Video 71

71. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 5 Summary I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] we have come up to the end of the fifth chapter and we were doing these last few verses the fifth chapter brings together some great themes of um monastic life householder life organa yoga karma yoga then concludes by introducing the next chapter as it were the theme is meditation so um we saw in the verses 27 and 28. through the yogi so the yogi meditates and you can see in this verse the elements of the ashtanga yoga are clearly present withdrawing one's senses from the contact with their objects that is not looking not listen or hearing sounds outside um or tasting touching smelling so um then focusing the gaze uh control of the breath with the goal of of calming the mind controlling the mind then control of the senses control of the mind and stealing the intellect so you can see the elements of you know patanjali over here and all these things will be discussed in detail in the sixth chapter which is coming up then finally he concludes [Music] so knowing me the enjoyer of all sacrifices and asceticism the great lord of all the worlds and will be sure of all beings one attains peace this is the conclusion of the fifth chapter here notice bhaktaram yagapasam that means all worship comes to me so who is sri krishna speaking of here as himself he is speaking as the avatar as the incarnation of god in his nature as god the god is saguna brahman brahman with attribute brahman with quality is the god of religion so he further describes it sarva loka maheshwaram the lord of all the worlds lord of all the words means god in all theistic traditions god is the creator of the universe and the maintainer or sustainer preserver of the universe and ultimately it is dissolved back into the lord so the lord of the universe and the controller of all beings it's all being done for our for our benefit our benefit in the sense for our spiritual evolution and ultimate uh liberation that's the purpose of the entire universe from a spiritual perspective knowing me one attains to peace now the one important point here is knowing me yeah you know he could have said believing in me worshipping me or by my grace something like that but here this whole chapter has a decided thrust on gyana yoga on the way of knowledge and so the conclusion is also interesting knowing me knowing me how knowing me not only as the lord of the universe but so this is not explicitly mentioned here but in some of the commentaries for example madhusudan saraswati's commentary he brings it out he says not only as the god of the universe but as the impersonal absolute existence consciousness place he mentioned specifically which is your own real nature so knowing me in that way and he's supported by in this interpretation by the verses in the fifth chapter the earlier verses so knowing the lord as ultimately not only as the lord of the universe not only as the one who is worshipped to whom all worship is directed uh not only is he is the lord the well-wisher of all beings that means is most gracious to all beings but also is our innermost self or our real nature once we know that as our real nature shantim ritchati attains to peace you know one knowing brahman one becomes brahman knowing brahman how does one become knowing a cup one doesn't become a cup thank god or knowing a part one doesn't become a part knowing brahman one becomes a brahman only in the sense you know in the sense the story of the tenth person or uh the sense of the this you know the king's son who was brought up by a hunter in the forest and then finally is recognized to be the son of the king and rules the kingdom afterwards our real nature which we did not know we are not aware of we become aware of it and therefore attain to peace that real nature is uh is beyond birth and death it's the body which is born and dies it is the individual soul in the sense of the subtle body sukha shavira which becomes embodied in multiple bodies goes from body to body and is seen to evolve but we are none of them if we are those then there is no peace for us at the level of materiality either physical matter just like this or subtle matter like our minds our intellects our the subtle body pranam the prana maya mano that's also material those who are studying vedanta you'll know subtle matter we create the subtle bodies and then gross matter in english we're saying gross matter the in the sanskrit vedantic term is the pancha mahabhuta panchikrita bhuta which are mixed you know they're combined and then produces physical what we call physical matter that produces the physical world and our physical bodies but all our material the way to decide what is material or not if it is an object it is material whatever is an object jada jana means an object to consciousness it is material but one must also remember in the sense of in advaita vedanta ultimately nothing is material what appears to be material is also a projection of consciousness and is ultimately nothing but consciousness it's not consciousness as an object the objectification is an appearance in consciousness but it's real nature what's the real nature of even gross matter of the physical universe of particles and stars and quasars it is ultimately consciousness uh it's ultimately brahman and we know how in vedanta how the whole universe is projected from brahman we know that that i am that reality and then we attain to peace in the sense that we are beyond suffering we are beyond change we are eternal changeless the spiritual nature which we are we are not the movie not a character in the movie um it could be a tragedy it could be a comedy but neither uh affects us both leave us unmoved because we are the underlying reality of the movie we are not the movie we are not part of the movie but the movie does not exist apart from us that has to be realized if it exists apart from you if i am consciousness and everything else is matter and you stop there it becomes sankhya the philosophy the yoga philosophy which stops with the duality of consciousness and matter advaita goes one step further non-dualism which says that matter also is an appearance in consciousness and ultimately nothing apart from consciousness all right now what i want to do is before we go to the sixth chapter we'll take a quick look at the themes which came up in the fifth chapter the one which we have just completed a look back there is a um figure of speech used in in classical sanskrit so in the forest when the lion the king of the forest walks in the forest once in a while it stands and it looks back up over its shoulder and as if looking back at the path that it has covered so that's called singapore the figure or the the uh in the paradigm in which you try to see that for example for us it will mean that what have we studied in the last few classes so as lions will stop for a while instead of moving into the sixth chapter we look back over our shoulders at this fifth chapter um it's good to think of what is happening in the gita as a whole one way of looking at the gita is that the 18 chapters are divided into three sets of six three sets of six chapters one two six chapters seven to um thirteen um seven to twelve seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and then thirteen to eighteen 13 to 18. um and uh why what are these three sets they are said to correspond to tattwa mercy that thou art so the first set of six chapters from chapter one to six is said to talk about thou you the real nature of the self about ourselves and the next set which is coming up now after we complete the sixth