The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 23: Introduction to the Sixth Chapter

The Bhagavadgita, in its Sixth Chapter, is the yoga of meditation, dhyana yoga.

The gospel, the teaching of the Bhagavadgita, gradually tunes itself up to high concentration as it moves onward and forward. In the initial step, at the very beginning of the First Chapter, we have the presentation of the picture of political turmoil, the worst of things that one can have in the world, a field of battle with high-strung nerves of people ready to pounce on one another. Tension is the name of that condition. This is the Mahabharata. The First Chapter of the Bhagavadgita gives the description of an intensified scene at the onset of this battle. Warriors are arrayed from both sides in a large field of conflict, with each one disliking the other, wanting to root out the other, to exterminate the other completely. They hate the other, and have no consideration for the other.

In this situation of the event of an impending conflict we are placed in the First Chapter of the Gita. It was all emotion, all nerves and readiness to action. It was, no doubt, a preparedness to act. There cannot be a more concentrated action than the act of battle or fighting, and people were prepared. They had girt up their loins; soldiers they were, and the human in the person became the soldier in the field. Each one was a soldier there – everyone, without exception. To be a soldier is to be entirely a potentiality for action. It was all action, and nothing but that. It was only to burst forth into its concrete manifestation of conflict onslaught.

But though it was a preparedness for action, a preparation to do something vehemently, it lacked the direction of requisite understanding, which was highlighted in the personality of a great General in the army, Arjuna. So while the worst kind of conduct, which is action as battle, was the picture of the Mahabharata and of the First Chapter of the Gita, it did not end there. The layers of human nature are revealed stage by stage as we rise higher and higher along the rungs of the ladder of the teaching.

In the lowest level we are politicians, which is to say, we shed the personal character of our human figure and convert ourselves into contending units of an administrative field. Every human being is also a social unit, a part of human society, but there is a differentiating character in being a political individual. While a political individual also is in human society as every human being is in human society, there is a distinction between a social person and a political person. This does not require much of an explanation or commentary. There is a greater artificiality of the placement of oneself in the field of action in politics than in human society, and as we know very well, politicians who either are thrown out of the field or are fed up with that work become social workers. They say, “We are fed up with politics. We shall do some good work for people.” So a political individual reverts to the state of a social individual under the impression that it is an inwardisation of himself, from the extreme externalisation of himself as an individual in political circles.

Now, we are political units and social individuals, no doubt, but we are not merely that. We are independent persons. We are persons, not merely units in a huge crowd, and so the instinct of self-regard, in whatever sense the self may be considered under a given condition, asserts itself when a person is cornered, and a politician may get fed up with his work and become a social leader; he may get fed up with even social work and would like to live an independent, secluded life. “I shall mind my business. I have tried everything in the politician's circles and also in the social field. Finally, I find it is a dog's tail. I shall confine myself to myself.” So we come back inwardly to our own self and we are the greatest value finally, not our relation to others in the social field or even the political field.

Arjuna's arguments were both social and political. Sometimes they were even personal. But we do not describe ourselves fully even when we consider ourselves as individuals or persons as we regard ourselves normally in the commonsense way of looking at things. We are not politicians really. We are also not social units really. But we are also not persons really. There is something more about us, so more and more is to be learned about ourselves as we become more and more inward in our outlook of life. In the crudest form of behaviour and enterprise, we are totally extrovert. We are immensely busy bodies, as if the world outside alone is, and we are nobodies at all. Our existence becomes pronounced as we grow and mature in our life, and we recognise the subjectivity of experience in greater and greater forms of intensity than the objectivity of life. We consider the world as an object, as if the subjective element is totally absent. We will see gradually that the Bhagavadgita takes us to deeper secrets of subjectivity – secrets, hidden potentialities and reservoirs at the back of subjects – and not merely the physical, physiological or anatomical subject.

