The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 20: The Arising of the Concept of Unity

We are in the Fifth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. In a way, we may say, the Fifth Chapter acts like some sort of a link between the subject treated in the Fourth Chapter and the one that is to be dealt with in the Sixth. The Fifth Chapter does not take up any new theme for discussion. It has some features of the Fourth Chapter, and also a little connection with the subject of the Sixth.

Jnana karma sannyasa – renunciation, nonattachment produced by knowledge and right action. The Fourth Chapter was full of these discussions of knowledge and right action, and the cumulative effect bears fruit, as it were, in the direct disciplinary systems described in the Sixth Chapter. Actually, the seed of the Sixth Chapter is sown at the end of the Fifth Chapter, as we shall see.

There was a lot of emphasis on non-attachment in all the things that were told us. That is why some exponents of the Gita, such as Mahatma Gandhi, feel the proper name of the Bhagavadgita would be Anasakti Yoga, the yoga of non-attachment. That is the subject of the Bhagavadgita: Never be attached to anything. Says the Upanishads: This Great Being is non-attached, and the characteristic of this Great Being is reflected in everything that is divine in this world, everything that aspires for union with this Great Being, and every step that we take in the direction of the experience of this Great Being. So non-attachment is not only the quality of God; vairagya is said to be one of the features of the Almighty, and not only that, anything that is connected with God also is related to a kind of non-attachment. There is an intense concentration of spirit in anything that is connected with God, even if it be a ritualistic worship, a holy reading from a scripture, or any religious exercise.

The nature of detachment is specially emphasised in this chapter. A famous verse of the Fifth Chapter has some relevance to an aphorism of Patanjali, though in a different context. Ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya eva te, ādyantavantaḥ kaunteya na teṣu ramate budhaḥ (BG 5.22): All contacts of the senses with their objects are wombs of pain; therefore, the wise one does not delight in the satisfactions of the senses. Full of meaning is this sloka. There is a beginning and an end for everything that we can expect in this world. It comes, and therefore it must also go. That it comes shows that it was not there before it came. Hence, the joy that has not yet come, that is yet to come, creates an anxiety in the mind of one who expects it, an anxiety which is not different from pain and sorrow – namely, the thing that is desired has not yet come. That which I want has not yet come; therefore, my desire has not been fulfilled, and the non-fulfilment of a desire is agony of the spirit. It is sorrow of the person. It is grief unadulterated.

Now, when it comes, it must also have an end. The temporal character of anything is indicated by its coming and going. Because it has to come, there must have been a time when it did not come, so it must have been a source of sorrow. Even if it has come, it shall not be a perennial source of security. It creates another anxiety: that it shall leave. The sutra of Patanjali in this context is pariṇāma tāpa saṁskāra duḥkaiḥ guṇavṛtti virodhāt ca duḥkham eva sarvaṁ vivekinaḥ (Y.S. 2.15): Due to certain characteristics inseparable from contactual experience through the senses, the world is full of misery. The world is misery embodied. It is only sorrow. There is no joy in this world. The doctrine of Buddhism says anitya dukkham anatmam: This world has nothing permanent in it. It is anityam shanikam. Momentary concatenation of causes and effects is said to be the picture-show of this world phenomenon; like the connecting pictures in a cinematographic projection, little bits are joined together as little pieces of organic cells are arranged in a pattern to make our body. There is nothing that can last and maintain its self-identity even for one moment. This is the philosophy of Buddhism, attributed to statements of Buddha himself. Even for a moment a thing cannot maintain its self-identity, and that such an identity happens to be visible in objects, personalities, and the like, is to be attributed to an illusoriness in perception.

We need not enter into this metaphysical theme of Buddhism. However, that the joys of life are momentary is something well known. There is a sorrow in the beginning, and a sorrow in the end. When it has not come, it is a source of sorrow; when it goes, it is a source of sorrow. This is parinama, the consequence of enjoyment through sense indulgence. And it need not be imagined that for a short duration we may enjoy it even if it is to go after some time, because no one knows when it will go. It does not guarantee that it shall be with us for a long time. Hence, the imagination that one can possess and enjoy a desired object for even a temporary period should be considered as an unjustifiable position.

Now, just imagine, or take for granted, that it shall endure for a short time; even then it is not joy. We are under an illusion. The so-called joy of sense contact and possession of sense objects cannot be considered as a joy even for a moment, let alone for a long period, because it is, again, an illusion. All joy is an illusion. It is a psychic illusion, as we have optical illusions. What is the illusion? The gunas of prakriti are responsible for this operation called sense experience and its acceptance by the mind. All satisfaction is a beam of the ray of the light of sattva. Prakriti is all things. The whole universe is sattva, rajas and tamas. There cannot be a reflection of the state of balance in rajas and tamas.