chapter from seventh onwards will be the nature of that of god of the ultimate reality uh that means the god of the of religion saguna brahman and then the last six chapters are they talk about the identity the ultimate reality that is near gunabram where dao and that are one in the same reality the identity of that and thou now as will be quite obvious by now that this kind of division is a very general division for example the one might say that in the first six chapters or first five chapters we have seen certainly the nature of the self has been spoken about what is the atman that was the first theme itself in the second chapter but also krishna has talked about himself as the avatar about devotion to avatara karma yoga is there throughout all the chapters um and bhakti of course has been mentioned as devotion to the avatar so all the themes are there but then why do you say it is about self self realization the first six chapters in sanskrit is the word pradhan as a matter of emphasis yes everything else is also there from the second chapter downwards but as a matter of emphasis we are talking about self-knowledge in the first six chapters self-knowledge means knowledge of um of that i am not the body i'm not the mind i'm what i am the pure consciousness existence consciousness place see these days knowing oneself self knowledge especially in this country in america can be confusing why um just yesterday i was looking at a video of a young student and she said that in an interview i have discovered myself i have known myself through through sports right so you found yourself in running well that's that's fine when you found yourself in running somebody's found himself in in playing the guitar whatever it is from a vedantic perspective what you mean to say is that you feel at home there you feel that you're enriched by that activity by that job by that relationship by that identity you feel enriched you feel more at home you feel you're developing that's what you mean by i have found myself isn't it there's nothing more to it than that and from vedantic perspective all of that is in the subtle body in the sukshma it's in your mind in your samskaras uh in our intellect so perhaps we have a set of talents which are now coming into play and then i feel that yes this is this is for me perhaps we find fulfillment in a particular situation i find yeah yeah this i am at hope i feel at home here from a vedantic perspective that's not finding yourself that is important and that's good that's something close to what you might call swadharma your if you take it in a positive sense it's it's swadharma means that which is most suitable for you to develop to develop more spiritually i mean in ancient india swadharma was a function of like a matrix you make of your varna and ashrama um you know there are five elements in swadharma swadharma means your own dharma how do you know how do i know what my own dharma is they're actually a pretty mathematical way of finding out i'll tell you but it's not relevant to us here and not relevant to our society anymore but it worked this way swadharma want to know what is my dharma it would be a function of five things it could be first of all varnadharma ashram dharma varnasrama dharma um five things what are they you know in ancient india society was divided into castes into broadly into forecasts um that is the priestly class the brahmins the warrior administrative class the kshatriyas the commercial class devices and the laboring classes the shudras so depending on which cast i belong to and even these casts if you look at it from the gita perspective it comes from our samskaras not what society has imposed upon us it became a rigid social system with problems of privilege and exploitation and all that over the centuries but if you look at the gita gita does not even talk about it being by birth it says it's it's by your nature what is my nature and by nature one might say that but but didn't you say my nature is existence consciousness please that's your identity your reality there are two words in sanskrit swarupa and swabha swarupa is your real nature what i am really and subhava is my predos dispositions my tendencies my conditioning which is continuously changing so at this point i have a set of predispositions tendencies all of which are in the subtle body not my ultimate reality ultimate reality existence consciousness bliss is not a brahmin or a or a mukshatriya or a vaishya it's not a man or a woman it's not a good or evil none of that but all of them depend on that reality it's the screen on which the movie is playing but in the movie there are differences in characteristics so that those differences are in my uh nature as nature means swabha over here which i have developed through centuries and it inherits in my subtle body it's also the load of karma which i am bearing so it will work itself out that way in my life anyway so i have a particular nature so that is called varna dharma that which comes from basically caste dharma and then ashram dharma what stage of life am i in so there is a preparatory stage of life called the brahmacharya ashrama then there is the householder life called the grihasthashrama then there is a next stage of life which is basically you withdraw from a too much involvement in the world a kind of retirement for spiritual purposes which is called vanaprastha and then finally sannyasa you become a monk formally informally whichever it is monk or monk like so sannyasa these are stages of life basically uh so you depending on which stage i am in so that's the next which will tell me what my dharma is then there is the conjunction of the two varnashramadharma so am i a brahman griastha like a brahmin householder or uh kshatriya grihastha or am i so it depends on what is the combination of these two which stage of life and which which cast do i belong to there's a third one then there is uh vishesh of harma vishesh dharma means a special dharma which comes to a person from time to time so arjuna for example is now a general of the army so as a general of the army he has some special duties which he would not have otherwise at this point some dharma comes so you take on a role you're a ceo or um you know like you're a mom or something like that and that gives you special roles which you cannot deny if you take it on you have to take it on you have to admit that it's part of your dharma and then the last one is general universal dharma every human being we should try our best to be non-violent should be self-controlled caring for unselfish all the human basic human qualities universal human qualities that's definitely part of our dharma so you have five and so arjuna if you apply it it becomes very clear what is arjuna's dharma arjuna if you say vernal dharma what is his cast duty he's a warrior he's akshatriya then the second one is ashrama what stage of life is he in he's a householder he's not a monk he's not a student he's a householder and then third one is the combination of the two what kind of householder he's a tree a householder a warrior householder or one of the ruling classes and then the fourth one is any special duties at the moment at the moment when he is asking krishna what should i do one of the special duties is that he is a leader in the pandava camp so that's a special duty upon him and then finally the universal duties common to all human beings put them all together that's the answer to arjuna's question what should you do and notice in the bhagavad-gita krishna does not talk about it except in the most in a marginal way so the bhagavad-gita is not really about what is my