Chapter-13: Prakriti and Purusha / (क्षेत्र क्षेत्रज्ञ विभाग योग)
Arjuna gets interested in learning about Prakriti and Purusha – the Field, and the knower of the Field.
Key concepts introduced in this chapter:
- Krishna describes Kshetra (the Field) as a combination of:
- bhutas (air, water, fire, ether, earth),
- avyakta (unmanifested, the energy or shakti),
- ahamkaar (the cause of 5 bhutas),
- manas (mind),
- buddhi (understanding),
- ten senses of perception and action (ears, eyes, nose, tongue, skin, hands, feet, vocal, reproductive, and excretion organs),
- five objects of the senses (sound, light, smell, taste, touch) and
- modifications (desire, hatred, pleasure, pain, and the combination of body and senses).
- Bhutas, ahamkaar, buddhi, and avyakta (shakti), and the ten senses are known as Prakriti, or Nature, or the Field.
Krishna then differentiates between knowledge and ignorance.
- Humility, modesty, nonviolence, forbearance, and uprightness, service to the teacher, purity, steadfastness, self-control, dispassion towards sense objects, absence of ego, perception of the evil of birth, death, old age, sickness, and pain, non-attachment and non-identification of self with children, wife, home, and the rest, unvarying evenness of mind in agreeable and disagreeable events, meditation on non-separation, resorting to solitude, aversion to unenlightened and undisciplined people, and an understanding of the Self, is declared to be knowledge.
In this conversation of prakriti and purusha, kshetra and khestragya, object and subject, Krishna tells Arjuna the distinction between the “material, biological aggregate” and the “sentient”. But the boundary of the object/kshetra extends beyond the sensory and visible – it includes ego, mind, and intelligence as well. The mind’s creations like desire, happiness, misery, and hatred are also included in the kshetra. Based on this foundation, Krishna enumerates the 20 constituents of spiritual wisdom that include personal, behavioral, and interactional characteristics.
Krishna then describes the supreme Reality – the Brahman (ब्रह्म). In doing so, his intent is not only to give Arjuna a better understanding of this Brahman as non-dual (with no parallel), but also to make him understand why Brahman requires no worship. Rather, it (Brahman, God) requires to be “inquired into, reflected upon, understood, and realized”. Because Brahman is sensorily inert – it doesn’t have sensory powers, it is disassociated with feelings, emotions, and imaginations – it does not care about the happiness, misery, etc. of any human being. That is all mind’s work.
Krishna describes Brahman as something without a beginning, and also something that is neither being or nonbeing. It is something that is everywhere and powers all the existence and creates consciousness. Hence, both, prakriti and purusha are without a beginning. Purusha is entangled in the prakriti and its changes. These changes are in the gunas, and the attachment to these gunas determines future births. So, the path of moksha goes through vairagya (non-attachment) to the prakriti. Thus who knows prakriti, purusha, and gunas is not born again.
Chapter 14: The Three Gunas / (गुणत्रय विभाग योग)
At the end of every Kalpa (100 Brahma years), all beings are dissolved. Souls don’t die, but are injected with new intelligence in the prakriti. All this starts from Hiranyagarbha, the seed of life. There are three gunas that a purusha is bound with: sattva binds by happiness because of knowledge, rajas bind by attachment to action, and tamas binds to sloth, inertia, and inadvertence. The fruit of rajas is pain, and of tamas is ignorance. The prevailing guna at the time of death determines the next birth. Tamas takes us towards beasts, rajas keeps us among humans, and sattva liberates us.
Arjuna then asks how can one spot a human being who has risen above the gunas. Krishna replies that first sign is that an individual doesn’t hate the gunas or longs for them. It is someone who recognizes that gunas are always active. A person who has renounced all undertaking and lets his gunas take charge, one who is the same in honor and dishonor, to a friend and foe, a man of wisdom who sees no difference between praise and blame, remains the same in agreeable and disagreeable circumstances, pleasure and pain, and considers everything to be equally worthy is the one who will become jivanmukta (liberated) while still being in the human body. The one who worships the Brahman – the immortal and the immutable – is the one who is liberated.
Chapter 15: The Supreme Self | (पुरष उत्तम योग)
(This may be the most difficult chapter to understand in the Gita for most readers).