Meanwhile, we may remember that joy is nothing but an experience of balance. When there is a sense of equanimity, we feel elated. We feel buoyant in physical health when there is equanimity of the forces of the physiological organs, and also when there is equanimity of the psychic functions. They are set in a state of equilibrium. The mind does not undulate with ups and downs of waves of distraction, because these waves of psyche arise due to the operation of rajas. In sattva there is no such undulation, no such wave-like movement of the mind. When there is a temporary flash of this equilibrated condition called sattva, we feel elated as if something has been experienced of the nature of blissfulness.

But prakriti's forces are like the movement of a wheel. A moving motorcar never allows the wheel to be in a particular position for even a moment. There is a continuous change of the position of the wheel due to the movement that is precipitated by the pressure of the whole structure of nature. Hence, it is not possible to expect the static and stable operation of sattva, or any kind of guna, for a long time. There is a perpetual, we may say a simultaneous, action of sattva, rajas and tamas. There is an opposition of the qualities of prakriti: guṇavṛtti virodhāt. One opposes the other; one pushes the other down like the spokes of a moving wheel. We may say the spokes oppose each other – that which is down is up, and that which is up is down because of the compulsive movement of the wheel.

Dharmachakra pravartana is an analogy in Buddhist parlance. The law of the universe is dharma. It moves like a wheel, and it will not be stable in position. Therefore, every experience of any connection with any spoke in this wheel is a momentary experience. We shall not have a permanent possession of anything in this world. Even the possessor cannot exist for a long time. Neither the possessor as a subject of contact of objects, nor the object, can have enduring value in this world. They are like the moving waters of a river, like the surging flame of a lamp. There is continuous movement, and therefore there is no possibility of enduring satisfaction in this world.

It has already been said in the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita that all contact is gunas moving among gunas: guṇā guṇeṣu vartante (BG 3.28). The three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas, in the form of the sense organs collide with the objects outside in space and time, which are also constituted of the very same three gunas. Then there is a final deciding factor in all operations in life. We have no particular, personal say in any manner. Therefore, no one can say, “Let me have this for some time.” Neither the one who says that has any permission to stay beyond a certain limit of temporal duration, nor the object which is so expected can endure in a similar manner. There is anxiety, there is tapa, sorrow, always; and, as was mentioned already, there is tapa, anxiety, in the beginning because it has not come, in the middle because of the anxiety that it may go, and sorrow in the end because it has gone. It if it has not come, it is sorrow. When it has come, it is sorrow because there is a fear it may go. When it goes, it is hell itself. So when is it a source of real joy free from anxiety? When are we free from anxiety in this world? Never, not for a moment. Duḥkham eva sarvaṁ vivekinaḥ: For a person endowed with discrimination, this world is nothing but sorrow embodied. Anityam asukhaṁ lokam (BG 9.33); duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15) says Bhagavan Sri Krishna himself: This world is anitya: temporary, full of anxiety and heartburning and sorrow. It is the abode of grief: asukhaṁ. It is impermanent: duḥkhālayam; it is aśāśvate.

It has to be so. It cannot be but that because all experience in this world is a tentative juxtaposition of the nature of the subjective side and the objective side. Do you see waves in the ocean maintaining a steady position at any time? Rock-like, they never stand. They are all movement, all movement, all movement. It is continuous movement that seems to permit a tentative perception of a steadiness of the crest of a wave. Only movement and no steadiness is there. So is this body, so are the objects of the world, so is experience contacted by the senses in terms of objects.

So, ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya: All bhoga – bhoga is enjoyment – all enjoyment born, engendered, by contact of any kind is a source of sorrow. Here is a very crucial statement before us. Any contact is undesirable, and we have nothing in this world but contact, if at all we have any sensation. All sensation which we call experience is born of contact, and all contact is like the coming together of logs of wood in the ocean, says the Mahabharata: yathā kāśṭaṁ ca kāśṭaṁ ca sameyātāṁ mahodadhau, sametya ca vyatIyātaṁ tadvad bhūtasamāgamaḥ (M.B. 12.28.36). “I am your friend, my dear friend,” we say. You are my friend, and I am your friend. How long we shall be friends? We shall be friends in the sea of life in the same way as longs of wood floating on the tempestuous ocean sometimes meet each other and become friends. One log may shake hands with another log. “My dear friend, I am happy to see you.” But the wind blows in another direction and the log is thrown somewhere else. We say, “Bereavement has taken place. Oh, my friend has gone.” Neither is that your friend, nor is that bereavement caused by any factor related to you. There is another, supernal operation which brings things together and separates them. Hence, it is futile on the part of any person to exult on the occasion of a temporary contact with a person or a thing. It is like logs of wood meeting. Fate brings them, and fate takes them away. We may call it fate, we may call it the law of karma, we may call it the purposiveness of the gunas of prakriti, or the will of God. We may call it by any name.

