Bhagavad-Gita
The Bhagavad-Gita is a very small part of the immense Hindu
epic the Mahabharata.
(Basically an epic about a war of succession between two inter-related royal
families in India.)
This part, the Gita, concerns Arjuna’s struggles with his dharma – which is a complicated word to
translate, but means something like doing and thinking and acting correctly –
considering what faces him on the battlefield: the necessity of going to war
against his family, his brothers and cousins and uncles.
Varna is the term for the four broad ranks[1] into which traditional Hindu
society is
divided. The four varnas are:
Thus, fighting is also
his dharma.
Thus, he must fight, and he must kill (or attempt to kill) his
family. But if he kills his family, he will kill that which he is trying to
defend: that which gives his life meaning.
How can this be right action
(dharma), he wonders? Surely if he destroys his family – which will destroy not
just these people here, but all of his family, throughout time and eternity –
that must be wrong action?
This can’t be what he, as a warrior, should be doing?
At this point, Krishna steps in and explains that this is not
what he, Arjuna, a warrior, should occupy himself with.
Your
concern should be with action,
Never
with an action’s fruits
These
should never motivate you
Nor
attachment to inaction.
In other words, Krishna tells Arjuna that (as a warrior) the
results of his actions, either good or bad, are not and should not be his
concern. He is a warrior. That is his varna. His role is to fight. If he strays
from that, he introduces chaos into the world.
He also advises Arjuna against inaction, or ahimsa, which is the philosophy that advises us to do nothing, since anything we do brings harm into the world, and thus increases our karmic burden.
(Remember that a goal for some in this religion or this philosophy is to reduce the bad karma we accrue while increasing the good karma, so that we can eventually reach nirvana -- being blown out, released from the wheel of reincarnation.)
Krishna says being attached to the fruits of inaction is just as bad as being attached to fruits of action. We have been created to act -- to fulfill our dharma, or varna -- not to game the system in an attempt to get an early release, as it were.
*** *** ***
The difficult word yoga is also introduced here, when Krishna
says “Equanimity is yoga.”
We know yoga, if we know it at all, as a kind of New Age
exercise routine.
But in fact it’s a philosophy (and a kind of exercise, yes) with
a long history. (Think of Aikido and other Asian
self-defense practices – they do have exercise and other values; but they also,
very frequently, have philosophies, and even religions, that go along with
them. This is true of yoga as well.)
Yoga at its
root means discipline – we get the word yoke, like the thing you put on oxen or
horses or newlyweds, from the same root.
The purpose of yoga, of the practice of this discipline –
which is both physical and spiritual – is moksha.
Moksha means to be liberated from rebirth – to be freed from the wheel of
reincarnation. Dharma is a path to moksha.
Krishna is telling Arjuna that he must practice yoga, the
discipline of his varna. And he must not do it because he fears
punishment or because he wants a reward. He must do it because it is his dharma.
Only those who act this way – without desire or fear – nourish
the gods with their sacrifices, Krishna says.
*** ***
***
We can and probably should think about what sort of ethos is
being transmitted by Krishna and Arjuna in this exchange. I haven’t discussed
the other part of their conversation, where Krishna makes it plain to Arjuna
that death – and indeed birth – are both illusions; but that should be part of
our consideration as well.
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