Swadharma

I wanted to follow up this past week’s discussion on Action and Renunciation with a post on Chapter 5 of the Bhagavad Gita. After a basic introduction, I’ve skipped ahead to the relevant verses, hoping to give you a rough idea of the chapter.

(All my translations are from here!)

Krishna replies (in the words of Shri Madhavacharya):

A person can beneficially perform karma yoga or prescribed Vedic activities as well as renunciation of the rewards of actions; but between the two karma yoga is preferable. Both are equally authorised and when karma yoga includes the renunciation of the rewards from one’s actions it becomes superior for without a sense of detachment and renunciation activities are influenced by the dualities of life such as success and failure and become a source of misery.

I’ve read a couple of poor interpretations of the above verse. It is important to keep in mind the context of the above verse: Krishna is convincing Arjuna to fight the battle on hand. For Arjuna, the path to moksa is that of action. For him, karma yoga is indeed preferable! In the next few verses, Krishna affirms that that, in fact, both paths (action and renunciation) lead to the same goal, that only the foolish differentiate between the two…As verse 5 so eloquently states:

य: पश्यति स: पश्यति // yah pasyati sah pasyati

yah – he who, pasyati – sees, sah – he. One who sees this, sees it.

In verse 7:

One who works in devotion, who is a pure soul, and who controls his mind and senses, is dear to everyone, and everyone is dear to him. Though always working, such a man is never entangled.

And verse 8:

A person in the divine consciousness, although engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving about, sleeping and breathing, always knows within himself that he actually does nothing at all. Because while speaking, evacuating, receiving, opening or closing his eyes, he always knows that only the material senses are engaged with their objects and that he is aloof from them.

This ties into an important idea of Vedanta philosophy: the atman. The atman is the soul in every human being that transcends physical existence. It is identical to the brahman or the divine God. Here, Krishna suggests that the atman of a vishuddhatma (pure soul) is but a witness to his activities. He is ambivalent towards the worldly joy and sorrow that he experiences. He is aware that he is the cause of nothing, that his body is enshrouded by maaya.

Verses 18 and 19 expand further on this, equating the atman of a vishuddhatma to the brahman himself:

The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].

Those whose minds are established in sameness and equanimity have already conquered the conditions of birth and death. They are flawless like Brahman, and thus they are already situated in Brahman.

In the last verse of the chapter:

The sages, knowing Me as the ultimate purpose of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attain peace from the pangs of material miseries.

Krishna explains that to place one’s love in something unchanging as God (or brahman or atman) is to protect it, thereby assuring one continuous happiness. To be (metaphysically) a witness to one’s actions is to elevate oneself: to transcend maaya and to experience uninterrupted bliss.

Related posts:

1. Emerson and the Bhagavad-Gita
2. Resting in Brahman
3. Question of the Week: What is my duty?
4. In Search of the True Self
5. Chapter 14: Discrimination of the Three Gunas