Krishna thus far did not explicitly talked about the Vedas. A doubt may have arisen in Arjuna’s mind – perhaps Krishna is denying or overruling the Vedas. Krishna clarifies that doubt. He explains to him the immutability of the Brahman and tells him how to understand the Self.
Key concepts introduced in this chapter:
- Krishna gives the analogy of an inverted Banyan tree. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad explains this tree as a reflection of an actual tree in water. The reflection (in the material world) is an upside down image of an actual tree from the spiritual world. Just as the reflection of a tree is situated on water, the reflection of the spiritual tree is situation on desire. Those who understand this are able to cut of this reflection (see the actual tree and not the reflection) and they are known as the knower of the Vedas. So, detachment from desire is the key to cut down this inverted (reflected) tree and focus on the actual (spiritual, upright). Freedom from delusion, pride, attachment, desires, and dualities (pleasure and pain, good and bad, happiness and distress, etc.) and to become one with Brahman to never return to this material world as mortals is the needed work.
- Krishna tells Arjuna that the living beings, who are a reflection of the Brahman, are struggling due to their six senses (including the mind, which has three gunas). This extension of Brahman, which we can call life (subtle body) takes on a gross body and migrates to another after the death of a physical body. Just as the wind carries aroma with it from a flower, the soul carries the mind and senses away from a gross body (which we destroy with cremation or burial). (Swami Nikhilananda in his translation of Shankaracharya’s Geeta explain this with an analogy of sun reflecting on water. Consider the water to be the body, Sun to be the Brahman, and the reflection to be the mind and senses. Once the water dries up (death), the reflection (soul with mind and senses) just vanishes. Sun (Brahman) isn’t reduced or enhanced. It stays the same.)
- There’s the perishable body (birth, growth, reproduction, dying, and dead) in the martial realm, and an imperishable body (the subtle body) in the spiritual realm. However, Brahman is beyond the perishable and the imperishable; it is immutable. It is the Supreme Self, the purushottama, or Krishna himself. Krishna then explains to Arjuna how He (Brahman) is the all pervading light of the universe that sustains and nourishes all life. Whoever understands this truth is the knower of everything and understands the Self.
After having made a distinction between the prakriti and the purusha, Krishna laid the foundation of concepts such as the jiva, atma, paramatma, and Ishvara.
Chapter 16: Divine and Demoniac / (देवासुर सम्पदविभाग योग)
Krishna tells Arjuna that he is born of divine qualities. He points out that the demoniacs (asura) believe that the world is devoid of truth, doesn’t have a moral basis, and is without God. They also think that lust is the only reason for this world. These people strive by unjust means to amass wealth for the satisfaction of their passions. Krishna highlights lust, wrath, and greed as the three demonic attributes and tells Arjuna that such folks are born as animals in their next lives. Krishna reminds Arjuna that Vedas should be the guide for Karma Yoga.
Key concepts introduced in this chapter:
- The divine qualities are fearlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness in knowledge and yoga, charity, self-control, sacrifice, study of scriptures, austerity, uprightness, non-violence, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, tranquility, aversion to slander, compassion to beings and freedom from covetousness, gentleness, modesty, and absence of fickleness, courage, forgiveness, fortitude, purity, freedom from malice and overweening pride.
- Krishna defines demoniac qualities as ostentation, arrogance, self-conceit, anger, rudeness and ignorance.
- Krishna points out that the demoniacs believe that the world is devoid of truth, doesn’t have a moral basis, and is without God. They also think that lust is the only reason for this world. These people strive by unjust means to amass wealth for the satisfaction of their passions. Krishna tells Arjuna that such folks are born as animals in their next lives.
Chapter 17: The Three Modes / (श्रद्धात्रय विभाग योग)
Arjuna asks Krishna how he’d classify those who ignore the Vedas and find their own way of worship. Are they in sattva, rajas, or tamas? Krishna’s message in this chapter is that sharaddha (devotion, and attention) without understanding the three modes of sattva, rajas, and tamas is as good as non-existent. Shraddha (devotion, and attention) is fruitful only when a devotee is in the mode of sattva. Krishna talks about worship, food, and charity. Krishna also warns Arjuna against indiscriminate charity.
