Read with Me: Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical poem, translated from Sanskrit by Stephen Mitchell. It is unclear when it was written, though some scholars date it as far back as the fifth century B.C.E., while others date it as late as the first century B.C.E. Revealing the conversation between a distressed Arjuna, the charioteer on the battlefield of Kuru at the start of the war, and the divine Krishna who is God incarnate, the Gita serves as an instruction manual for spiritual practice and a guide to peace of heart. As Arjuna struggles to take up his duty in the war in the face of the imminent death of so many soldiers, he drops his weapons and refuses to fight. This is where Krishna begins a teaching on life, death, duty, non-attachment, the Self, love, spiritual practice, and the vast depth of our physical and spiritual realities. Meaning “Song of the Blessed One,” The Bhagavad Gita is described as, “a love song to both the darkness and the light, to our own true Self in the depths of being…” (23).
This particular passage brings to mind a common saying heard in the church: We are all made in God’s image. In other words, all of the love, wisdom, and peace within God (or Spirit) can be found within us too.
As spirits living a human experience, we naturally experience suffering within the flesh and the mind, creating layer upon layer of inauthenticity which blankets over the divine Spirit within - the one that we so often forget to nourish. Part of what made reading the Gita so powerful for me was the reminder that impermanence is a key element to finding peace in this human life. Impermanence holds a special power that allows joy to live longer as we can better recognize its fleeting nature, and therefore, be more present with it when it visits. On the other hand, sorrow, when recognized as a temporary feeling, can feel much less world-ending for the same reason. When we can release the grip on every emotional reaction that passes through the mind, we can find deeper satisfaction.
Releasing expectations, tapping into inner focus, and living with integrity can free us from the wounds that have the ability to plague our human and eternal lives.
In Chapter 2, after Arjuna agonizes over his duty to kill for the greater good, Krishna speaks on the impermanence of life as a way to illustrate the eternal beings that we truly are. It appears as a paradox, stating that we are both eternal and mortal beings at once.
“Death is certain for the born; / for the dead, rebirth is certain. / Since both cannot be avoided, / you have no reason for your sorrow” (50) [2.23-27].
“Manifest” and “Unmanifest” are concepts introduced to bring to light how impermanent our human lives truly are, yet how unending our spiritual lives are. When we are unborn, we are unmanifest. When we are between birth and death, we are manifest.
The unmanifest is ever-present, even after death. It is described as a sort of void that our souls dwell in between lifetimes. But because this is a difficult concept for the human mind to grasp without evidence, we experience grief and deep suffering when death touches our lives. This passage on the eternal state of spirits could bring peace, or at least some healing, to those experiencing grief, as it illustrates how that pain is the result of an impermanent loss of life.
The stanzas on religion resonated with me as well. As someone who grew up in a strict religious household, I was reminded of what led me away from organized religion around 19 years old. Though I couldn’t articulate it for a few years, I can better understand my thinking in hindsight. The single-minded approach to something so vast as spirituality was confusing to me. The hypocrisy I witnessed was alarming to me. The expectations and shame were depressing to me. I walked away from Christianity because it left me feeling negatively about myself, and I wasn’t willing to let that be my narrative anymore. I was starting to lose sight of the beauty of connection with Spirit. I was becoming jaded and cynical in response to the behaviors I saw in the Christian community. So I appreciated this passage which shed light on the words I couldn’t quite reach for a long time:
“Foolish men talk of religion / in cheap, sentimental words, / leaning on scriptures: ‘God / speaks here, and speaks here alone.’// Driven by desire for pleasure / and power, caught up in ritual, / they strive to gain heaven: but rebirth / is the only result of their striving” (53-54) [2.42-43].
In this, Krishna expresses the importance of recognizing how immense Spirit truly is, because no single-minded belief can ever capture God’s vastness. And further, no amount of performance or striving to reach God in this impermanent human life can ever bring a person to eternal life. Acting for the sake of results is consistent with rajas, one of the three gunas introduced later in Chapter 14.
“Rajas is marked by passion / born of craving and attachment; / it binds the embodied Self / to never-ending activity” (158) [14.7].
Later, Krishna describes rajasic worship and charity, two behaviors not only expected, but openly praised in the church. Rajasic worship searches to gain the respect of others, or the illusion of righteousness. Rajasic charity is “given halfheartedly, with the thought of securing some favor in return or to gain some spiritual merit” (p. 179) [17.21]. I can say I definitely found evidence of this kind of behavior in my experience with Christianity throughout my early life.
Toward the end of this chapter, we are reminded of how important it is to practice detachment. Acting with attachment to our actions’ results, we are imprisoned by expectation and disappointment. True peace is in acting for the sake of acting. Renouncing craving and attachment creates serenity. To find focus in the mind despite wandering senses – without craving and attachment – is to find peace.
Letting all the distractions, possessions, beliefs, and thoughts blow away in the wind leaves space in the mind to be truly free. This is the divine state. This is bliss. This is the eighth limb of yoga, Samadhi.
