Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Therefore, everyone should understand this peculiar tantalising character of the method of choosing what is proper and what is improper. One cannot easily know what is good and bad. The goodness and the badness of an undertaking is not merely an ethical or a moral question. It is a philosophical and metaphysical issue based finally on the very purpose of existence itself. Only a well-baked philosopher can have some insight into what is finally good and what is not. By reading a book or a code of law or a Smrti such as the Manu or Yajnavalkya Smritis, one may know something of the nature of goodness and badness under specific conditions; but under what condition which kind of actions are to be performed cannot be catalogued in a book. We have to decide for ourselves what criteria we will hold before ourselves in judging what is proper and improper. This is a crucial question before us, and the judgment in this regard should be based, finally, on the ultimate purpose of life. That is why one has to be very intelligent in choosing any course of action. Such a person is sattvic who knows what is proper and improper, what is good and bad, what is to be done and what is not to be done, what is a cause of bondage and what is going to be liberating. Only such a person can be really intelligent, and that understanding can be regarded as sattvic in its nature: sa buddhih partha sattviki.

Yaya dharmam adharmam cha karyam chakaryam eva cha, ayathavat prajanati buddhih sa partha rajasi (18.31): A rajasic person considers a wrong place as a proper place, a wrong time as a proper time, a wrong circumstance as a proper circumstance, and mixes up the concepts of dharma and adharma. Many people do wrong actions under the impression that they are doing some dharmic activity, because the idea of dharma is not clear in their mind; it is localised, politicised. Geographical, historical, communal, religious and political circumstances may vitiate the very concept of what is good and bad. We cannot decide what is ultimately good and bad as we are involved in these conditioning factors of human society. Such an involved kind of thinking is called rajasika buddhi, because it does not know what is dharma and adharma, what is to be done and what is not to be done, and wrongly construes everything. A thing which is injurious is regarded as very good, and that which is harming others is regarded as something contributory to the welfare of people. Such a person is rajasic in nature.      

Adharmam dharmam iti ya manyate tamasavrta, sarvarthan viparitams cha buddhih sa partha tamasi (18.32): The worst kind of understanding is tamasika buddhi, which totally misconstrues all things in a topsy-turvy manner. Totally wrong things are regarded as very good things – adharmam dharmam iti manyate – on account of a clouding of the intellect. Every kind of objective in life is viewed from a selfish point of view. There is no ability to link the undertaking to the final purpose of life, because that consciousness of the final purpose is completely obliterated from a tamasika buddhi.

The ‘determination’ that will be taken up for discussion in the coming verses has a connection with understanding. Intellect and will go together. The capacity of our deciding factor – decision, determination, volition – depends much or perhaps wholly on understanding. To the extent of our understanding, to that extent also we have the power of will. If the understanding is weak, the will also is weak. In these verses we have been told something about the three types of understanding – sattvic, rajasic or tamasic. Now, three types of determination or volition are mentioned here.

Dhrtya yaya dharayate manah pranendriya-kriyah, yogenavyabhicharinya dhrtih sa partha sattvki (18.33). What is sattvic determination? That exercise of will by which we are able to restrain the mind, the prana and the sense organs with great force of the logical capacity within, being united in a state of yoga inwardly with no distraction in the mind and wholly concentrated on the final aim of life – that kind of decision, determination or dhriti is sattvic in its nature.

Yaya tu dharma-kamarthan dhrtya dharayate’rjuna, prasangena phalakankshi dhrtih sa partha rajasi (18.34): Rajasic determination is that which keeps in view the product of one’s action – which is good or otherwise. Dharma, artha and kama are considered as the primary motives behind any kind of work, and moksha is completely ignored. Where moksha is not at all in the mind of a person and it is not taken into account in the judgment of values, dharma may look like adharma, and adharma may look like dharma. Kama will ruin a person; and artha, or desire for material goods, will be harmful for the security and welfare of life. Hence, rajasic determination takes into consideration only the secular value. Here dharma is to be understood only in the sense of that kind of behaviour or conduct which will be conducive to the fulfilment of desire and material welfare, and not necessarily of moksha. We have emotional desires and material greed. If these two desires can be fulfilled somehow or the other by a method we regard as righteous, and we are always thinking of what will accrue through the undertaking in which we are engaged, that is rajasic understanding.

