Bhikshu
Gita forms part of Uddava Gita which is the teaching of Lord Krishna to Uddava before His departure from earth and forms
part of Srimad Bhagavatam. The teaching is spread over 24 chapters and
chapter18 of Uddava Gita is known as Bhikshu Gita. This contains two parts, former part being
the introductory story and the later part the teaching that is called Bhikshu
Gita. Uddava asks Lord Krishna how one
can react calmly without retaliating when faced with insults and harsh words
hurled by the wicked and when ill-treatment is meted out by others, in the
world, in the closing verses (59 & 60) of chapter 17. Lord Krishna, answering Uddava’s question
narrates the story of a mendicant who bore with patience the insults and ill-treatment
meted out by others, treating them as the effect of his own past deeds. The story starts from verse 6 of chapter 18 and the
teaching from verse 43. With this brief introduction, let us see the story and
teaching.
In Avanti
(Ujjain) there lived a rich Brahmin, who was a business-man. Though very rich, he led a miserable life
being greedy, miserly, and impious. He
treated his family and friends badly and they also did not like him. He ran into bad times and lost all his wealth
and became penniless. Nobody came to his
help or sympathised with him. Rather
they ridiculed him and treated him badly and he was also alienated from his
relatives. Reflecting over his past and
repenting his actions and renouncing all material desires and thoughts, he
became a wandering mendicant begging for food.
Whatever sorrow caused by any living being, brought about by Providence
or coming from his own body, he understood each of them as coming from his own
past deeds and are to be experienced without avoiding them or blaming anyone. Even when troubled by the wicked who wanted
to cause his downfall, he remained firmly established in his dharma, abiding in
sattvic patience and spoke loudly these words of advice. (verses 6 to 42).
It is we who super-impose joy or sorrow on conducive
and non-conducive situations and on persons or objects, we like or dislike.
When those situations occur, we think that they have made us happy or unhappy
forgetting that it is our mind that has projected happiness or unhappiness on
them in the first place. Hence all is
only a play of our mind and that alone is the cause of bondage or sorrow and
liberation or joy. In life, situations,
conducive or non-conducive, pleasant, or unpleasant come to us due to various
reasons which are listed as people, presiding deities, body, planets, past
actions, and time. Each one of them will be discussed later, in verses 51 to
56. (verse 43)
The mind alone
creates the objects, their qualities, our desires for them and actions to gain
them be it our waking world, dream-world, or world of day dreams. Not only the
present life but the life hereafter is also governed by the mind. A sattvic
mind gets noble birth and revels in higher realms, a rajasic mind gets a
mediocre birth and a tamasic mind gets lowest form of births. As Lord Krishna
tells Arjuna in Bhagavat Gita (14-18):
Oordhwam
gacchanti satvasthaa madhye tishthanti rajasaah;
Jaghanyagunavrittisthaa adho
gacchanti tamasaah.
Those who are established
in Satva proceed upwards; the Rajasic dwell in the middle; and the Tamasic,
abiding in the function of the lowest Guna, go downwards.
Athma, the Self, which is of the nature of Consciousness, though
coexisting with the active mind, is only a silent witness, without action,
lending life to the body through the medium of subtle body that includes mind. It is like electricity that causes the
blades of a fan to rotate, without itself rotating. Mind is the conditioning that manifests the
Self, and the actions, qualities and limitations of the conditioning are
falsely superimposed on the Self which makes It appear as bound. The individual, in Self-ignorance, gives
absolute reality to this apparent bondage and suffers further. The
indiscriminative mind fancies joy in objects and running after them gets
attached. Right thinking removes all
false notions and makes one detached and free. (verses 44 and 45)
A pure, clear,
and focussed mind is controlled and can withdraw from worldly preoccupations
and easily absorb and abide in the Self.
This purity, clarity and focus is achieved through engaging in
scriptural activities like study of scriptures and performance of actions
prescribed by the scriptures and meditation and in selfless activities like charity
and, following the five-fold disciplines and five-fold values of Ashtanga Yoga,
besides the performance of one’s duties. Only when the mind has attained the desired
purity, clarity and focus, spiritual practices bear the fruit of bonding with
God replacing the bonding with the world. A rajasic mind is a restless and
agitated one and a tamasic mind is a dull and lazy one and neither of them can
benefit from the spiritual practices unless they change to sattvic minds
through religious life and karma yoga. A sattvic mind is alert and peaceful and
through the above practices can be made to abide in Self. (verses 46 and 47)
The sense organs
and their functioning are controlled by the mind. The eyes cannot see or the
ears hear if the mind is not with them.
