The Bhagavad Gita ~ Eknath Easwaran (65 of 2024)

 Another Year. This year's 'The Bhagavad Gita' read and interpretation is of that by Eknath Easwaran. 

Nowhere has this 'mysterious Eastern notion' of Maya been formulated more succinctly than in the epigram of Ruysbroeck: "We behold what we are, and we are what we behold". The world of the sense is real, but it must be known for what it is: unity appearing as multiplicity. 

The word Dharam means many things, but its underlying sense is "that which supports", from the root dhri, to support, hold up or bear. Generally, dharma implies support from within, the essence of a thing, its virtue, that which makes it what it is. 

Karma means something that is done. Often it can be translated as deed or action. The law of Karma states simply that every event is both a cause and an effect. Every act has consequences of a similar kind, which in turn have further consequences and so on, and every karma is also the consequence of some previous karma. This refers to both physical and mental action. 

Everything we do produces karma in the mind. In fact, it is in the mind rather than the world that karma's seeds are planted. Aptly, Indian philosophy compares a thought to a seed: very tiny, but it can grow into a huge, deep-rooted wide-spreading tree. 

AS the traditional chapter titles put it, the Gita is brahmavidyayam yogashastra, a textbook on the supreme science of yoga. 

The Gita does not present a system of philosophy. It offers something to every seeker after God, of whatever temperament, by whatever path. The reason for this universal appeal is that it is basically practical; it is a handbook for self-realization and a guide to action. 

Yoga is a word with many meanings -as many, perhaps as there are paths to self-realization. What kind of Yoga does the Gita teach?

 The four main paths of Hindu Mysticism.

 In jnana yoga, the yoga of knowledge, aspirants use their will and discrimination to disidentify themselves from the body, mind and senses until they know they are nothing but the self. 

The followers of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, achieve the same goal by identifying themselves completely with the lord in love, by and large, this path is choosen by mystics. 

In Karma Yoga, the yoga of selfless action, the aspirants dissolve their identification with body and mind by identifying with the whole of life, forgetting the finite self in the service of others. 

The followers of raja yoga, the yoga of meditation, discipline the mind and senses until the mind-process is suspended in a healing stillness and they merge in the self. 

The 18 chapters in the Gita can be divided into three six chapter parts, first part being on Karma Yoga, the second on jnana yoga and the last with bhakti yoga.  The Gita begins with the way of selfless action, passes into the way of Self-knowledge and ends with the way of love. 

The Gita brings together all the specialized senses of the word yoga to emphasize their common meaning, the sum of what one must do to realize the self. 

The thread through Krishna's teaching, the essence of the Gita, can be given in one word: renunciation. The is the common factor in the four yoga. It certainly encourages simplicity, but emphasis on the mind. It teaches that we can become free by giving up not material things, but selfish attachments to material things , of thoughts, word and action. 

Nishkama Karma, selfless action, work free from any selfish motive. Renounce and enjoy. 

Whatever you do, make it an offering to me. 

When Gita talks about "inaction in the midst of action" , we can call on Ruysbroeck to illumine the seeming paradox. The person who has realized God, he says, mirrors both his aspects: "tranquility according to His essence, activity according to His nature: absolute repose, absolute fecundity". 

Action of the most tireless kind; the only thing inactive is the ego. Perform selfless service. 

How do such people conduct themselves - look at those who practise it. 

2(54-72) They have banished all selfish desires. Their sense and mind are completely trained, so they are free from sensory cravings and self-will. Identified completely with the self, not with body or mind, they realize their immortality here on earth. Those "who see themselves in all and all in themselves"  would simply not be capable of harming others. 

12(13-14) Who follow the path of love - who is incapable of ill will, who is friendly and compassionate. Living beyond the reach of I and mine and of pleasure and pain, patient, contented, self-controlled, firm in faith with all their heart and all their mind given to me.

18(49-50) How to recognise man or women who has reached life's supreme goal? - Attains the supreme perfection of freedom from action. 

It is running into life, open handed, open armed. Vital, active, compassionate, self reliant in the highest sense, for he looks to the self for everything and needs nothing from life but the opportunity to give. 

Such person has yoked all human passions to the overriding desire to give and love and serve and in that unification we can see, no tthe extinction of personality, but its full blossoming.

Shraddha is much more than faith. it is literally 'that which is placed in the heart'. It is our very substance and not an intellectual abstraction. "A person is what his shraddha is". Thus shraddha determines destiny. 

The purpose of karma is to teach the consequences of shraddha - ' when a person is devoted to something with complete faith, I unify his faith in that. Then when faith is completely unified, one gains the object of devotion. In this way, every desire is fulfilled by me. '

Thus the Gita places human destiny entirely in human hands. Its world is not deterministic, but neither is it an expression of blind chance; we shape ourselves and our world by what we believe and think and act on; whether for good or for ill. In this sense the Gita opens not on Kurukshetra but on dharmakshetra, the field of dharma, where Arjuna and Krishna are standing for us all.