Hence, all contact is dangerous because it brings about attachment. Attachment is caused by a sensation of joy in contacts of senses with the objects. We lick a drop of honey which appears to ooze from the object which is contacted by the senses. But dangerous is life. The jaw of death is wide open like the crocodile's mouth. It shall swallow everybody. The whole world it can swallow. Kala, time, is called the world eater. It eats everything, and nobody can be spared.

In the Mahabharata there is a story. Vidura gives this story to the weeping Dhritarashtra and Gandhari who beat their breasts, hit their heads on the floor, and sobbed bitterly at the death of all their children after the war. “What is this life? Misery and misery and misery,” says Vidura. This story is repeated in the Buddhist scriptures also. Some say that originally this story is found in the Buddhist writing; but we find it in the Mahabharata also. It is up to you to find out whether the Mahabharata was written before Buddha or it came afterwards. We need not enter into this historical controversy.

However, it occurs in the Mahabharata in the context of Vidura's teaching at the close of the war. He says, “Our fate, our life, our condition is really pitiable, like the man who fell into a well in the wilderness. In darkness a man fell into a well in a thick jungle, and perchance he caught a hold of a root of a tree on the precipice, hung on it, and did not fall into the water. When he looked down, what did he see there? He saw a crocodile with open mouth. Oh God, my dear God! It was a crocodile gazing at him. He looked up. He saw a tiger with an open mouth. It was looking at him from the top. He cannot go up because the tiger is there, and he cannot go down because the alligator, the crocodile, is there. In this condition he is hanging. But the worst thing is to be told now. A rat was munching at the root which he was hanging on to, eating it little by little. After some time, what will happen? He will be down on that alligator itself. Into its mouth he will go. But in this condition of terrific precariousness – the tiger above, the crocodile below, the rat eating the root on which he was hanging – he found some drops of honey falling from the bent branch of a tree on which there was a beehive. From the beehive overhead, drops of honey were falling. He put his tongue out to catch the drops of honey because it was so sweet.”

Which idiotic person will try to drink honey at that time? But was sweet. Death is at the elbow; it does not matter, because honey is sweet. This is what man thinks. And this is not an instruction of Vidura to Dhritarashtra and Gandhari, or Buddha to any of his disciples. It is a scientific fact of nature. Death embodied is this phenomenal world. At any moment, anything goes. Anything can be crushed down by the relentless law of the world which has no pity, we may say. Though, of course, we cannot attribute ethical sense to the impersonality of nature, from our own point of view it may look that cruel is the hand of nature. Such is this world. And in this condition we try to eat the delicious fruit of this dangerous product of the forbidden tree of life.

Covet not anything in this world with the senses. They are sorrow breeding: saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya. “They have a beginning and an end. Therefore, no wise man will go near them,” says Bhagavan Sri Krishna in this famous verse occurring in this chapter. We have to control our impulses even before we die. It is worth doing this. We should not wait for the moment of death for wisdom to dawn in us: śaknotīhaiva yaḥ soḍhuṁ prāk śarīravimokṣaṇāt, kāmakrodhodbhavaṁ vegaṁ sa yuktaḥ sa sukhī naraḥ (BG 5.23). Before the shedding of this body, we should go with a satisfaction that we have achieved something worth the while for which we have come to this world. The impulse of kama and krodha should be restrained. He who is endowed with the strength to restrain, to withhold, the impetuosity of the forces of kama and krodha, desire and anger, is always liberated. Such a person is always in a state of yoga. Such a person is happy: sa yuktaḥ sa sukhī naraḥ. This has to be effected gradually, day by day, by various methods which have been told us in different contexts.

The impetuosity of the sense organs is understandable. They are like that because they have a cosmic backing. The little wave in the ocean has the support of the whole ocean. The entire body of the ocean is pushing it, and therefore the wave is up like a little hill on the surface of the water. Similarly, a little sensory desire has a cosmic push at the back. The whole sea is at its back, and therefore it becomes impossible to restrain the sense organs. We are nobodies, actually. We have no strength to control the senses. It is said in the Bhagavadgita that prakriti will have its say. Prakṛtiṁ yānti bhūtāni nigrahaḥ kiṁ kariṣyati (BG 3.33): Natural forces will act naturally. No individual action is here indicated. When it is said that the impulses of desire and anger have to be subdued, it is not meant that you and I can work it independently. Individual effort is not sufficient.