When we are business people, traders, politicians, soldiers or even social workers, we seem to be outwardly motivated more than contemplatives on the subjectivity of experience, on the assumption that life is an outwardly spread-out externality, a field of external action. The world is a Dharmakshetra and a Kurukshetra, a field of action, a field of operation by an individual subject or a group of subjects. The importance is more to the external field than to that which works in the field. This is an overemphasis we sometimes lay in our enterprises and social occupations. There is a very important factor which is generally missed in human experience, namely, the extent of importance that can be given to the subject: How far are we valuable? To what extent is there meaning in our individual existence, our existence as a person? Are we important, or do we have no importance at all? The whole philosophy, the entire occupation of religion and the striving of spiritual life, is a study in subjectivity finally, and the meaning of the word 'subject' has to be properly grasped here.

In the earliest stages, it appears as if the subject is insignificant and the object is all significant, as in politics, in state affairs, and in social fields, in business and trade, in activities which are of an outward nature, even if it is in the scientific field. It is all objectivity, externality. The individual does not seem to have much meaning there. It is all the world outside, all space, all time, all the earth, all planets, and all business. We seem to be little crawling individuals performing something in this terrifying outward field which demands everything from us and sits on our heads as the master.

The subject is ruled by the object. Is this true? Can the object rule the subject? It looks as if the world is such a terror of objectivity that we as individual subjects look like nobodies. What are we before this mighty world? We know the powers of nature, the powers of the planets and the solar system and the winds and the waters and the fires. Nobody can stand before them if they become ravaging. The world is all power, and man has no power at all before the power of the world. This is what we may feel in our total involvement and identification with this physical frame. If we are only this physical body, which we seem to be and nothing more, what else are we except this little body? That is all. If this is the case, we are done for. We can expect nothing from this world. The world can swallow us as an elephant can munch a butterfly. In this world of such a relentless and mighty operation, we may better not exist. Our life will have no meaning.

But is this true? The question is raised: Are we like that, like little grasshoppers, butterflies or mosquitoes in the mouth of the huge giant of power which is nature? Sometimes we seem to be like that when we cry under the weight of responsibility and the crushing pressure of the demands of the external world. All these sorrows, sorrows manifold galore, multifaceted and painted in all colours, were vented by Arjuna who said, “I shall do nothing in this terrible field.”

But this is to miscalculate the position of oneself in that atmosphere to which expression was given by a person like Arjuna. To speak like this in this language, and to narrate the story of one's life in the world in the way mentioned, would be to miscalculate one's relationship with the world – to misunderstand, not to have proper insight into what is there at the root. There is a complete overwhelming of oneself by the distorted picture presented by the sense organs. Like misleading ministers and disloyal attendants, the senses give us an erroneous picture of our life in this world. They tell us, “You are nobodies, fools. The objects are everything. Go and fall on them. They are your masters.”

We feel that the world is our master, that the objects of sense are our masters. Our life is in the objects outside. “I am living because of what I possess. My property is my life. I am myself nothing. I have no value if I possess nothing. My wealth is my value.” Do we not think like that sometimes? The senses tell us, “This is your position. You are nobody in this world. Whatever meaning there can be in you is due to the possessions that you have, your gold and silver and dollars and rupees, your house and land, your friends and relations, and your position in society. Otherwise, what are you?” You sometimes seem to feel, “Yes, I am like that. I am a man who is not wanted. I shall sink down and do nothing, my Lord. I shall throw down my weapon in this field of terror.” Thus, Arjuna threw his weapon down and said, “I shall find no meaning in this world where nothing seems to be decisive, and everything is precarious.”

Sri Krishna's answer, which is briefly stated in the Second Chapter, is: “This is not a proper way of thinking. What you have said is the outward picture, but not a proper understanding of the picture. You have painted the picture, but you have also to read the picture properly with an understanding. You have to find a meaning in this presentation that you have placed before Me. A mighty, terrible picture is there; yet, of course, you must have some time to think over the position that you actually occupy in this relation of yours to this picture. It may be a jungle, it may be a war field, it may be hell itself. Well, let it be, but what is your connection with it? In what way are you related to it? What is the outcome of your connection with what you are speaking of? This is to exercise another faculty, which is called understanding, different from mere sense perception. Mere sense perception – a dependence entirely on sense reports – presents a terrifying picture of the world, but that is not the only faculty you are supposed to exercise. Why are you hanging on the senses so much? There is another faculty which will speak to you the truth of the matter. That is the understanding, the buddhi, sankhya. Sankhya is the faculty of reasoning, understanding and proper judgment. Without this, you are speaking in this manner.”