Key concepts introduced in this chapter:
- Krishna says that every individual’s faith is as per that person’s natural disposition – sattva, rajas, or tamas. Accordingly, those in rajas worship demons and those who are in tamas worship ghosts and spirits. Those who are in sattva worship the different devs such as Brahma, Indra, Chandra, and Siva. Then there are those who torture their bodies, and subject themselves to austerities that are not ordained by the vedas – these are induced by attachments and lust. Those are the asuras (demons).
- Even food preferences are determined by the three modes of material nature. Those in sattva prefer food that is juicy, fatty, wholesome and pleasing because it promotes longevity and gives health, strength, and happiness. Those in rajas prefer bitter, sour, salty, hot and pungent food, which causes pain, disease and grief. Stale, unclean, putrid, and tasteless food is preferred by people who are endowed with tamas. Then Krishna tells Arjuna about three types of yagyaas (sacrifice) and three kinds of tapas (austerities) of body (cleanliness, behavior, etc.), speech (truth, pleasing, regulated, etc.) and mind (silence, free of thoughts of sense enjoyment). Charity as well has its three modes, where it can be given for pride, honor and respect (rajas), with an expectation of a return or grudgingly with a lack of respect (tamas), or charity can be done for a worthy person as a sense of duty without an expectation of a return (sattva). Krishna warns Arjuna against indiscriminate charity.
- Krishna also educates Arjuna on the threefold designation of Brahman. Om Tat Sat, which can loosely be translated to “Yes, that is the absolute reality”. Any action done without faith in “Om Tat Sat” is asat (futile or not performed).
Shraddha has been described using two english words. Prabhupada uses the word ‘devotion’, while Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha uses the word ‘attention’. The idea is still the same – when you are in shraddha, you are paying attention, looking well, looking deep, looking with intent – you are devoted. This is important because Krishna tells Arjuna:
श्रद्धामयोऽयं पुरुषो
“Everyone is what his attention is.” – Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
A person’s life is an expression of the attention (s)he is paying to the world around and inside of her/him.
This chapter is quite an exposition of Krishna’s guna-traya philiosphy. Everything in this Brahman has sattva, rajas, and tamas; including sharaddha. That is why some worship devas, some worship yakshas and rakshasas, while others worship pretas and bhuta-ganas.
As Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha explains it, “The biological aggregate, called the body, is merely a complex instrument in the hands of inner mind and intelligence.” This is the reason Krishna highlights the play of guna-traya not only in worship, but also in aahaar (food), yajnas (sacrifice), and vaakya (speech).
The true focus of shraddha is the mind. It is about bhaava-samshuddhi (mind’s purity) to a point where it has no “wrong expectations and specific preferences” and becomes “pure, gentle, sublime, and wholesome”. Krishna clearly warns Arjuna that ashraddha (inattention, lack of devotion) leads to downfall of human.
Chapter 18: Renunciation / (मोक्ष-सन्यास योग)
So far in his conversation, Krishna used the words sanyaas and tyaag interchangeably. Arjuna now wants to know the distinction between the two. Krishna highlights the difference – sanyaas is to not be induced to work by desire, and tyaag is surrendering the fruit of your labor. Krishna then unifies the two concepts into one by saying that every work should be done without attachment and desire for fruit – even tyaaga (sacrifice), dana (gift), and tapas (austerity). In other words, Krishna is warning Arjuna that even the attachment to the outcome of sacrifice, gift, and austerity will lead to bondage.
Key concepts introduced in this chapter:
- Do not abandon yagya, dana, and tapas. Rather even in those activities have no sanga – expect no results.
- Nature does not allow for abandonment of action. The key is not to abandon action but to do the action as prescribed for your gunas. Then abandon sanga and maintain samaatva. Sanga-tyaga and phala-tyaga is the key.
- Always remember that in addition to the body, the doer, the senses, and the effort itself, there is an unseen fifth factor (panchama), known as daivam or providence, which determines the outcome of an activity.