dharma right now the bhagavad-gita is actually the the setting you know it's a war setting of war and arjuna's question what should i do right now it seems to be a question of what is my dharma now but krishna takes it beyond that he takes it to the ultimate goal of human life so bhagavad-gita is about the ultimate goal of human life the purpose for all of this why even should you follow your swadharm what's the point of it there is a purpose there is a high purpose to all of this and that is god realization enlightenment so um so krishna talks about it throughout in the first six chapters the emphasis is on that enlightenment part and then after this seventh from seventh chapter onwards the emphasis will be on worship of god bhakti devotion again throughout self knowledge meditation karma yoga all will continue we'll all be there elements will be there but the emphasis will be on devotion and in the last six the emphasis will be on brahma again emphasis but all the elements are present throughout if you see one continuing three or three throughout from the beginning till the end krishna is saying therefore you need to fight this battle he has an ulterior motive also he needs to get arjuna to do his duty [Music] one very broad thing we all know this but it's worthwhile telling this once in a while whenever you're talking about yoga or spirituality remember gita is a book for for spiritual seekers gita is what is called technically a moksha sastra a scripture telling you about spiritual life why i'm saying this is unless this distinction is clear there can be confusion i remember listening to a talk by a professor where of indian philosophy where he gives a talk on vedanta and you know the need for renunciation and practice of yoga and attainment of god cultivation of devotion meditation another professor who is a committed communist um you know like leftist he gives up and gives a response to this paper and he says this is um you are telling us it's like a like a book of exploitation you know you're telling us that we do not have the right to enjoy life that we do we should not earn money we should not you know try to get power for the exploited classes and so on and so forth you see where is the problem here the problem is that the at the very beginning it should have been made clear what is the gita all about if you want to grab power you want to establish a communist society or a capitalist society or a theocratic society or whatever kind of society you want to establish if you want to redistribute wealth you want you know multiple social and political objectives you're welcome to do so but gita is not not the uh text which discusses these things you can you can neither uh go this way or that way with the gita about it because gita is not is non-committal about it um then though those are what are called dharmasastras there are texts the whole class of texts many of the puranas which talk about morals and ethics you know like something like the ramayana for example a mahabharata in general today is part of the mahabharata in general so the many of the smithies they talk about social values and you can build upon that and get your mod some kind of idea for a modern society from that but the gita is not specifically about that and if you try to find out why i'm saying this it happens many people miss it i remember in the gita class at at uh at harvard so there were these people from kennedy school of government and they said we are interested in war and of course this is the right place to be because gita is about war i said no unfortunately in the wrong place you should stay in the class it's a very going to be very interesting class but if you want to know about the views on warfare um about you know from the bhagavad-gita perspective you will be disappointed you will be asking a question which the gita will not answer but there are other texts which answer you there are texts on dharma on the rules of warfare on politics there's arthashastra which which talks about all of that that's you will find that more interesting just because the context is a civil war don't think that the gita is going to talk about that and this is obvious to anybody who starts vedanta this is very well understood it's one of the fundamental foundational texts of vedanta you are a seeker spiritual seeker and gita is a text that's going to help you but often it's not made clear so people who should know better when you're studying bhagavad-gita in the divinity school this should be made clear when you're giving a talk on the gita and the ethics of the gita and an international conference that professor i referred to it's very helpful to make it clear at the very beginning otherwise that that whole response which it drew um that could have been avoided anyway now fifth chapter which is in the first and the set of the first six chapters so the main theme here pradhanya main theme is self-knowledge so in the fifth chapter arjuna starts with a question sannyasam karmanam krishna punar yogam chashank sasi yatriya [Music] you have taught me renunciation of action and then the performance of karma yoga perform action as a spiritual practice so it's obviously contradictory tell me which one is better for me which which will lead me to the highest shreya means the highest highest here always means moksha enlightenment what will lead me to enlightenment so the rest of the chapter is the is a answer to this question but what krishna does is very interesting he teases the question apart into two clear ideas and which shows why arjuna is confused about it two clear ideas one is are you asking about the way of life whether you're going to be a household or you're going to be a monk or are you asking about spiritual practice ghana yoga karma yoga if you are asking why is this important if you are asking whether i should continue to be um you know like a householder you know a warrior householder and can i attain enlightenment in this way or do i need to become a monk and it would be always been an important question in a society where monasticism is valued always there will be tendency to mix up spirituality with monasticism so do i need to do that do i need to become a monk or so in that case that could that would be one question the other question would be do i need to practice karma yoga or can i go straight to ghana yoga or do i need to will karma yoga by itself be enough no need to go to ghanaian practices actual spiritual practices so why is this important because if it is the first question do i need to become a monk the answer krishna gives is no you have an option there you can you may but you need not you may not you can still become enlightened there are any number of cases of you know like people who have become enlightened attain brahmagyana in you get examples throughout our tradition who are householders who are married they are engaged in professions they have children and they become enlightened so that is possible or you could become a monk that's also possible here there is an option and it's a matter of choice ultimately not so much of a matter of choice also a lot of it is determined by our past karma but still one could be either or if you are asking about spiritual practice then the answer is no that you have no choice you have to do both you have to do karma yoga and gyani yoga if it's a question of spiritual practice then first karma yoga then yoga and then moksha the first the preparatory spiritual practices then the core spiritual practices of advaita vedanta shravanam manan and ezetihasana hearing and contemplation meditation enlightenment and then freedom notice i'm