And what this correct understanding is was explained in a beautifully precise manner in the Third Chapter. Your relationship to this so-called terrifying picture of the world where you seem to be helplessly placed has to be understood. How will you understand it? That method of understanding this so-called terrifying field of action which is this world is the theme of the Third Chapter.

But the world is not all, and your relationship with this outward world is not all. It does not mean that there are only two contending parties, yourself and the world, and there is nothing else. In the beginning it appeared the world alone was there and you are practically nothing. Then it appeared as if you have a vital connection with the world: You are a member in the parliament of the government of the universe, a high position indeed, rather than a thrown-out individual in the streets. Well, even that is not sufficient. It is not that you are just connected in a mechanised manner with the world, and somehow you are getting on with it like a wheel stuck to a vehicle or a nut or bolt in a huge machine, which, of course, has the status of belonging to this large machine, and it is not so much terrified of the machine because it belongs to it. Well, that is good enough, but that is not the whole truth of the matter. There is something more.

There is an intelligent life operating, a supreme will that is deciding, and a comforting satisfaction and joy at the heart of all things. Machines have no joy. Though there is a beautiful collaboration between the parts of the machine – very friendly is the relation between the parts of the machine and its entire makeup – yet, there is no soul. We cannot say that the machine is enjoying its work. It does not know what it is doing. But the world is not working in that way, like a huge machine set up for no purpose. It is not a lifeless, automatic action that is taking place. It will look as if this great action of prakriti in its operation of the three gunas, which are is constituents, works like a huge mechanical setup. Though it is precise and very perfect and exact in its action like a machine, of course, yet there is no use being merely mathematical and exact without a soul inside.

There is a supreme soul operating in this cosmos. We are not living merely like a nut and bolt of a huge machine of prakriti's mechanisations. God is operating everywhere and at all times, controlling even the littlest movements in creation. This was given us as a message in the beginning of the Fourth Chapter. In the Fourth Chapter we learned how we can satisfactorily, soulfully, not soullessly, participate with great joy and fulfilment of purpose in this wondrous creativity of the cosmos, which is not merely an exact machine of prakriti's three gunas but a supreme soul blissfully redounding upon itself, playing with itself, as it were, the great joy of God thinking Himself in these vast creative forces. In this vast creative blissful process of God's creation, your participation is a yajna, a sacrifice, a duty, and to live is to work, and to work is to worship, and to worship is to be in tune with God. All this was mentioned to us in the Fourth Chapter.

You automatically get detached from all objective attachments, likes and dislikes, when this knowledge dawns in you. Vairagya in the true sense of the term becomes your possession, your enlightenment, your education and your virtue. This enlightened person in this educational career described, placed in this context of a governance of a supremely benignant God, wants nothing in this world because that person is no more a person. That person is an imperson. A participant in a living universality is no more an isolated nobody. There is, therefore, no desire for anything. There is no desire for anything because everything is mine; everything is everybody's. The whole abundance of God's creation is at our disposal; therefore, why should we ask for anything? This is the tone of the Fifth Chapter, karma sannyasa. There is sannyasa in karma. A detachment, a renunciation, an abnegation of all external contacts otherwise effected through the senses is considered as totally unnecessary. We do not require this operation of sense contact at all in order that we may be joyous. Our joys are not necessarily the outcome of sense contact. It was mentioned precisely in a verse in the Fifth Chapter: ye hi saṃsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya eva te, ādyantavantaḥ kaunteya na teṣu ramate budhaḥ (BG 5.22).

