When we face problems and hindrances in
our way – may be from nature or from others around us – we get depression
and mental strain. The Ego in us
fights against such odds to establish its superiority over others, thowing away
all the tenets of our Vedas and acting as per the dictates of our mind in a
given situation. If we do not
succeed, we get annoyed, depressed and lament.
If we succeed, we rejoice and claim that we have won.
In every situation, our Ego is in the forefront, not permitting us to see
the reality of the situation. In
this fight, we lose our sense of discrimination of good and bad, right and wrong
etc.
Causes
of War within us:
Let us take some concrete
examples. We are working in an
office and are striving to come up there in position.
We work hard with a view to gain our promotions and increments.
We have to work with many others above us, below us and in par with us.
Each one is Egoistic and seeks self-success.
This brings about a competition amongst us.
Competition, if positive, is good. But
at the cost of others if we try to rise, it is negative and bad.
We face various problems in office like back-bite, envy, opposition from
others for our progress, accusations from all over etc. and this poses problem
for our rise. We get annoyed, worried, depressed and dejected.
This delusion overshadows our intellectual faculty to think right and
give correct direction to our mind, which has to carry out the actions through
the sense organs. We are thus in a Vishada Yoga in the battlefield of our
office.
In a family situation, we
are living with parents, brothers, sisters, in laws, kids etc. in a joint
family. Each one is having personal
wishes and traits and live together with the bondage of family culture.
Elders are our guides and masters, whose directions and orders we have to
follow/obey. If each one is
egoistic and works for one’s own welfare, lacking the accommodative spirit and
sacrifice, there is bound to be a war between various members of the family. We
are subjected to disagreements in principles, envy, ill feelings, anger,
back-bites etc. etc. Thus starts the war between the members of a family.
Socially, we form groups
of like minded people and fight against the actions of opposite groups and
become subjected to angry, miserness, delusion etc. and lose sight of the
welfare of the Society around us. We
become selfish and engage in personal fights. Here we try to fight and win the
battle as a member of the Society, which is little better than fighting for
self-survival. Politically also,
the same situation.
We are in Vishada
Yoga:
Thus major part of life
is gone with fighting for survival. We
do not think of spending some time daily on contemplation on ourselves.
We do not even analyse the situations which force us to act as above and
always complain that my fate is not good, God is not kind, I am suffering
always, nobody appreciates my deeds, no one comes forth to help me in distress
etc. etc. Thus we lose our
independence and seek help from others.
How far? Till we breathe our
last. What use?
Have we found out our origin, our nature? Have we tried to do any good deed or studied our scriptures?
No, because we have no time to spare from our fighting.
When we are thus, deluded, depressed, dejected etc. we are in Vishada
Yoga status. This is the time we
need advice from the Supreme for which we have to first have a determination to
live a noble life as prescribed by our Vedas, which will enlighten our intellect
(Pandavaas), i.e. the discriminative faculty in us which will lead us to a noble
life and win over the mind (Kauravaas) by our dharmic and noble actions.
To make the intellect realize its power, we have to sharpen it by pouring
more and more real knowledge. For
this, we need to dispassionately assess the situation we are in, the causes and
effect, the resultant miseries, way out to get released from problems etc.
We should understand the various mind-sets, the situations that create
the different mind-sets and look at the positive and negative thoughts and their
effect on us. To succeed in this,
we should have a thorough knowledge about the very thought process and the
effects of our actions based on them and take corrective action at the very
start. This is a preventive
method compared to curative method normally adopted by us.
This leads us to the topic of Self-enquiry – enquiring about our
source.
Life situation:
Our body consists of five
Gnanendriyas (organs of perception) which bring vishayaas (matter) from outside.
These are received at the Mind which analyses them and the Intellect
discriminates and dictates action through Mind, which go through the five
Karmendriyas (organs of action). The
Mind receives the vishayaas in the form of thought.
In fact Mind is nothing but a bundle of continous thoughts flowing at
such a speed that we are not able to catch site of all of them.
We catch only those, which appeal to us depending on our Vaasanaas
(tendencies developed through upbringing and our beliefs).
We get attached to some thoughts, which cater to our needs and wish to
acquire the things projected therein. We
strive to get it and if we fail, we lament, get disgusted and worried, and if
successful we rejoice over it and indulge in it.
This creates more and more hatred or longing for that object depending on
negative or positive results they produce as above.
Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Madha Matsaryaadi six negative gunas are
generated in us. These lead us to
continuously suffer and strive for recovery.
This is in short the process that we go through in our life continuously.
Kama (Wish) motivates us to indulge in low pleasures, Krodha (Anger)
drives us mad and exhausted), Lobha (Miserliness) makes us selfish in our
outpour, Moha (Delusion) deludes us from the reality of the situation, Madha
(Selfish attitude) is the status of Egoism and Matsarya (fighting tendency)
makes us fight for achieving our wants. I
need not explain the effects of these negative qualities on our mind-set and the
sufferings they lead us to. Angry
makes one blind in his actions and makes one lose his sense of discrimination.
Similarly all other tendencies make us lose site of the real situation
and we jump into wrong decisions and suffer for them.
What is the way out?
Here let us understand
the Bhagavat Geeta Teachings and follow the instructions given therein.
I am not trying to discuss chapter by chapter and give you ready-made
answers. It is for you to study it,
understand it, get clarifications from learned persons and apply the tenets
discussed therein to enjoy the cream of the Gospel. My object in writing this article is just to make you
understand our plight, show you the real situation of Arjuna Vishada Yoga
through which we are all going through in our present day life and to make you
see the eternal value of the Bhagavat Geeta teachings effectively applicable in
modern situations. Any one needing
any specific clarification on any particular situation discussed in Geeta may
contact me with the problem and I shall try to analyse and give my guidance to
the best of my knowledge.
:HARI OM:
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