already putting on the text the paradigm of advaita veyron that that structure is already already being imposed um whereas in the other case the householder life and the monastic life one has a choice one can become enlightened from either having said that then krishna goes on to show the advantages and the problems of those ways of life monastic life and householder life by the way when i mean householder life today it does not necessarily mean somebody who is married and has actually literally has a house with children it could just mean a person who is not formerly a monk it could just mean a person who is living in the world earning his or her living and may be engaged may not have a family at all may not be married at all maybe engaged in some activity in the world just formerly not a monk not in a monastery that's it so krishna says in verse number 2 better than giving up all kinds of action becoming a monk better than that is to remain engaged in action that is the householder life do to do karma yoga in the householder life is better and then he goes on to praise that option verse number three nithya sannyasi yona dweshti nakang shati know this person to be already a monk ever like a monk who in the midst of householder life is not shaken by raag advaisha likes and dislikes does not chase what is appealing does not run away from what is forbidding or difficult but pursues on one spiritual path regardless who rises above dualities this person will easily go through spiritual life and attain liberation and then the um very well-known verse fourth verse literally means children they consider these to be to be separate but the punjit are the wise ones they understand that you take up even one approach you will attain the result of both which is enlightenment and liberation so these are technical terms he uses sankhya here means those people who follow the path of monasticism and yoga here means those people who follow the path of the householder life and the spiritual seekers it does not mean household it means a spiritual seeker in the householder life both of them taking up one properly one can attain to the result of both that means the common result of both is the same way of alarm is the common result so this is one interpretation that dwaythic interpretation i'm giving you so what what is the point he's making here he's saying both of these um forms of life householder life spiritual seeker in the householder life spiritual seeker in the monastic life have advantages and disadvantages first of all the monastic life is a specialized life it is meant only for spiritual seekers in the householder life one may or may not be a spiritual seeker so like that professor who objected to the bhagavad gita so you can be householder life and your whole purpose one's all purpose might be the accumulation of wealth and enjoying life and politics and activism and you know all sorts of nothing bad also pretty worthwhile causes but not spirituality not enlightenment and one can be um and it's it's perfectly all right it's approved the team you know the conventional religion always says that one can be a good person in the world and that's it um one cannot do that in spiritual life i mean in monastic life you cannot be a monk without you know without a clear spiritual goal one can't say i've become a monk so that i can i've cleared the decks to uh become a billionaire now i don't want a wife or children or responsibilities or anything like that i have a one pure one person one pointed goal my sadhana will be to become a billionaire no you can't become a monk like that so so in monastic life it is a specialized life which is designed for spiritual practice why so consider what is meant by monastic life you give up all possessions all responsibilities you don't have duties to parents or your community don't have a family like a husband a wife children so it's an enormous amount of time and energy which is freed up and the and the societies which approve of monasticism most religious societies do except some which do not have monastic traditions but others have it even traditions which do not have monastic traditions like say islam or judaism even they have traditions of you know like ascetics and sufis and you know in the jewish tradition there always have been mystics so one may become a kind of monastic life is available there and of course in buddhism jainism they are heavily monastic oriented and christianity and hinduism have both like householder monastic both together um sikhism is the householder religion but with great regard for monasticism though they don't have an internal monastic tradition so um the goal is you are freed up for the pursuit of um of spirituality for your for your spiritual practices only thing is the problem there is that unless the mind is prepared for it unless one is ready to depend entirely on god remember you don't have people around to help you out you don't have the support of money or possessions these are big if nothing else they are big psychological supports your big psychological supports i i don't know you should share this is a funny story i won't take any names once i and a few other monks a very devout householder devotee in india had invited us to his house he was quite a character and he was training his an old gentleman he was training his son to become a proper devotee you know so the how to serve the monks so he was training his son we were all sitting there and he's telling his son that to come his son also was in his twenties so come and you know serve the bow down to the monks and you know serve the food and things like that and then he was asking one of the monks that swami that old swami i knew at that time where is he now and this swami my my friend said oh that swami i saw him last he is in you know one of our centers in the himalayas oh good will you meet him so if i when i go back there i'll meet him then he told his son look my boy get out a thousand rupees and give it to him so that the he will please give it to that swami the boy is also very nice of the sort of innocent young man he's asking all the proper questions why he said to his father why father what will he do with a thousand rupees of course among what will he spend it on he doesn't have he doesn't need a thousand rupees and his father said fool you don't understand he will take it out and count it and that gives him some peace of mind now one might misunderstand this story but what it means is even if you don't have any use for the money just the fact that you have a thousand rupees under your bed maybe and you take it out and count it and gives you some peace of mind now which was a very nice thing for the gentleman to think about he is teaching his son to think in these ways so psychological support money is a psychological support a house is a psychological support people around you these are my people my relatives my children it's a kind of support fulfillment ultimately not so it really doesn't work none of these are supports the real support is only god and i must say the mugs have it right but it takes a lot of strength to hold on to god alone and to depend on god alone and if one has extra goals in life like um you know enjoyment you want to enjoy movies and art and have a good time in life and have a party and uh and also enjoy family and all in that case you can't be a monk so these are certain things unless one is ready for that then one can't be a monk you must value solitude and yet the solitude must not it's a thin line between solitude and loneliness if it if you feel lonely don't be a monk i remember one monks you know when he