But the mind is not controlled by the senses. It can function independent of senses e.g.
the mind sees objects in the dream-world with the dream-eyes of the dream-seer.
Arjuna tells Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita (6-34):
Chanchalam hi
manah krishna pramaathi balavad dridham;
Tasyaaham
nigraham manye vaayoriva sudushkaram.
The mind verily
is restless, turbulent, strong, and unyielding, O Krishna! I consider its control
as difficult as the control of the wind.
Lord Krishna
also agrees with Arjuna. The one who
conquers this mighty mind is mightier than the mighty and truly victorious. But
the mind does not like to be controlled and it also travels at unbelievable
speed. It moves randomly at times from
the sublime to the ridiculous and can drive one nuts with worry, fear, stress,
and tension. Ignorance of our true nature is the real cause for our false
notions and preoccupations. Such a deluded person is led by the uncontrolled
mind into making, maintaining, and breaking relations and dividing people into
friends, enemies etc. After listening to
the words of the wise, some are transformed while others continue in their
deluded way of living. A sensible man
should spend his time in conquering the mind and living in harmony with others.
The ignorant man considers himself to be the body and everything related to the
body as ‘my’ e.g. my son, my house etc. and rest of the world as ‘not I’ and
‘not my’. Blinded by these self-created
divisions he gets attached, becomes possessive, fights etc. (verses 48 to 50)
The body-mind
complex of everyone is made up of five elements; space, air, fire, water and
earth and Self is one only and beyond this complex and a witness of the interactions
of the body-mind complex with the outside world. Not knowing this one Self in
all, we do not realise that we are only fighting with ourselves when we fight
with others. When one part of the body
hurts another, like teeth accidentally biting the tongue, we do not get angry
with the offending part and scold or punish it. When one recognises this fact,
he will no longer hurt others or speak to them harshly. The Self is formless and attributeless and
therefore changeless. The Self being
changeless cannot be affected by presiding deities. Other than the eternal existence, whatever is
experienced is only relatively real, an illusion or superimposition on the Self
which is its eternal substratum. Again,
if we identify ourselves as body and mind then alone, we are affected by the
planets or anything else for that matter.
When our mind is absorbed in the Self or the Lord, then they have no
effect on us. Actions take place due to the combination of five factors – body,
doer, sense organs of perception and action, the five vital airs and the
sentient factor. The inert by itself
cannot act. The sentient cannot act
without body, instruments etc. Action is
possible only with their combination, which is not possible because of their
opposite nature. So, what we see as
action has only a relative reality and can never affect the sentient Self. Time modifies or affects that which is born,
or with form or that which is material in content. The sentient, formless, unborn Self can never
be affected by time. (verses 51 to 56)
With this analysis the bhikshu concluded that the
Supreme Self can have no sorrow from anybody, anywhere by any means as It is even beyond the Prakrithi, and infinite and has no association with the pairs of opposites. It is only the ahamkara that is subject to
samsara. The enlightened person has no fear of the material world. And so, he
resolved to practice devotion to the Supreme Self following the footsteps of
the great sages of old and cross the endless darkness of ignorance by
worshipping the lotus feet of lord Mukunda. He continued his wanderings without
wavering from his righteous conduct and ignoring any insults or ill-treatment. (verses
57 and 58)
Lord Krishna thereafter
summarised the teaching thus – ‘Other than ourselves none can give us joy or
sorrow. Friends, the indifferent,
enemies and samsara are all created by the darkness of ignorance and
self-delusion of the person’. Then He
ended the story with a phala sthuthi that one who remembers, narrates,
or listens to this teaching will never get overwhelmed by the pairs of
opposites. (verses 59 to 62 (end))
Acknowledgement
While concluding the blog, I wish to record my
debt of gratitude to the speeches and writings on this text, of:
1)
Swami Tejomayananda,
&
2)
Swami Paramarthananda.
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