Svapnam bhayam sokam vishadam madam durmedha matih (18.35): Tamasic determination or will is filled with sleepiness, fear, grief, despondency, pride, and a deluded state of thinking. These are qualities of a tamasic individual. Durmedha dhrtih: a determination that is motivated by a bad or a wrong type of understanding. Mada is a kind of vanity that one feels in oneself. Vishada is despondency; soka is grief; bhaya is fear; svapna is lethargic sleeping or a torpid condition of the mind, and not inclined to any kind of activity. If this is the characteristic of a person, such a person is tamasic and is unfit for doing anything at all.

Three kinds of understanding and three kinds of decision or determination have been mentioned. Many kinds of themes constituting three categories are taken up in this fashion. As understanding is threefold, determination is threefold and happiness also is threefold. There are three kinds of happiness.

Sukham tv idanim tri-vidham srunu me bharatarshabha, abhyasad ramate yatra duhkhantam cha nigacchati (18.36): “Now I shall tell you what is real happiness. That which leads you finally to sorrow and that which will lead you to real happiness, I shall tell you what it is.”

Yat tad agre visham iva (18.37). True happiness or real happiness, lasting happiness, genuine happiness, looks like poison in the beginning. Very painful is any kind of effort in the direction of real happiness, but in the end it is like nectar. There is a proverb that says you have to soil your hands in order to get sweet milk from the cow. Anything that is intended for our final welfare looks like a bitter potion in the beginning, and we will be very unhappy even to undertake it. Whether it is yoga exercise, japa, meditation, study, sadhana or whatever it is, they all look very boring and painful, but they are going to lead to final bliss. That which is really good looks undesirable and repulsive. Yat tad agre visham iva pariname’mrtopamam, tat sukham sattvikam proktam atma-buddhi-prasada-jam (18.37): That kind of happiness which will finally delight the self inside, make our understanding blossom and bring us inner peace, which ends in the nectarine experience of bliss though in the beginning it may look like a poisonous bitter stuff, should be considered as real sattvic happiness.

Vishayendriya-samyogad yeta tad agre’mrtopamam, pariname visham iva tat sukham rajasam smrtam (18.38). Sense indulgence appears to bring immediate pleasure, unlike sattvic happiness which looks very bitter in the beginning. Here, nectar is felt in the beginning itself. When the sense organs indulge in the objects which they long for, they seem to be drowned in nectar, so they long for the objects again and again, and one can spend one’s entire life indulging in these sense objects. But, in the end, terrible painful consequences will follow. Mental grief, physical debility and rebirth will follow as a consequence of sense indulgence. Vishayendriya-samyogad yeta tad agre’mrtopamam: That which looks like nectar in the beginning because of the contact of the sense organs with their objects, but which will lead one to sorrow in the end, is called rajasic happiness.

Yad agre chanubandhe cha sukham mohanam atmanah, nidralasya-pramadottham tat tamasam udahrtam (18.39). For instance, the happiness that one gets by drinking alcohol is tamasic happiness. It will completely delude our brain and push us into a state of stupor, giving us the false impression that we are in a state of joy. Intense smoking and drinking may come under this category because they appear to bring some kind of satisfaction to a person, but it is a deluded mind that thinks in this fashion. The person is happy in the beginning, in the middle and in the end - because he is drunk. In a person who is drunk, the nerves are stimulated and appear to be always in a state of happiness, but they are going to collapse completely after some time. Such happiness which is totally undesirable is tamasic happiness. Nidralasya-pramadottham tat tamasam udahrtam: It will lead to sorrow and sleep. A drunken man sleeps, and when he wakes up he drinks again, and after drinking again sleeps, and after sleeping again drinks on waking up. What kind of happiness is this? This is the kind of life that some people live in the world – tamasika.

Na tad asti prthivyam va divi deveshu va punah, sattvam prakrti-jair muktam yad ebhih syat tribhir gunaih (18.40): Some specific instances of the working of the three gunas - sattvika, rajasika and tamasika – have been mentioned here. There are infinite instances that can be used to illustrate and are classified under sattvika, rajasika and tamasika. Actually, neither on earth nor in heaven is there anything which is not controlled and conditioned by the three gunas. Everything in the entire creation, in all the realms of being, is a modification of the three qualities of prakriti – sattva, rajas and tamas. Therefore, we always have to try to bring the sattvika quality to the surface of consciousness because it is perspicacious and it will give us some inkling of the higher purpose of life. The rajasika and tamasika vrittis will make us completely oblivious of the higher values of life, make us sunk in secular affairs, make us think in terms of sense objects, and cause us to take rebirth. We should develop sattvika attitudes in understanding, in determination, in will, and in happiness.