became a monk he had got some advice from a senior monk about becoming a monk that monk wrote to him so this is told to me by a very senior mark he said when i joined the order this certain senior monk in banaras wrote to me saying that my boy as a monk you will give love but if you have the hankering of receiving love you want to be loved never never become a monk that you know you have you are in the position of giving you must be so fulfilled within that you are happy to give in a psychological sense love and affection and strength and protection but if you want to lean on somebody lean on some something other than god then never become a monk it can lead to serious problems even mental problems psychological problems luckily this person who told me this clearly turned out to be a good monk because he's a senior monk and very revered figure so what i'm saying is unless one is prepared one may think and people do approach me i'm inspired by stories of you know himalayas and i get scared i don't want to ruin somebody's life by telling such stories that's why many monks don't tell the stories they might give a wrong signal oh it's so nice and beautiful and peaceful let me run away to the himalayas and people have actually and i always tell them don't do it or if you do it then do it carefully very thoughtfully in the sense that try it out for a few weeks go to a place like that and stay and don't be rash that's straight from manhattan to a cave in gungo 3 no don't do that you might think that's a wonderful thing to do burn all the bridges from now on i should unless you are the rare you know tiny zero zero zero one percent uh highly qualified spiritual aspirant which you know krishna talks about one in a thousand um spiritual seeker not one in a thousand general population one in a thousand spiritual seekers who's capable of that otherwise what will happen is it's very simple and it's common sense what is wonderful at the beginning snow clad peaks and no responsibilities in the world and nobody swami vivekananda said forgotten by the world and the world forgetting notice the language you are forgotten but the world forgets you very fast you drop out of sight you are out of sight out of mind the world forgets you very fast whether you are a monk or in you know a lot of retired people feel that nobody cares for me anymore you're right nobody actually cared for you earlier also just an illusion that you had the people cared for me now it's just beginning to you're beginning to understand now so the world forgets very fast and you forget the world slowly it sort of seeps out of you slowly if you have that kind of attitude very good at first it seems like that but if one is not prepared if the mind is not purified what will soon happen is all those beautiful mountain peaks and the solitude and all will soon become rocks and howling wind and snow and water and loneliness and then you will people don't like it at all it becomes unbearable i've actually met such people at least a couple of people who came and confided to me i don't in the mountains there i don't like it anymore i'm unhappy so preparation without preparation monastic life is not possible it's difficult and it will not serve the purpose it will not serve the purpose the whole purpose is to have a peaceful mind and to you know clear the decks for intense spiritual practice if the mind is not peaceful if i'm lonely and unhappy and troubled by desires and i forcefully sit there two things will happen either one persists in it becomes either a hypocrite or mentally unbalanced or one you know sort of again falls back into worldly life so that's not desirable that's why sri krishna says on the other hand in householder life if you are a karma yogi you convert your work your activities your responsibilities all of that into spiritual practice but it has to be done deliberately you can't just say oh krishna said be a household i'm a householder so i'm going to become enlightened no no way you have to become a spiritual practitioner there and then one becomes one is fit for enlightenment but if one is successful is in a monastic life one can become enlightened and successful spiritual seeker in the householder life one can become enlightened that's why he says in the sixth verse of the fifth chapter says monastic life without purification without having done karma yoga before that is very difficult he says which is very difficult to attain and hold on to without proper preparation initial preparation i remember when i felt the same when i when i first went to the himalayas for the first time i was outside the ashram outside the discipline of a monastery and i enjoyed it thoroughly there is um you know no responsibilities of the ashram lots of work was there in ashram like a school or a college i had to run none of that and i'm totally free whole day is for me and i can meditate and study just once or twice in a day i go for my food and that also is given to me and nobody bothers me and this is this spectacular scenery all around and i'm alone with nature there's a very holy vibration in the himalayas there it's very uplifting wonderful then the thought occurred to me oh why didn't i do this straight away i should have run away from home and come here to the mountains why did i spend 10 years as a trainee in the ramakrishna mission and i very quickly realized it's because of those 10 years of training that i'm enjoying this now if i had not done those 10 years of training if straight from my college i had made a b-line for the himalayas i met such examples who went straight from you know just what they were doing in the world without any initial preparation without studying without getting good habits you know of meditation of a simple austere life goes straight to the mountains and then it's like a train wreck so dukkham without karma yoga without the preparation it's very difficult what is the preparation the seventh verse so i realized that's why swami vivekanda even if you're going to be a monk what what we do in the ashram is all the karma yoga practices all the preparatory practices are there you don't straight away give an emphasis on aham brahmasmi i am brahman no you're going to be in training for 10 years you're going to be engaged in ceaseless unselfish activity you're going to get not only the ideal of a high life and simple living and high thinking simple living high thinking not just ideal but actually live it and living it means getting the body mind used to it it becomes natural we get used to it very soon but you have to go through that training so the seventh verse says yoga yokta having done karma yoga then vishuddhatma the result is purification of mind we should dhatma means purification of mind vijay tatma mind is under control here here the second army refers to the body and third one is control of senses body mind senses come under control one can realize the so the consciousness within all beings this preparation is essential so karma yoga is essential monasticism optional but the initial preparation of karma yoga is essential so to answer your question oh arjuna should i give up work or should i do work if you mean by giving up work because he knows what's in arjuna's mind i will not fight this battle i'll go and become a monk if you mean that that's optional and if you mean should i do this work as karma yoga and then get the results then go on to gaya yoga then that's not optional you have to that preparation is necessary whether you are in householder life or in monastic life just a little note here traditional vedantic monasticism as envisaged by shankaracharya they sort of took it for