Bhagavad Gita

Prasthana Thraya – 3

 

One of the Dhyana slokas for Bhagavad Gita written by Madhusudhana Saraswathi praises Bhagavad Gita thus:

sarvopaniṣado gavo dogdha gopala-nandanaḥ|

partho vatsaḥ sudhirbhokta dugdhaṃ gitamṛtaṃ mahatII

All the Upaniṣhads are the cows. Krishna is the milker. Arjuna is the calf. The pure-minded are the enjoyers (of the milk).  The supreme nectar of Gita is the milk.

Bhagavad Gita which is thus praised as containing the essence of Upanishads constitutes one of the trio of Prasthana Thraya along with Upanishads and Brahma Sutras. Consisting of 700 slokas spread over 18 chapters, Gita ,as we shall refer to it hereafter, comes in Bhisma Parva of Mahabharatha and is set in the framework of a dialogue between, Arjuna, the armed warrior and disciple, and Sri Krishna, his unarmed charioteer and Guru, in the battle field of Kurukshetra.  Arjuna who arrogantly asked Sri Krishna to take the chariot to the front, turned sad and depressed seeing his Guru, elders and relatives assembled on the other side and surrendered to Sri Krishna seeking his advice and guidance on his eleventh hour dilemma “fight or pullback.”  Sri Krishna’s elaborate advice encompassing all the four yogas of Karma, Bhakthi, Raja and Jnana that dissolves Arjuna’s delusion and drives him to action is the subject matter of Gita. So Gita presents a synthesis of the four paths of Karma Yoga, Bhakthi Yoga, Raja Yoga, and Jnana yoga. 

Each chapter in Gita is titled one Yoga or the other.  Yoga means a topic and also as  that which unites the seeker with the destination. As per Swami Paramartananda the destination here is “Security, Peace and Happiness” and seekers are ourselves. We seek these outside ourselves from external objects and relations, not knowing that we ourselves are the source for our ‘Peace, Security and Happiness’; as our minds are  covered with Malam(impurities); Vikshepa(extrovertedness) and Ajjanam(ignorance).  Malam is the six fold impurities; the six fold obstacles to discover our inner joy.  And those impurities are kamaḥ, (desire), krodhaḥ, (anger); lobhaḥ (greed); mohaḥ (delusion); madaḥ (arrogance or vanity); matsaryaḥ (jealousy or competitiveness).  Vikṣēpaḥ, mental extrovertedness, is the mental restlessness and wandering. Ajjanam is ignorance of the fact that I am the one and only source for the “Happiness, Peace and Security” that I am seeking from external objects and relations. Karma Yoga rids the mind of impurities and makes it pure, giving Chitta Suddhi.  Bhakthi and Raja Yogas discipline the wandering mind making it focussed and one-pointed, giving one Chitta Ekagratha.  Jnana Yoga imparts to such a pure focussed mind the true knowledge of the Self as Brahman of total peace and happiness and security.  Swami Sivananda considers the eighteen chapters of Gita as having a progressive order, by which Krishna leads "Arjuna up the ladder of Yoga from one rung to another".  It is not only Arjuna but all of us as well through Arjuna.

Swami Vivekananda remarks “This Kurukshetra War is only an allegory. When we sum up its esoteric significance, it means the war which is constantly going on within man between the tendencies of good and evil.”  Man can overcome the tendency for evil only through the disciplines of Karma Yoga and Bhakthi/Upasana Yoga. As Gita speaks of them equally as Jnana Yoga, Swami Chinmayananda writes, “Here in the Bhagavad Gita, we find a practical handbook of instruction on how best we can re-organise our inner ways of thinking, feeling, and acting in our everyday life and draw from ourselves a larger gush of productivity to enrich the life around us, and to emblazon the subjective life within us”.  He viewed the Gita as a universal scripture to turn a person from a state of agitation and confusion to a state of complete vision, inner contentment, and dynamic action. Mahatma Gandhi also emphasises Gita being a practical guide with his own example with these words “When disappointment stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavadgītā. I find a verse here and a verse there and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies – and my life has been full of external tragedies – and if they have left no visible, no indelible scar on me, I owe it all to the teaching of Bhagavadgita”.  Not only Mahathma Gandhi but other leaders of freedom struggle like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Vinobha Bhave etc., have found Gita a source of inspiration in their personal and public lives. 