Chapters 3-6 illuminate the various ways that yoga can be practiced through action, wisdom, renunciation, and meditation. Krishna describes the yoga of understanding and the yoga of action as the two main paths a person can take. I relate it to the energy of yin and yang. Both must be present for a person to access divinity. Focusing too heavily on action creates an enslaved kind of mindset constantly pulled in various directions – a symptom of the guna, rajas. But focusing too heavily on renunciation and overthinking can lead to inaction – a symptom of the guna, tamas.
Instead, action for the sake of fulfilling your duty is a symptom of sattva, and is encouraged by Krishna. This kind of action renounces desire, which “dwells in the senses, the mind, and the understanding,” obscuring inner knowledge and blanketing over the highest Self. Krishna embraces the importance of the Svadhyaya, or self-study. I agree with this sentiment because I believe that by knowing oneself deeply, a person can release comparison, expectation, craving, and desire.
Operating on a level of high self-awareness, self-understanding, self-acceptance, and self-love can create a harmonious lifestyle that allows someone to act out of integrity and truth.
“It is better to do your own duty / badly, than to perfectly do / another’s; you are safe from harm / when you do what you should be doing” (68) [3.35].
Krishna states that, “no one who does good work will come to an evil end” (96). Wisdom is the goal of all action. Right action is defined by this detachment from results and is rooted in serenity and wisdom, selfless in its nature. Wrong action is defined by one of the two lower gunas. Seeking pleasure from external objects is denounced by Krishna, a reminder that impermanence is the only permanent concept we have in this lifetime.
Everything has its beginning and end, so attaching to outcomes or material objects is fruitless.
Allowing the ego, the enemy of the Self, to prevail, takes us away from our own divinity. Finding pleasure within – with the everlasting spirit that is the Self – is encouraged. This brought to mind a mantra I use often in my practice: “In honoring me, I honor you.” When I repeat this, I remind myself that the Self, the spirit, the divinity in me is an extension of something far bigger than me alone. And when I honor myself, I honor that higher being within. Yoga and mindfulness is a form of self-love that has freed me from self-loathing by tuning me into a spiritual experience that brings me so much more fulfillment than anything I can seek outside of myself. The yoga of meditation is a path to deeper self-understanding, and therefore, deeper understanding of Spirit. Without self-restraint, it is impossible to wrangle the busy mind. But the effort it takes is worth the blissful reward.
Chapters 8-11 describe Krishna’s vastness, as well as the Manifest and Unmanifest. Krishna states that a person’s focus at the end of their life is a direct path to the state of being that their spirit will go. These souls are essentially recycled again and again, returning to this material world, “shuttling from death to death” (113). But those whose minds are focused on Spirit, or Self, will reach eternal bliss – and can even touch it while in their human lifetime. In Chapter 12, Arjuna learns that a steady focus on Spirit is the path to the Unmanifest. Rather than seeking heaven, we are asked to seek Spirit within ourselves. And by doing so, we will naturally find eternal life, because this is where Spirit dwells. We are asked to be devoted, detached from outcomes, and wisely discerning in actions. But surrender is described as the best action of all because surrendering the fruits of action allows us to be steadfast and detached.
In Chapters 13-16 of the Gita, Krishna describes the difference between Nature and Self, as well as the three gunas that keep us from connection with Self while creating demonic traits in their worst manifestations. The analogy of the field and its Knower is introduced in Chapter 13. The field is the body, tied to physicality and nature, while the Knower is the Self, tied to spirituality and higher realms. The field is an approachable concept because it is what we are the most familiar with in our humanity. It is composed of the senses, the mind, desire and aversion, pleasure and pain, consciousness and unconsciousness. But the Knower, because of its distinctiveness from the familiar physical realm, is something a bit more esoteric. However, the stanzas describing the Self offer three succinct answers.
In answer to the question, who is the Self, we find:
“It is called the witness, the consenter, / the sustainer, the enjoyer, the great Lord, / and also the highest Self, / the supreme Person in this body” (154) [13.22].
In answer to the question, why does the Self matter, we find:
“He who thus knows the Self / as separate from Nature and the gunas / will never be born again, / whatever path he may follow” (154) [13.23].
In answer to the question, how is the Self found, we find:
“By meditation, some men / can see the Self in the self; / others, by the yoga of knowledge; / others, by selfless action” (154) [13.24].
The path toward bliss relies on detaching from our impermanent fields while diving deeply into the Self, who is untainted by its dwelling in a body. Releasing the pulls of Nature, from which the three gunas are born, is key to finding inner peace. Sattva is untainted, bound by knowledge and joy. Rajas is craving and attachment, bound by constant activity. Tamas is ignorant, bound by dullness and indolence. People who die with sattva go upward, while those who die with rajas remain in between, and those who die with tamas sink downward.