granted that you are qualified to be a monk and therefore one gets the vows of sannyasa there's an initial period of preparation and study then gets the vows of sannyasa and then how what you do you spend your life sravana manananananasana you study the upanishads bhagavad-gita under competent teachers spend time in contemplating it in meditation and a very austere uh world renouncing lifestyle until you get that breakthrough ahamram realization comes and that continues then become a g1 mukta the thing is a lot of people who come into monastic life they are not fully qualified for this so what will happen the signs are very easy to see either a person you know i met this person in gangotri who was not doing anything at all you know it was a monk and i had been a monk for more than two decades and i said don't you do any work in your ashram he said no there are people to do the work worship no there's a priest to do the worship don't you study no don't you do japan repetitions about name no nothing particular then what do you do nothing just like that and he's very unhappy obviously and he was saying that all the work that you do in the ramakrishna mission it's so good that you have unselfish work to do you know like an ashram to run schools hospitals people your life is meaningful i thought what can i do for this person so at that time i was attending a classes in advaita vedanta uh from a very good monk there in the mountains so i said why don't you come to the class at least make a beginning so he said he was very eager yes he'll come and he did come and he sat in a prominent place made sure that i saw him that he was in the class but very soon i saw he was fidgeting he was looking around and this way yawning the class was on ashtavakra that's the highest advaita vedanta now there were others rest of us who many of us who were enjoying it thoroughly and this monk was totally bored he didn't know what was going on doesn't make any sense to him so that initial preparation is very important it says so once the initial preparation is over it leads to purification so the note i wanted to add here was so you will see in the ramakrishna mission in our order we also belong to the 10 orders of monk started by shankaracharya but see the way it has been tweaked you have 10 years of preparation and in those 10 years of preparation the karma yoga krishna is talking about the preparatory practices unselfish work regular meditation a very austere lifestyle you know minimal use minimal resources and live a very simple life uh practice of devotion all of those are compulsory and you do it for 10 years and that prepares the mind he says we should that might prepare purifies the mind and then one is uh prep ready for ka for gyana yoga and that gyani yoga has been mentioned here from the 13th verse onwards important concept verse number 13 i am giving up all works in by in your mind in your understanding you relax in absolute serenity and peace knowing the reality in this the city of nine gates one does not do work nor does work to become not causes work to be done now this is an important concept remember the whole discussion was about arjuna's question was about should i do it or should i not do it now he says that he is a very subtle distinction he's making when are you ready for gyana yoga what happens then what happens then is we it suddenly makes sense that i am not the body mind you think about it the lower self and the higher self you can use these two words though these are not words used here but lower self would be body mind with reflected consciousness um this area with the reflected consciousness of this is called chidabhasa it literally notice what it refers to this body we can clearly see this body and this mind which i have got thoughts feelings ideas this personality and i'm aware of course i'm aware that's the reflected consciousness here there is an ego which is part of one of the activities of the mind it's called ahamkara this is my identification this is who i think i am beyond question as long as i think this i need karma yoga i need to control the activities of this body mind but that's my entire identification no matter how much i read about i am brahman i am the witness consciousness as i go on purifying the mind it this vedantic idea suddenly makes sense and just about all of us we are at this transitional stage where we understand what is meant by witness consciousness but we can't it's very difficult for us to live it now it makes clear sense that i am not the body not the mind not even the reflected consciousness and that so when i think about myself it's not the ego i am the witness of the ego i am consciousness itself not the reflected consciousness it's like i am the original face not the face reflected in the mirror this difference becomes clear once this difference becomes clear one persists one stays with it until it becomes a living realization that staying with it is called gyana yoga the studying of the of the text continues sravana continues manana continues but now you are ready for nidhyasana also this clarity is there you stay with that once you stay with that one consequence is what krishna has mentioned here renunciation of action which was what arjuna asked first this is the real renunciation of action what is the real orientation of action in your in one's understanding one realizes i am this consciousness which does not act which in fact cannot act this awareness it's like the light um on a stage the actors come and act the light reveals the activities when actors go away and the stage is blank the light reveals the blank stage similarly consciousness is there and consciousness illumines the body mind and the ego the ego with the body mind does many activities i shine upon it when the body falls asleep the mind goes to sleep the ego is asleep blank i shine upon it the reference of the eye has shifted from body mind with reflected consciousness lower self to the higher self which is consciousness alone what am i i am not consciousness mind body together this bundle no i am clearly awareness alone and i'm aware i shine upon this bundle of body mind and that enables this body mind to act so this consciousness does not do anything is not an is not a doer is not uh does not do any karma is always free of karma this understanding of our real nature is consciousness ever free of karma this is called renunciation of karma it's a crucial understanding krishna makes this thing clear once you understand that this is who you are you are beyond karma neither do you do any karma nor have you done any karma nor do the results of karma affect you do you need nothing from karma you don't need to accumulate pleasures you don't need to avoid pain pleasure and pain at that level of body and mind you shining everything is revealed that's why vivekanda makes it very clear good good bad bad and none escaped the law that's the law of karma then he makes it clear who cannot escape karma whosoever wears a form must wear the chain too where's the form means body mind everybody has body mind even an enlightened person has a body of mind but we think we are this whatever we may have read or whatever we may believe but we feel we are this then we are wearing the chain as long as we wear the we are wearing the form as long as we wear the form there is a chain tied to this form this form is is causal it's born of causality past karma and conditioning has given rise to this body and this mind and so um we are in the realm of karma good will give rise to good bad will give rise to bad punya good action dharma will give rise to happiness adharma will give rise