Krishna warns to not forego obligatory action (e.g. worship, feeding animals, hospitality to the guests, etc.), which he classifies as abandonment and declares to be the nature of tamas. If someone gives up obligatory action because it is painful, that is rajas. Sattva is doing obligatory action just because it has to be done, but without attachment and desire for its fruit. This is Karma Yoga. So, renunciation is not abandoning the work, rather it is the act of renouncing the fruit of action. Krishna then reveals what accomplishment of any work requires – the body, doer, different senses, various functions of vital breaths (prana – out going breath, apana – incoming breath), and the presiding deity, which is the unseen power or consciousness which enables the senses and organs. Aditya (Sun), for example, is the presiding deity of the eye by whose aid it sees and acts. (Recognition of these five factors behind any action frees an individual from the myth of I-consciousness. This is an important topic to pay attention to. It puts to rest a lot of confusion around concepts such as destiny and luck. Acknowledging the fifth factor, panchama, is also a big aide in abandoning the false sense of doership.)
Knowledge, the object of the knowledge, and the knower are the three threefold basis of action. Krishna then differentiates between the three types of knowledge – of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Knowledge of the Brahman, the non-dual oneness and undecidedness of all is the knowledge characterized by sattva. On the other hand, the knowledge by which we see things as different from one another in different bodies is the knowledge characterized by rajas. E.g. if you see the happiness in one body as different from the happiness of other body, this is your knowledge characterized by rajas. Knowledge that come from one single effect (one body, one image), without reason, without foundation in truth is tamas. In other words, if you think that the Brahman exists in one body only and other other, or if you think that god is in one moorti (idol) only and not the other, than this is tamsic knowledge.
Krishna then moves on to discuss the concept of happiness and tells Arjuna that all happiness lies within the self and not outside. This happiness can also be categorized into the happiness of sattva, rajas, and tamas. That happiness which is a result of the clear knowledge of the Self is sattvic happiness. It has to be attained through the knowledge of Truth, renunciation of worldly objects, meditation and concentration. This is arduous and therefore painful at the beginning. But these are the hallmarks of sattvic happiness. Sensuous happiness, which is a result of the body or the senses coming in contact with objects is the happiness of rajas. It is poisonous at the end because it leads to loss of energy, strength, vigor, wisdom, intelligence, etc. Any happiness that is delusional both in the beginning and the end and which springs from sleep, sloth and error is the happiness of tamas.
Next Krishna delves into the topics of gunas (sattva, rajas, and tamas) and classes of people (brahmins, kshatriyas, vaisyas, and shudras). He tells Arjuna that the duties of each of these classes of people are determined by the gunas they have. Brahmins have sattva, Kshatriyas have rajas and sattva (rajas influencing sattava), Vaisyas have rajas and tamas (rajas influencing tamas), and Sudras have rajas and tamas (tamas influencing rajas). Arjuna learns that this is the reason behind the prescribed duties of Brahmins of control of mind, senses, austerity, knowledge and faith. Similarly, Kshatriyas are prescribed the duties of heroism, generosity, sovereignty, firmness. Vaisyas duties includes agriculture, cattle rearing, and trade. But most importantly, these duties are born of the nature. Sudras duties include service to other classes of people. Krishna then tells Arjuna that performing these prescribed duties leads to fitness of body and senses that is conducive to build devotion to knowledge. This duty performed as an act of worship without desire for result is what leads to knowledge (perfection). Following your own dharma, even though it may be imperfect, is better than following somebody else’s dharma.
Arjuna is then told how to become worthy of becoming one with Brahman. It is by having the right understanding (buddhi), restraint, abandonment of love and hate, controlled speech, body and mind, freedom from passion, and forsaking conceit and power, pride and lust, wrath and possessions, free of ego and with tranquility in heart, treating all beings alike and with no grief and desire.
At this point in time, Krishna tells Arjuna to reflect on all what he said, but act as he wants. It was left upto Arjuna to choose the right and reject the wrong.
This is where Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna concludes. But Krishna wants to leave some Arjuna with some rules about his message. He tells Arjuna to not speak of The Gita to anybody who is not ready – who lacks austerity, devotion, or who is just not ready to listen.
Krishna asks Arjuna if his delusion has been destroyed. To this Arjuna responds that he is free of doubt and understand the true nature of the Self.
Sanjaya who was narrating The Gita to King Dhritarashtra tells him that the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna has caused his hair to rise. Sanjaya called Krishna the “Lord of Yoga”, and declared that Pandavas (Arjuna and his brother, with Krishna) will have the right conduct, fortune, victory and prosperity.
धार्मिक छवियाँ 