The saying, “You reap what you sow,” is evident in these stanzas where Krishna describes the way that our actions lead us down inevitable paths. Detachment is a superpower. The ultimate person, described in Chapter 15, holds this power and remains in touch with their highest Self.
“He who is unattached, / who is not disturbed by the gunas, / who is firmly rooted and knows / that only the gunas are acting, // who is equally self-contained / in pain or pleasure, in happiness / or sorrow, who is content / with whatever happens, who sees // dirt, rocks, and gold as equal, / who is unperturbed amid praise / or blame of himself, indifferent / to honor and to disgrace, // serene in success and failure, / impartial to friend and foe, / unattached to action - that man / has gone beyond the three gunas. // He who faithfully serves me / with the yoga of devotion, going / beyond the three gunas, is ready / to attain the ultimate freedom” (162) [14.23-26].
Chapter 16, “Divine Traits and Demonic Traits,” struck me as one of the most powerful and relevant chapters in the Gita. In this section, Krishna describes the traits of people who are so deeply entrenched in the three gunas that they take on extreme levels of “hypocrisy, insolence, anger, cruelty, ignorance, [and] conceit…” (170).
These demonic men are trapped in a prison of their own making – one characterized by suffering. They lack morals, integrity, truth, knowledge, and the saddest of all, they lack love.
They are enslaved, lost, ignorant, craving, attached, and greedy. They cling to their every desire, delusional in their search for power, or peace, or love. At worst, they are capitalistic, genocidal, narcissistic, egotistical, and doomed. They hate their own spiritual being, and those of others. And so, they rob themselves of empathy in exchange for arrogance, lust, and rage. Through the never ending cycles of birth, they are rewarded with death. In this way, their karma is delivered each and every time they are born to “demonic wombs, deluded in birth after birth,” never reaching eternal bliss (173). They continue sinking lower into depravity because they do not seek knowledge of Self. This is their hell.
“Bewildered by endless thinking, / entangled in the net of delusion, / addicted to desire, they plunge / into the foulest of hells” (172) [16.16]...“This is the soul-destroying / threefold entrance to hell: / desire, anger, and greed. / Every man should avoid them” (173) [16.21].
In reading this chapter, I was eerily reminded of the world powers that hold the fate of humanity in their hands at this point in history. I found myself despairing at how accurately the descriptions of these demonic men match with the behaviors and beliefs of the people we rely on in our governments. However, knowing that this lifetime is not permanent brought me some peace. Knowing that these people are already suffering their punishment – that karmic justice forces them to continue to cycle through lives full of suffering – brought me some relief. I felt a sense of comfort in reading these passages and finding that I can’t relate to the behaviors of these demonic people. In the final line of the chapter, Krishna guides us to simply act uprightly in the world. This straightforward command is one that I respect and believe in.
The final chapters of the Gita focus on the three kinds of faith driven by the gunas, and how to live a life that is rooted in sattva. In the ways we worship, nourish our bodies, communicate, seek control, and give charity, we can find one of the gunas present in our action. I found the chapter on this topic fascinating in its relatability. I know that I’ll often think of the three gunas in nearly every task now that I have this understanding of human nature.
And with all of our actions, we are called to renounce and to relinquish. The difference between the two is important to note. Renunciation is to give up desire-bound actions, while relinquishing is to give up the results of all actions. Non-attachment is once again described as a key to finding freedom and peace. Attachment to expectation or outcome is a prison of deep regret because if we cling to those things, all our actions are doomed to either bring desired, undesired, or mixed results. Even if we get what we desire, our rajasic nature will force us to search for the next desired outcome until we exhaust ourselves with endless tasks and goals. When we get undesired results, our nature will force us to search for the desired outcome yet again, simply out of dissatisfaction. When we get mixed results, our nature will likely force us to do the very same because the craving for perfection is ever-present.
Action is motivated by three things: Knowledge, the known, and the knower. There are also three components of action: Instrument, action, and agent. Krishna expresses that each of these elements is shaped by one of the three gunas and it is our duty to find detachment in each, in a way that is sattvic in nature. With a focus on undivided knowledge, detached agency, moral understanding, and delayed gratification, we can find a sattvic level of peace and joy. And, reassuringly, Krishna states that even if someone doesn’t pursue sattvic behavior in every act, they still have the chance to find this blissful eternal life. It creates a sort of irony for someone to strive for sattva, seeking results and being driven by craving. Instead, the main point here is to simply surrender.
“Even the man who hears it / with faith and an open mind – / he also, released, will go to / the joyous heavens of the pure” (196) [18.71].
Overall, The Bhagavad Gita acts as a beautiful guide to spiritual wellness.
It doesn’t tote itself as a strict set of rules, nor does it create the expectation that a person is to follow every stanza as gospel. It simply lays down wisdom and allows the reader to take what resonates. It serves as a reminder of all the endless life, death, and everything in between held gracefully in the boundlessness of Spirit. It encourages us to go within to find eternal bliss, both here in this realm and in realms we cannot see yet.