to unhappiness and it's a continuous stream that goes on to carefully avoid immoral unethical action and carefully take every action to do what is good what is proper what is dharmic karma yoga is there that's spiritual practice but then what about vedanta then swain vivekananda says but far beyond name and form is atman ever free no thou art that sannyasi bold say om that's so this far beyond name and form is atma never free it is this consciousness which krishna is talking about in this verse you are that one more point and i'm done at this point many people come to an understanding of this this is what we are talking about and you do stay with vedanta you come to and it's not it's not all that difficult one just needs to color one's mind with vedanta to begin to see that with clarity what is being meant here but it's difficult to live it to live it one advanced practice for that is meditation one must soak oneself in this understanding so meditation has many benefits meditation has benefits at the level of karma yoga meditation has benefits at the level of gyana yoga in gyan yoga it becomes nidi dhyasana but before that also concentration of mind is the secret to all success whether in the world or in spiritual life in spiritual life it is the secret to success in karma yoga it is a secret to success in gyana yoga also that's why krishna introduces the theme of meditation though arjuna did not ask for a change did not ask a question about meditation krishna introduces that theme and he will start the next chapter by himself without any prompting from a question from arjuna okay let me quickly take a look at the discussion patrick carson asks is it true that ancient indians felt that they were on a progression from one cast to another over lifetimes is that referenced in the scriptures yes the belief was our nature goes from um you know a shudra nature to a waiting nature to a kshatriya nature to a brahminical nature that is but that became fixed into the rigid caste system which is a huge problem in indian society but in in terms of gita or the original understanding was that over lifetimes we are evolving we are means the mind the subtle body is getting better with more subtler more more satwik more spiritual more capable of spirituality it is evolving that evolution itself is talked about in this term of progression of of caste natures which is in today's world it's not a politically correct way of putting it you can just say that we become more spiritual over time but the teachers of vedanta agreed upon this shankaracharya's introduction to bhagavad-gita swami vivekananda in this age he always says it is the to promote the brahminical nature that all spiritual endeavors are there shankaracharya says it is to to protect and promote the brahminical nature that god comes as as an avatar that's the very beginning of the his introduction to the commentary on bhagavad-gita swami vivekananda said all people should be raised to the status of a brahmin in in the sense of the culture of the brahman not in the sense of actual physical cast that's either politically incorrect or meaningless or it makes no point makes no sense in in modern society especially in societies outside india who wouldn't care less about what caste people come from i remember this conference at the again at the harvard kennedy school somebody was talking about a particular [Music] um him some speaker who had come from india and one of the students there questioned that speaker the student was also indian but studying at the harvard county school he said ah but that him has been written by a brahmana so isn't it brahmanical why should we follow that and the speaker said something but it struck me this is an entirely wrong headed way of going about the whole thing it's like saying a pro a scholar quotes a particular paper citation this paper and if you suddenly say but it has been written by a professor of the harvard kennedy school why should i follow that obviously the hymns were written by mostly by brahmins because they were the priests they were the intellectuals they were the you know the sanskrit knowing scholars and it was their job to study the scriptures to practice this and to teach others it's just like saying i will not quote a paper if it's written by a professor at the harvard kennedy school well who else will write a paper if it's not a professor i'll write i will only accept papers written by non-professors non-academicians that's a silly thing to say so you see this is what happens when sort of politics crosses with philosophy of spirituality vishwanathan says swamiji does it happen that scholars students make the same kind of mistakes misconstruing the intent behind other spiritual texts like the bible the cultural problem in india on the other hand many see it as a religious text for focusing instead on memorizing the verses i'm not sure exactly what you mean but i'm reminded of one thing it's maybe not the answer to your question but i'll just share it anyway in one of the classes um i keep referring to my experience at the divinity school because it's recent last year and also it's my most direct interaction with academicians in the field of philosophy and religion so in one of the discussions our professor was talking about going directly to the text instead of commentaries and explanations this is a like ongoing tussle i had with the professor he insisted on teaching the upanishads directly so imagine over a period of four or five months you are going to read most of the upanishads in english translation without the help of any commentary the result is that for most people and who don't have a background okay i've been studying this all the time and professor has been studying this all his life but a person who comes into it for the first time one lady she said it's like looking at a flying saucer what does this mean all of this she's coming from a judeo-christian background and there are all scholarly people there i mean but but they have different training without a layer of commentary without a little little like ease into it you can't understand the vedas open issues are part of the vedas it's it's very difficult to understand imagine trying to understand uh brethren upanishad without shankara's commentaries either one won't understand anything then one is safe or one will misunderstand we'll completely misunderstand so um the professor was saying in a talk let's see we must go to the scripture directly where does this come from it's called sola scriptura it comes from the protestant war cry you know in the uh after martin luther 500 years ago is revolt against the catholic church that the bible is being misinterpreted and layers of commentary are being given by the catholic church and it's in latin we can't read it and so and so forth luckily at that time just at that time the gutenberg press had been invented and so martin luther was one of the first you know he was right after him the bible was translated into german and into other local languages which european languages which people could read and the emphasis was go back to the scripture and he talked about the difference you know interpretations which came up going the importance of going back to the scripture not listening to what the church or the catholic church is telling you so there i had an insight which i shared with the professor and the class i said you can do this so this relates to the question which you're asking you can do this with the bible because it's being spoken directly to the people you can do it with the bhagavad gita also if you translate the gita directly and and try to read it it will