This oscillation is natural. But after you sense this pattern, you ask — is there a way out? How can we dodge life’s ups and downs?

Hinduism answers: detachment. The perfect devotee of God is even-minded in pain and pleasure, writes the Bhagavad-Gita, a constant in the oscillations of life. To attain that state of even-mindedness, one must practice yoga. This detachment is a crucial concept in modern Hinduism — Brittany and Sonali have written on it earlier.

But just because the books say it does not mean it is true — as with all scriptural principles, we must question it, burn it with the fires of our inquiry to test its strength. Is it worth sacrificing life’s joys to avoid the sorrows? Is it really better to be even-minded? If I am so detached from everything, will I become a dull, lifeless, boring being? Or will I find renewed strength with which to enjoy life?

For me, the greatest satisfaction is in productivity, in working effectively. I find that I am more productive when I am calm and devoid of emotion, than when I am excited or sullen. So for me, even-mindedness contributes to a more satisfying life. While it’s not the most thrilling dining-table conversation — “how even-minded were you today?” — I find that the excitement of adhering to a principle such as even-mindedness is unmatched.

In the rush of life, where we race to move forward, increase our station, it is easy to get caught in the cycle of ups and downs. So ask yourself — would detachment help you achieve greater satisfaction in life, or do you prefer the joys and sorrows? Even though the Bhagavad-Gita favors the detachment route, ignore the authority of scripture and answer this question for yourself — as long as you are aware of this cycle, it is fine to choose to be in it.

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(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.

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“For the being who has conquered the mind, that being’s mind is the best of friends; but for one whose mind is uncontrolled, that mind acts as the worst of enemies” (BG 6:6).

The mind is the source of our greatest joys and our greatest miseries. It is hard to stay motivated in controlling one’s own mind, especially when things don’t seem to be going correctly in life. But it is even harder to stay motivated in controlling one’s own mind when everything is going well, because then there is little motivation to change a good thing.

When things are not going well, it helps to remember that misery comes from binding oneself to one’s work — self-identification, as Swami Vivekananda calls it. What exactly this means can be debated, but thinking this thought while feeling bad can instigate recovery. I am thinking this right now.

When things are going well, that is the real challenge — to realize that the present happiness is internal, and replicate that happiness with the flick of a mental switch at any later time, that is the goal.

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This story in itself is touching, but Mother Teresa’s subsequent reaction is even more interesting — she decided, even though she had more rice to give to both families, that she would wait until the next day to do so, so that the family that chose to share could experience sharing’s attendant joy.

I find that decision very surprising. Is the joy of service greater than the stomach’s needs? If I were in Mother Teresa’s situation, I probably would have been touched by the family’s selflessness, but still given them some more rice anyway. Mother Teresa’s conscious decision to only give more on the next day highlights the importance of service for our own happiness — here, an importance which is perplexing!

What do you think about this story?

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Philosophers, Augustine contends, seek “Supreme Happiness” in the ends of their logical inquiries, and while some may receive glimpses of the truth, it is an approach that is doomed to fail in the seeking. For happiness is not attainable on this earthly plane of existence (“city of this world”), neither in our soul nor our body, and the closest we can come is in hope, the hope for salvation, a hope that carries on beyond our mortal flesh into the City of God. In Augustine’s eloquent words (he was a rhetorician by trade):

We are saved in hope, it is in hope that we have been made happy; and as we do not yet possess a present salvation, but await salvation in the future, so we do not enjoy a present happiness, but look forward to happiness in the future, and we look forward “with steadfast endurance.”

[...]

Yet these philosophers refuse to believe in this blessedness because they do not see it; and so they attempt to fabricate for themselves an utterly delusive happiness by means of a virtue whose falsity is in proportion to its arrogance. (Book XIX, Chapter 4)

These words struck me with the same cold slap that Krishna gives to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita, where Arjuna’s depression and objections fall away in the face of hope. Krishna inculcates this hope in Arjuna through an elegantly systematic theology — hope in an imperishable Self (2.20), hope in the promise of liberation in a future life (8.20), a hope that drives away the emptiness and despair of a grim duty.

And it is precisely this acceptance, this willful inclusion, this audacity of hope that Augustine defends as the cornerstone of man’s liberation on this earth. For it certainly requires true audacity to attend to one’s station in life, with the slim hope that, as Krishna says (8.20), at the moment of death, one will attain the heavenly abode, Krishna’s City of God.

But though this hope may appear slim to philosophers, Augustine says, it is everything — the only thing — that is required for Supreme Happiness here and now.

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