Now you have become a purified person after having passed through this stage of spiritual education. You are not a crude, slavish, helpless and frightened soldier in a vast field where nobody knows one's fate. You are not merely that person. You have now been placed on a high pedestal of participation, rather than subjection. It is not merely participation, but something more than that, as if you are on the lap of the Almighty Himself. Such a status has been bequeathed to you. Here you are in a highly concentrated state of Self pervading the whole personality. Now the Self seems to be sleeping in most people, in many of us. It is not pervading the whole of our being. Our senses overwhelm us; our instincts also demand their food and their daily meal. Our emotions, our vague volitions and our physical cravings, weaknesses galore, do not permit the pervasion of our soul through every cell of our personality. We are bodies, we are pranas, we are sense organs, we are what not. The soul is there as a light, as a lamp, as a life-giving root within us, no doubt, but it has not taken complete possession of us yet. We are too much of a body, too much of a physicality, too much of an external relation, and very little of the Self.

The Bhagavadgita, in the Sixth Chapter, makes us a concentrated self, ready to face God the Almighty face to face in a direct encounter. This body cannot face the Almighty. Who can stand before Him? With this little bone and flesh we cannot stand there. We have to become spirit before we try to stand before the Supreme Spirit. Only spirit can stand before Spirit. A fire that is like a conflagration is the Almighty's radiance, and brittle matter cannot stand before it. We have to be prepared for entry into the kingdom of the Almighty. This preparation reaches its culmination in the exercise that is provided to us in the Sixth Chapter, which is meditation.

Meditation is the art of rousing the soul into conscious action, not subliminal action, not potential action, not as a possibility but in actuality. In our case, the soul is a possibility. It is there. It can rise into action sometimes. The whole of the soul very rarely operates in us. We have no occasion for such an experience. Even our reason does not function entirely many a time. Sometimes the senses work partially, sometimes the emotions work, sometimes the intellect works, sometimes we are half sleepy, as it were, and the soul has no occasion to speak. The demand of life has not been so exigent as to rouse the whole soul into action. Very rarely does it happen. Sometimes it happens, but not always.

But it has to come to the level of conscious action. Unconsciously it should not be at the back of these psychic operations. There should not be a cloud of the psyche over the sun of the Self. There should be only bright sun in clear sky, and not a little struggling sunlight through the darkness of heavy clouds.

The meditation that will be described in the Sixth Chapter is the yoga of concentration of the whole self of a person, wherein we are aligned in every layer of our being – physical, astral and causal, outward and inward. The extrovert and the introvert blend together into a single focus of attention. Meditation is a little difficult matter. It is not thinking something outside. When you think something, it need not necessarily mean that you are meditating. That is a kind of meditation like a crane meditating on a fish. Baka dhyana they call it. Cranes generally stand on the edge or a precipice of a tank, concentrating on a frog coming to the surface or a fish slowly and lazily coming up, to pounce on it and eat it. This is called baka dhyana, the crane's meditation. It is a meditation on one's prey. It is a meditation of the burglar, of the thief, of the dacoit, of anyone who is entirely engrossed in what is totally outside. This is also a concentration, no doubt, but this is not self-integration; this is self-alienation.

We mostly live a life of self-alienation in our daily life. We are mostly other than ourselves, other than what we are, a fact which each one knows to the extent it is manifest in each one. Our sorrows are in the percentage of our self-alienation, and our joys are in the percentage of our self-integration. The more we are not, the greater is our grief. The more we are what we are, the greater is our joy. It is necessary for us to be what we are. This is meditation.