But what is individuality but these impulses only? These impulses make what we are as individuals, and who are we to control them? It is like the wave wanting to control itself. A superior attunement may be called for. We do not know what this superior attunement is. Some sort of a thing was suggested at the end of the Third Chapter where it was made out that the senses are no doubt very powerful. They are so strong that they will carry away your whole personality as a boat is carried away by a tempestuous wind. Indriyāṇi pramāthīni (BG 2.60): Terrible is the strength of the sense organs. They carry away even the intellect of a person.

But the suggestion briefly made in the verses occurring at the end of the Third Chapter is, which we have already covered, that the senses may be strong, but the mind has a greater capacity than any of the sense organs. Indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ, manasas tu parā buddhir yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ (BG 3.42): Reason is superior even to the sentimental and instinctive mind, but higher than that is the Atman. The suggestion seems to be that we have to resort to the Atman for support in order that the reason may stand stable. Yadā pañcāvatiṣṭhante jñānāni manasā saha, buddhiś ca na viceṣṭati, tām āhuḥ paramāṁ gatim (K.U. 2.3.10) is a verse in the Kathopanishad. When the sense organs, five in number, stand united with the mind as if they do not exist at all, this is called pratyahara in the system of Patanjali. The sense organs melt down into the mind, and the mind is rooted in the reason, and the reason is unflickering; this is called yoga.

How are we to resort to the Atman? Is it a possibility? Until this is achieved, we do not seem to be wholly safe in this world. Even the reason is unreliable finally if it is to stand by itself independently without any support. After all, it is an individual faculty which has no cosmic support. It has cosmic support in one sense, but for all practical purposes it seems to be tethered to our bodily sentiments. We argue in justification of our cravings, many a time. So the universal Atman is to be our root.

Succeeding in spiritual life is a miracle. We have to call it a miracle, and there is no other word for it. We cannot say it is entirely our effort. Who are we to put forth effort? Wherefrom does the strength come? We are embodied in terms of impulses only. It is said that good actions that we did in the previous birth, purvapunya samskara, the effect of meritorious deeds of the past, fructify at a certain moment of time, and then they act as accentuating factors in our onward movement in spiritual life.

It is not logically and scientifically possible to give an answer to the question of how we succeed. Īśvarānugrahādeva puṁsāmadvaitavāsanā, mahadbhayaparitrāṇā-dviprāṇāmupajāyate (Avad. Gita 1.1) says Dattatreya in the Dattatreya Gita, the Avadhuta Gita. You do not know how the concept of unity arises in your mind. You never see unity anywhere in the world. Everywhere there is dissection, separation, isolation. How can you say that there is such a thing called unity? There is an idea, a concept, a notion, an acceptance on your part that there is such a thing called a unifying force. How did this idea arise in your mind? It is a wonder that discreet particles of physical matter and fickle thoughts which run hither and thither in different directions, which have no character of unity at all, may permit such an idea of unity. Ishvara's grace, God's grace, operates. Sage Dattatreya says that it is perhaps God's grace. We do not know. We have nothing to say except that. We have to humbly admit that it is some miracle. And the great logician Sankara found himself in this quandary when he posed this question to himself in his great commentary on the Brahma Sutras: How does knowledge arise in the individual? It cannot be said to be the effect of individual effort, because effort in the direction of right knowledge cannot arise unless there is some knowledge already. The question is: How did this knowledge arise at all? Who impelled you to move in the right direction? That impulsion in the right direction should be due to some knowledge. But how did this knowledge arise? Nobody knows. It is God's grace.

So, the Atman is the support, finally. It has to be taken as the resort. Yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ. There is a friend who will support us. Suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati (BG 5.29): “Know Me as your friend. You shall be relieved of all anxiety if you accept that I am your friend.” The great Lord gives this solace, this promise. Suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati. We shall shed tears of joy if we are really to accept the meaning of this promise of the great Lord. “Know Me as your friend.” Who can tell you like that? Nobody in the world will say, “I am your friend; believe that I am your friend.”  But here is one who tells you, “Believe I am your friend. I shall be at your beck and call. I shall help you”: suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati. Also, at the end of this chapter there is, as I mentioned, a precise and concise statement of the theme of the Sixth Chapter, about which we shall see later.