Gita Acharan

  I n the Gita, Lord Krishna says you are your own friend, and you are your own enemy. The following story of the trapped monkey illustrates it well.  Some nuts are kept in an earthen pot with a narrow mouth ( surahi ) in which the monkey’s hand barely fits. The monkey inserts its hand by squeezing through the mouth of the pot and grabs a fistful of nuts. As the fist is full, its size increases and so it can’t come out of the pot. The monkey makes all sorts of efforts to get the closed fist out of the pot. It keeps thinking that someone has laid a trap for it but fails to realise that the trap was set by itself. No amount of explanation would convince the monkey to let go of these nuts, instead, it would think that we are trying to grab them. From the outside, it seems quite simple that the monkey just needs to drop a couple of nuts to loosen its grip so that its hand can come out. But it is a challenge to realise this simple fact especially when we are trapped....

  A small change in the trim tab attached to the rudder changes the course of a large ship. Similarly, a nudge to study the Gita can reorient our course in life. Though people perceive the Gita in different ways, it can be easily internalized by understanding a few basic concepts. The Gita is an eternal textbook from kindergarten to post-graduation, for internal realization. It is likely that in the first reading, very few concepts are understood. They can be easily understood if we approach from the viewpoint of the manifested (vyakta) and unmanifested (avyakta) . Manifested is that which is within the realm of our naked senses, including the scientific instruments built to extend these senses and unmanifested, is beyond the grasp of our senses.  The story of the manifested begins with the Big Bang. It continues with the formation of stars. In the cores of these stars, atoms fuse to create heavier chemical elements. These elements are scattered when stars explod...

  T he B hagavad Gita was born on the battlefield. Similarly, the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic were no less intense than a battlefield in themselves.   One phrase in the Gita, nimitta-maatra (just being an instrument in the hands of the Almighty) sums up our role in such situations.   Arjuna wanted to see the reality of Krishna as it is ( yathaarth ) and needed an extra sense to grasp the same, much like a blind man would need eyesight to see the elephant. The Lord granted him this divine vision to behold the Vishwaroop (cosmic form). Apart from showing reality in space, Krishna gives him access to the future where Arjuna sees that many warriors are entering the mouth of death. The Lord confirms that these warriors would die soon and Arjuna is just an instrument in that process. Krishna clarifies that Arjuna is not the Karta (doer) but a nimitta-maatra. He further ensures that Arjuna would be free of ahankaar when he comes out as the victor,...

  T he Gita is about maintaining harmony within the inner world while the law is about maintaining order in the outer world. Any karma has two parts; one is the intent and the other is execution. In criminal law, they are known by the Latin expressions mens rea and actus reus , respectively. For example, a surgeon and a murderer both plunge a knife into someone’s stomach. The surgeon’s intention is to heal, whereas the murderer intends to kill. Death may occur in both situations, but their intentions are entirely opposite. Gita is eternal whereas law is situational. Driving on the left side of the road is legal in one country and may be an offence in another. Law is black and white, but not life which has many grey areas. The Gita helps us navigate these difficulties. Law is very comfortable as long as we perform actions which are within the defined parameters of the law of the land. For example, when we pay taxes ( actus reus ), the law is not concerned about wheth...

  T he Gita is perceived differently by different people depending on their perspective. There are three different paths given in the Gita which are karma yoga, sankhya yoga and bhakti yoga . Karma yoga is ideal for someone who is mind- oriented. Sankhya yoga is for intellect and bhakti yoga for heart oriented. In today’s world, the majority falls in the category of mind oriented.   It is based on the belief that they are tied up with chains and need to work hard to break them to free themselves. This implies that it is action oriented. Any conversation with them would end up with ‘What should I do now’. This path leads us to nishkaam-karma i.e. unmotivated action. Sankhya yoga , also known as jnana yoga, is about awareness or knowing, but not knowledge. Its starting point is the belief that we are in a dark room. To dispel darkness, we simply need to light a lamp, as no amount of action or struggle can remove it . This path takes us towards ‘choiceless awaren...

  T he Gita emphasizes the need to understand our indriyas (senses) as they are the bridge between our inner and outer worlds. Krishna says that the meeting of the senses with the sense-objects causes polarities of pleasure and pain. He tells Arjuna to learn to tolerate them, as they are transient. From a scientific point of view, our brain has about a hundred billion neurons. Some of them are wired by DNA to take care of automatic functions of the body while others are wired by us over the course of our lives. On our first day behind the wheel, we all found driving difficult . We slowly got used to it with practice. This is because of the hard wiring done by the brain, with unutilised neurons, to coordinate all the activities involved in driving. This kind of hard wiring happens with all skills, from simple walking to complex tasks like sports and performing surgeries. Hardwiring leading to the formation of new neural patterns, saves a lot of energy for the brain and ...

  T he B hagavad Gita is about ‘who we are’ but not about ‘what we have and what we know’. It is like being truthful apart from knowing the truth. This happens when we are centred in the inner self in the present moment of time. Arjuna’s underlying dilemma revolves around the fear of how his actions of killing friends, relatives and teachers for the sake of the kingdom will affect his image in the eyes of the world. This appears to be very logical, and this is the first barrier to be crossed. Clarity would come when we dive deep into the Gita. The real dilemma of Arjuna is about his image in the future. Krishna says that we have the right to do karma but no right to the karma-phal. A point to be noted is that karma (action) occurs in the present moment and karma-phal (fruits of action) is something that manifests in the future. This indicates that we have control over our present moment but not over the future. That’s why Krishna says that we have the right to do ka...

  J ust as it is said, ‘All roads lead to Rome’, all paths given in the Gita lead us to the eternal state of our inner self.  Some of the paths seem to contradict each other. However, this is like a circle where a journey on either side would take us to the same destination. The Gita reveals itself differently at various levels of awareness. Sometimes Krishna comes to the level of Arjuna and sometimes He comes as the Supersoul ( Paramatma ). This creates difficulties in comprehension at the initial stage as both levels appear to be different.   For example, at the beginning of the last century scientists faced difficulties while understanding light. Initially, it was proved that light is a wave, subsequently it was realised that it also behaves like a particle. Both theories appear to be opposing each other. But light, with which we are so familiar, is a combination of apparent contradictions. Similar is the life and this fact needs to be kept in mind while unde...

T he B hagavad Gita is a seven hundred verse conversation between Lord Krishna and the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. In the final moments before the war, Arjuna felt that the war would kill many of his friends, teachers and relatives. He concluded that this has many harmful and undesirable effects. Arjuna is perceiving both himself and others on the battlefield as karta (doers). This perception is nothing but ahankaar , a combination of aham (I) and karta (doer), literally meaning ‘I am the doer’. Though we are all part of the same oneness, ahankaar keeps giving us the impression that we are distinct and separate. Usually, ego is taken as the meaning of ahankaar , but ego can be taken as one of the many manifestations of ahankaar . The entire conversation revolves around ahankaar , whether addressed directly or indirectly, and Krishna offers multiple paths, milestones, and yardsticks to help us transcend it. If we view the Kurukshetra war as a...