Let us see one instance of the all-embracing practical approach i.e. in the case of obtaining Mukthi, given to us all through Arjuna.  In ch. 7 Sri Krishna classifies bhakthas in four groups Artha, Artharthi, Jijnasu and Jnani through verse 16, and we will be mostly falling in one or the other of the first three groups:

chaturvidha bhajante maṃ janaḥ sukṛtinorjuna

artho jijnasurartharthi jnani ca bharatarṣabha

Four kinds of virtuous men worship Me, O Arjuna! They are the Artha (distressed), Artharthi (the seeker of security and pleasure), Jijnasu ( the seeker of knowledge of Me), and the Jnani (one who knows Me) 

Artha bhaktha thinks of the Lord only periodically; as and when he is faced with a crisis or a problem and then he prays to Him with all fervour but slowly forgets Him after the crisis fades or blows over under the pretext he does not want to disturb Him.  He is a sakama bhaktha as his sporadic devotion is for selfish needs and desires.  For such a sakama bhaktha also Sri Krishna offers a way for Mukthi in the closing verses of the last chapter ie. Ch 18 in verse no. 56:

Sarvakarmaanyapi sadaa kurvaano madvyapaashrayah;

Matprasaadaadavaapnoti shaashwatam padamavyayam.

Doing all actions, always taking refuge in Me, by My Grace he obtains the eternal, indestructible state or abode.

The prescription is to do all nitya, naimithika karmas as well along with other laukika karmas but without forgetting the Lord all the time and also His words that fruits of all actions, good, bad or mixed, come through His Grace only. In short perform all your actions, material and spiritual, karma yoga way completely surrendering to Lord and He will guide you to Mukthi

Artharthi bhaktha remembers Him always no doubt but he has also one material demand or other always. He is also a sakama bhaktha but unlike Artha bhaktha he regularly thinks of the Lord. To him Sri Krishna offers a way for Mukthi in verse no. 65 of ch.18:

Manmanaa bhava madbhakto madyaajee maam namaskuru;

Maamevaishyasi satyam te pratijaane priyo’si me.

Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, bow down to Me. You will come to Me; truly do I promise unto you, (for) you are dear to Me.

The prescription here is to surrender to one’s Ishta Devata, Bhakthi Yoga way totally, converting his sakama bhakthi into nishkama bhakthi. ‘Me’ stands for Ishta Devatha only and not for Vasudeva putra.Krishna.  

A Jijnasu bhaktha is a nishkama bhaktha. His devotion is not out of material desires or wants but out of deep thirst for knowing Him. So his devotion to Lord is for Lord’s sake. Only he also has not got the Jnanam and  to Him Sri Krishna’s advice is contained in sloka 66. This is also called Charama sloka as this is the last sloka of Upadesa.

Sarvadharmaan parityajya maamekam sharanam vraja;

Aham twaa sarvapaapebhyo mokshayishyaami maa shuchah.

Giving up all dharmas (dharmas and adharmas ie. all actions), take refuge in Me alone; I will liberate you from all sins; grieve not.

Giving up actions implies not giving up actions as such but giving up the Kartrutva buddhi ie, doership and also Bhokthrutva buddhi ie. enjoyership. With Karthruthva bukthi and Bhokthrutva buddhi goes Ahamkaram, Mamakaram i,e. ‘me, my’ thought and with that Dehabhimana also. So shedding ego and Dehabhimana, surrender to the Ishta Devata meditating on It and being always aware of It as the One without a second is the prescription.  ‘Mamekam’ stands for looking upon Ishta Devata as the one Saguna Brahman whose manifestations only are all other Devatas.  As there is no sense of doership, no fruits of action will attach to him. Though he may not be equipped with Nirguna Brahma Jnanam he surrenders the Jnana Yoga way to his Ishta Devata for Mukthi.

For the Jnani Bhaktha Sri Krishna does not offer any advice as with attainment of Jnanam, he has already attained Jivanmukthi and for all purposes he is one with Him though he may continue in the body to exhaust Prarabhdha karma.  This Sri Krishna  has hinted earlier in ch, 7 sloka 18:

Udaaraah sarva evaite jnani twaatmaiva me matam;

Aasthitah sa hi yuktaatmaa maamevaanuttamaam gatim.

Noble indeed are all these (all the bhakthas); but I consider Jnani bhaktha as My very Self; for, steadfast in mind, he is established in Me alone as the supreme goal.

It is no wonder that with its practical approach, Gita has been highly praised not only by eminent Indians like Mahathma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Abdul Kalam, etc. but also by eminent foreigners like Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung, and Herman Hesse.

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“Flow” and Ananya bhakthi

Flow is a term used by positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi to describe a state where you are totally immersed in the activity you are engaged in.  He describes the mental state of flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."  Flow, also known as Zone, is described as the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does. Csíkszentmihályi explains it with examples drawn from games like chess, athletics and activities like music and painting.  This focused absorption is also the feature in deep meditation and also in ananya bhakthi, the one-pointed devotion to one’s chosen deity.

