Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

The reason why the fruit of an action should not be expected by us is that it is not in the hands of any one person. It is in the hands of a big cabinet of forces, as it were, as I mentioned earlier, and finally the will of the Supreme. Inasmuch as the fruit comes from all sides though the action proceeds from one side, we should not concentrate our minds on the fruit of the action.

Because our desired fruit is not going to accrue from our particular action, and we are disappointed because somebody is controlling the destiny of our actions, what is the good of doing anything at all? We will keep quiet. We should not be attached to action in the desire for fruit, and we should also not be attached to non-action: ma karma-phala-hetur bhur ma te sango’stv akarmani (2.47). Attachment can be positive or negative. Even if we look at a thing, it is attachment. If we don’t look at a thing, it is also attachment. Either way, it is a question of the mind working. Hence action is a must, and we cannot keep quiet just because our cherished desire is not going to be fulfilled and it is in the hands of somebody else.

Thus, we are placed in a very difficult situation. But the Sankhya knowledge, when applied to the yoga of action, becomes a discipline whereby we free ourselves from this chaotic way of thinking and the fear that our actions may go wrong or our inaction may not be permitted. The discipline that is yoga follows from the knowledge of the Sankhya: esa te’bhihita sankhye buddhir yoge tv imam srnu (2.39). In the Bhagavadgita, yoga means action and Sankhya means knowledge. All action should be based on knowledge. But, our actions are not based on the knowledge of the Sankhya. The knowledge of the Sankhya is the knowledge of our organic involvement in the whole of prakriti, in the entire creation; we should not forget this. But what do we do, actually? When we start doing anything, we have some ulterior motive and an object in front of us. Whenever we think of an object, we have a desire to go near it and possess it: dhyayato vishayan pumsah sangas tesupajayate (2.62).

When we contemplate an object – which is the only thing that we are doing every day, as some object or the other is on our mind – we do not think of the universal principle involved in the object. Very few can do that. We think mostly in the exteriorised fashion of the sense organs working in terms of an object outside. The moment we think of an object, the desire of the sense organs increases. They want to posses it. Sangat sanjayate kamah (2.62). The desire to posses that object many a time comes in conflict with a similar desire that others may also have to possess it. There is some land. We want to possess it, and another person also wants to possess the same land. There is a clash. So there is a possibility of our coming in conflict with other people and other forces operating in the world due to our clinging to a particular object, or a particular set of objects; and when there is an intervention from outside, we get angry: kamat krodho’bhijayate (2.62). When we get angry, our intellect ceases to function: krodhad bhavati sammohah (2.63). When our intellect ceases to function, we become bewildered in our understanding; sammohah takes place. Sammohat smriti-vibhramah, smriti-bhramsad buddhi-naso (2.64): We become idiots, as it were. Then there is a perishing of the very aim of the human individual.

There is a necessity, therefore, to maintain a balance in our attitude to things. Samatvam yoga ucyate (2.48); yogah karmasu kausalam (2.50). These are two definitions of yoga in the Second Chapter: Balance of attitude is yoga; dexterity in the performance of action is yoga. The balance that is called yoga arises on account of our being rooted in the Sankhya knowledge – which is to say, we are cosmically determined, and not individually motivated. When our Sankhya knowledge is absent (this is the fault that Sri Krishna found in Arjuna: “You lack Sankhya!”), we do not have a comprehensive vision of the things involved. That is to say, we never think in terms of the Universal; we think only in terms of particulars. So the balance that is required in the practice of yoga arises automatically from the knowledge of our involvement in the cosmic structure of things; and then we become able, very dexterous and adroit in the performance of action. We will never make a mistake in the deeds that we do because we have a comprehensive vision of the pros and cons of our actions. This is because our yoga, our action, is based on Sankhya that is knowledge.

Such a person is a siddha purusha, a person established in perfect understanding. His understanding does not waver; it does not flicker. It is like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. Arjuna put the question: “What kind of person is this?” Prajahati yada kaman sarvan partha mano-gatan, atmany evatmana tustah sthita-prajnas tadocyate (2.55). A person of stable understanding is one who wants not anything. Again, if we come to the Sankhya knowledge, the question of wanting is redundant in this world where everything is ours finally, and also nothing is ours, from another point of view. In a family of which we are a member, we cannot possess everything for ourselves, though everything is ours in one way. In a family we have the freedom to take whatever we want, yet we do not have the freedom to arrogate everything to ourselves. There is, therefore, a freedom together with a restriction.

The ability to perform right action is the same as the ability to maintain a balance of consciousness. No one can be an expert in the performance of action. Expertness means not committing a fault, taking into consideration all aspects of the matter, as I mentioned just now – the consequence, the intention, and the reason behind the action, etc. An action that we perform should not be deleterious either to ourselves or to others. Sometimes we may ruin ourselves in the interest of the welfare of other people. Sometimes we may ruin other people in the interest of our own personal welfare. Neither of these things is permitted. Killing ourselves and killing another should be considered as equally culpable offences. We have no right to kill ourselves, because as individuals we are as sacred as any other person with whom we can interfere. This is the judicial point of view of the spiritual outlook.