Now, what do we do in meditation? The Sixth Chapter will have something to tell us. To renounce all things and to be a holy man in a monastery, living as a recluse, as a monk or a nun, that is the step that one takes when one thinks of religious meditations. “I take to sannyasa, I become a holy man, a saint, a renunciate, a hermit. I live in a chapel or a temple. I do nothing. I shall have contact with nothing. I shall meditate.” Here the Bhagavadgita has some word to say. Are these the appurtenances of meditation?

anāśritaḥ karmaphalaṃ kāryaṃ karma karoti yaḥ,
sa saṃnyāsī ca yogī ca na niragnir na cākriyaḥ (BG 6.1).
yaṃ saṃnyāsam iti prāhur yogaṃ taṃ viddhi pāṇḍava,
na hy asaṃnyastasaṃkalpo yogī bhavati kaścana (BG 6.2).
ārurukṣor muner yogaṃ karma kāraṇam ucyate,
yogārūḍhasya tasyaiva śamaḥ kāraṇam ucyate (BG 6.3).
yadā hi nendriyārtheṣu na karmasv anuṣajjate,
sarvasaṃkalpasaṃnyāsī yogārūḍhas tadocyate (BG 6.4).

Here, in these few verses, we are given a caution, lest we be overenthusiastic emotionally and stirred up into the erroneous moods of behaviour under the impression that we have become extremely religious and spiritual. To understand the world is difficult, and in our becoming true persons in the context of cosmic operations, which is actually the purpose of meditation, we have also to remember where we are placed in this world. When we go to the Sixth Chapter, it does not mean we forget the Fifth Chapter or the Fourth Chapter or the Third Chapter. It is a sublimation of the teaching of the earlier chapters that is presented to us in the Sixth Chapter. We do not suddenly go into some new subject. There is no new subject. It is all a gradual growth into larger and larger dimensions of intensity.

So when we take to the life of meditation, it is necessary for us to remember all the fields that we have crossed already. What were we told in the First Chapter, what were we told in the Second, what were we told in the Third and the Fourth and the Fifth? Gathering all the harvest of the earlier fields, we now enter into this new field of the Sixth Chapter for meditation. We are well prepared now. We cannot afford to make mistakes because we have already been guarded, well educated in the art of living in this world. So in our renunciate attitude of a meditative outlook of life, we may not suddenly forget the earlier teachings of our organic connection with things. We cannot easily renounce things like that.

There is nothing that you can renounce. Nothing belongs to you here. You have no property. It was told in the Third Chapter, and in the Fourth Chapter also, that there is no belonging. You own nothing in this world. So when you say 'I shall renounce', you should be cautious in your statement. What are you renouncing? It is necessary to renounce to become a spiritually purified person, this is certainly true, but what are you going to renounce? A property? This property does not belong to you. It was told that in this placement of yours in the operation of the three gunas of prakriti you do not own anything. You do not even do anything, let alone own anything. Then what are you going to renounce? Fire, hearth, cattle and land and building – is this the thing that you are going to renounce? No. Na hy asaṃnyastasaṃkalpo yogī bhavati kaścana: Unless the will to live and the will to possess – the consciousness of possession or the desire to possess – is not eliminated, and the taste for things has not gone, one cannot be considered as a renunciate.

The crucial point here is to understand what it is that we are expected to renounce. Sannyasa is the life of renunciation, but renunciation of what? Here the Bhagavadgita has to say something novel, not easily available anywhere. We have a traditional explanation of all renunciation. We have Hindu sannyasins and Christian sannyasins and Jain sannyasins and Buddhist sannyasins and Sikh sannyasins, and every kind of religious life has the esoteric and renunciation aspect. There is the Sufi renunciate in Islam. In every religion there is the renunciate, as different from the extroverted workaday labourer in the field of hard living. Now, this is something known to us very well. But the Bhagavadgita tells us, “I shall also tell you something over and above what you already know. Sannyasa and yoga are not two different things. To renounce and to be united are not two different things. Yoga is union, and sannyasa is renunciation. Union with reality may be considered as yoga; renunciation of all attachments may be considered as sannyasa. You have to unite and also to detach.”

Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to quote a passage from Saint Kabir. People used to ask him, “What are you doing, my dear friend?”

“I am doing nothing but attaching and detaching,” Kabir said. “I attach and detach. This is the only thing I am doing.” 'Attach' means to be in a state of yoga; 'detach' means to be in a state of sannyasa. Now, to what will you attach yourself and from what are you detaching yourself? This subject will be highlighted in the Sixth Chapter.