Bhakthi can be defined as reverential love for God and bhaktha as a person leading a dharmic life who has bhakthi.   On the basis of Lord Krishna’s classification of bhakthi in Gita (7-16), we can classify bhakthas into four categories as Aartha bhakthas, Artharthi bhakthas, Jijnasu bhakthas and Jnani Bhakthas.  Aartha bhakthas turn to God seriously only when then they are in distress or in trouble.  Artharthi bhakthas regularly think of God but always with a plea for a favour, maybe it is fortune, position, fame etc. or for the redressal of some grievance, for themselves or for their loved ones. An Artharthi bhaktha is an Artha bhaktha as well but not the other way round. But both are only sakama bhakthas for whom God is only a means for a material goal.

Unlike these two the Jijnasu bhaktha, who is a seeker of  spiritual Jnanam, has a spiritual goal and is a nishkama bhaktha for whom God Himself is the end goal and not any other material means. For a Jijnasu bhaktha, bhakthi is a sadhana to reach his spiritual goal of God-realization and so his bhakthi is called sadhna bhakthi as well.  When he realizes that God, the Supreme Self called Paramatma, is in essence his own true Self, Athma, he blossoms into a Jnani bhaktha, and his bhakthi, Jnani  bhakthi,  is siddha bhakthi, i.e. bhakthi after achieving the goal of Realization and not bhakthi for achieving the goal of Realization.  For such a bhaktha all his actions are for God only and the thought of God is always in his mind in the background in all his deeds, words and thoughts.  His devotion is so intense that all thoughts, all words, and all deeds are given up unto the Lord, and there is no forgetfulness of God at any time in all his activities.  This intensity is the hallmark of ananya bhakthi.  When the sadhana bhakthi of a Jijnasu who has no material goal acquires this intensity his bhakthi also qualifies as ananya bhakthi.

  

According to Csíkszentmihályi, there are ten factors, many or all of which accompany the experience of flow. Those ten factors are:

1)   Clear goals, while challenging, still attainable

2)   Strong concentration and focused attention

3)   The activity is intrinsically rewarding

4)   Feeling of serenity; loss of feeling of self-consciousness

5)  Timelessness; a distorted sense of time; feeling so focused on the present that you lose track of time passing

6) Immediate feedback

7)  Knowing that the task is doable; a balance between skill level and the challenge presented

8)  Feelings of personal control over the situation and the outcome

9)   Lack of awareness of physical needs

10)   Complete focus on the activity itself.

In the ananya bhakthi of Jijnasu, we can see these factors present, when we leave out those factors pertaining to material goal.  This ananya bhaktha has clear goals of God-realization, which he hopes to achieve not through his efforts alone but through his efforts blessed by God’s Grace.  He has chitha ekagratha, which is focused attention of mind on the single subject, i.e.his Ishta devatha.  He revels in the very act of  bhakthi and is neither conscious of time nor of his own self, when he is immersed in acts of Bhakthi, be it singing, chanting or in satsang.  He is totally oblivious of his physical needs and there is complete focus on the activities of devotion.

We can also define this concept of “Flow” and ananya bhakthi using computer terminology.  Studies by psychologists have revealed that the amount of information the mind can attend to at any time is only limited to 126 bits.  Some bits of this are taken up for  the involuntary coding and decoding of vital information essential for the running the autonomic system of the body. Where all the available balance bits are taken up by what one is engaged in, the condition of flow occurs. Same way ananya bhakthi is the state where all the available  balance bits are taken up by the act of devotion to God.

Talking of such bhakthas Lord Krishna says in Gita (10-10)

तेषां सततयुक्तानां भजतां प्रीतिपूरर्वकमम्।

ददामि बुद्धियोगं तं येन मामुपयान्ति ते॥

tesam satatayukthanam bhajatham preetipurvakam।

dadami buddhiyogam tam yena mamupayanthi te॥

For those who are always committed to me, seeking me with love, I bless them with the yoga of knowledge through which they reach Me.

He reinforces this assurance more emphatically by clearly spelling out His act of Grace in the next verse (10-11)

तेषामेवानुकम्पार्थम् अहमज्ञानजं तमः।

नाशयाम्यात्मभावस्थो ज्ञानददीपेनभास्वता॥

tesamevanukampartham ahamajnanajam tamah ।

nasayamyatmabhavastho jnanadeepena bhasvatha॥

For them alone I shower my Grace, destroying the darkness born of ignorance through shining the light of knowledge, dwelling in their heart

Any bhaktha when he acquires this “Flow” in his bhakthi and stays with it can reach the spiritual goal of God Realization, irrespective of his past as Lord Krishna assures in  Gita 9-30, where he says that even a worst sinner when he  turns a new leaf and worships Him with this “Flow” (indicated by the term अनन्यभाक्,ananyabhak), he must be considered as a noble person only.

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