A sthita-prajna is a person who has become stable in understanding through the absence of motivating desires. Kaman sarvan partha: He abandons all the motivation for desires toward particular ends. When we desire the acquirement of particular ends, we forget that we are ignoring the other factors which also condition the fulfillment of our desire, about which I mentioned just now. So there will be resentment from the other parts of nature that we have ignored in our attachment to the particular limited objective, and then we will suffer because of our action. Hence, all aspects of the action – the past, present and future aspects of the action, we may say – should be taken into consideration, and that is when we will feel that our participation as a duty in whatever station we are placed in society will automatically bring the desired fruit from the cosmic forces, and we need not have to dig the earth in order to cultivate fields. God, Who is the Supreme, will see that our stomachs are filled and our thirst is quenched, and we need not even think of the morrow because the morrow will take care of itself. Thinking of the morrow is thinking in terms of time, and we have already decided that thinking in terms of time is inviting death because time is the killing medium in life.

The soul does not think in terms of space and time and, therefore, we should not invite this unnecessary suffering by expecting a result of a particular action. ‘Today if I do something, tomorrow I’ll get something’ – this idea must go because there is no tomorrow for our soul, and all teaching is centred in this involvement of the soul in our action. That is called Sankhya. Sankhya is nothing but the continuous action of our soul on every kind of action that we do. If the soul is outside and does not participate at all in our activities, and if our activities are only physical and sensory, then we will be like logs of wood drifting in the ocean without direction.

That is a sthitaprajna: a person so established in yoga that he wants nothing because he has everything. When we have everything, we do not want anything. It is because we do not have everything that we have a particular desire for certain things. This sthitaprajna is one whose consciousness is established in the Soul of the cosmos and, therefore, he wants nothing. The question of wanting does not arise on account of his soul being everywhere: yena sarvam idam tatam (2.17).

To him this whole world looks like a dark dream, as it were. Where we see values, he does not see values; and where he sees values, we do not see values. For us this world is the only reality, and God is a possible conceptuality. For him God is the only reality, and the world is only a conceptuality. Ya nisa sarva-bhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami, yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh (2.69): This world is a dream for him, while for us it is a hard, waking reality. For him, the ultimate supreme Essence is the final waking, but not for us who see like owls in the daytime, and know not that the sun is shining. In the bright light of the solar orb, the owl sees nothing but darkness; similiarly, in this dazzle of the Supreme Being everywhere, in this pervasive action of the soul of all things, perpetually we are totally blind. The very existence of it is obliterated, as it were. The soul’s existence is completely obliterated from our perception because our perception is sensory, whereas spiritual perception is an insight into the soul. Paranci khani vyatrinat svayambhus tasmat paran pasyati nantaratman, kas cid dhirah pratyag-atmanam aikshad (Katha 2.1.1). The Kathopanishad says that God has cursed us, as it were: Brahma cast an imprecation on every one of us by piercing the sense organs in an outward direction.

Why has He cursed us like that? It is an imprecation, the compulsion of the sense organs in the direction of what is not the Self. That is, the anatman, or object, is so intense that we live only in the world of the sense organs. Therefore, we are in a world of death and destruction. Anityam asukham lokam (9.33); dukhalayam asasvatam (8.15). Anityam is the word that is used in the Bhagavadgita for what the world is. The world is not at all permanent, and we should not expect any permanent value in this world. It is engendered by sorrow from beginning to end. Asukham lokam, dukhalayam: This is the house of sorrow. In a cloth shop, we can get cloth. In a cutlery shop, we can get cutlery. In a grocery shop, we can get groceries. But we cannot get what is not there. This world is the house, the shop where there is sorrow – dukhalayam – and, therefore, we will reap only sorrow if we are tethered to the demands of the sense organs. The whole of yoga is nothing but the restraining of the powers of the sense organs, which compel us to think in terms of the anatman, and becoming centred in the Atman. It is a movement from the centrifugality of the sensory activity to the centripetality of the soul’s contemplation on itself. Tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam (1.3); vritti sarupyam itaratra (1.4), as it is in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. When we are established in our own Self, the vrittis of the mind cease; but when we are not established in the Self, the mind operates in terms of the vrittis and compels us to know the world as an outside object, and at the same time compels us to want it or not want it.

Apuryamanam achala-pratishtham samudram apah pravisanti yadvat, tadvat kama yam pravisanti sarve sa santim apnoti na kama-kami (2.70). Who will have peace in this world? Only that person can have peace into whom all desires conceivable in the world enter, like rivers enter into the ocean. Let there be millions of desires; I shall absorb them into myself, into the Universality that I am, like the ocean. Any number of rivers can touch the ocean, and the ocean is not tired of absorbing them. All the desires, together with the objects of desire, are melted down into this oceanic consciousness of the realisation of the sthitaprajnata. As the ocean is filled with the waters of all the rivers, so is the sthitaprajna filled with all the values that we can think of, earthly or heavenly. Most blessed is this state of being a realised sou l- which is to say, a soul that has established itself in its own Universality, wanting nothing. This is the happiest person.