make sense but if you try to do it with the keno panishad or the chando yo punish or the brethren or the vedic karma khan does the hymns it will make a very vague kind of sense or no sense at all so the vedic texts were not being spoken directly as sermons to the people they were as a part of a very sophisticated culture it would have to be introduced into the culture the terminology and what was what they're trying to do there in order to understand what's going on so i said what you are trying to do you're treating the upanishads like the um geeta or the bible the upanishads and the vedas in general can't be treated like this so this is the point i was trying to make and then i asked the professor go back to the scripture so that you can find the original meaning of the scripture and i said how is that going the last 400 years look at the number of denominations you have the united states you had one interpretation layer of interpretation by the catholic church now by some uh measure three or four hundred different interpretations you have got result of what going back to the scripture you end up with much more sympathy for the catholic church then you begin to realize what they were doing was is inevitable it's bound to happen there is a value in going directly to the bhagavad-gita it one should but also value in reading the commentaries in the case of the upanishads one must read the commentaries some commentary at least that's why i kept on arguing they said i mean the the professor told me that when you're reading the open swami keep your shankara out of this i'm sorry you're going to leave shankara out of this i see i have no particular problem with shankara or ramadan but you take one story i understand these are narratives these are interpret interpretations but take one at least and then you can disagree then you can get your own ideas otherwise it becomes all over the place you have no way of understanding you have first of all people without any background people who are not practitioners all believers and then within the period of three four months with all assignments and all trying to understand uh five thousand year old culture which is completely alien to you no no wonder the lady said it's like looking at a flying saucer it happen the scholars make the same kind of mistakes of misconstruing yes i think they do prabhupada was saying in advaita vedanta what's the real purpose of meditation i think it cannot be realizing brahman correct technically the purpose of nadidhasana in advaita vedante they want to put it very precisely the purpose of needed advaita vedanta is to overcome the obstacle called viparita bhavana what is viparita bhavana the contrary tendencies which our mind it goes back to that so how i talked about for lifetime after lifetime we have infused the mind soaked the mind muddied the mind it lot of conditioning remember the mind is also material it is helpful in enlightenment it's also material even when you have got the enlightenment the mind will go on according to its tendencies if the tendencies have not been reformed refined and purified then you are going to have problems even after enlightenment this question some genuine spiritual seekers have slips and falls losing that suddenly like losing the temper or do you see or more serious problems in coming up in life of they are not all frauds many of them are genuine spiritual seekers with some genuine insight also still they slip and fall why because that initial peer purification has not happened enlightenment by itself will not change the mind it will it will free you the enlightened then what does what good is enlightenment enlightenment vidyan swami makes it very clear in this jivan muktiv even if you um whatever happens if you once you get that breakthrough you have got moksha at the point of death krishna also says brahma nirvanam we will not come back to life again i mean to into this cycle of birth and death again but then what's the harm the harm is this one will not get jivan mukti unless the mind is purified unless you have a saint's mind a saintly mind one will not get jivan mukti and so for the purpose of jivan book the attainment of enlightened living one must try to purify the mind and for that needed hassan is very very important and in more lives of most ghanais you will find it's actually an effort an important effort that's done uh even after the initial breakthrough you stay with it rama namashi stayed with it for months and months completely absorbed in that soaked in it sri krishna stayed with it many others so that is the exact purpose of deity it is to remove viparita bhavana contrary tendencies which obstruct the manifestation of your realization you see the beauty of swami vivekananda's definition of religion religion is the manifestation of the divinity already within us he said my mission in life is to to preach unto humanity their inner divinity and how to make it manifest in every movement of life see manifest in every movement of life the divinity must shine through in our thinking in our speaking and in our actions yeah so nijhasana is helpful for that in more simple terms if one has a doubt you know that i understand it i am very clear about it and yes it feels a little incomplete then you stay with it that needs it just is very very useful there um abhijit says we hear that vedanta used to be practiced by busy kings in ancient times which seems to suggest that ghana yoga and karma yoga go really well together that is both are more of natural partners versus compared to forced australia's combination is this thinking correct yes basically what krishna says here manassas the automatic natural renunciation of action which comes by realizing i am the action-less consciousness that will happen but that does not mean the activities of the level of body will cease if the enlightened person is a monk running an ashram will continue to run the ashram the enlightened person is a king running a kingdom will continue to administer the kingdom but if you ask the king are you doing action or not really no really i am the um ever unchanging consciousness so yes they are they are very natural i can't help adding the technically to make it correct from a gyani yogis perspective once a person realizes i am brahmana action may continue but the action will be at the level of appearance or you can say the action itself is brahman that brahma panam brahma habibi that one from the enlightened persons perspective he does not feel that he is combining yoga and karma yoga he just feels that i have realized i am brahman all is brahman pradeep bose is asking leaning or depending upon one's human guru is that not all right for a monk at least initially certainly leaning or depending on god leaning or depending on guru is definitely it's absolutely fine and at the beginning that is the support for us all right let me ask um bindu has raised her hand we'll just take that question and stop we've gone well over time um no question maraj i just wanted to thank you uh so much you answered if you remember from the last vedanta life academy you answered my question um there two thursdays ago and however much uh you have talked uh you know it struck home that time i've heard it many many times and uh just my heartfelt gratitude um for changing my life um for continuing to remove my doubts and i've been shy that i haven't introduced myself properly but i did in hollywood you came i introduced myself and i saw you and you and in washington dc so um i i just wanted to formally thank you um thank you that's right that's a good note to end this thank you everybody [Music] foreign