Shri Aurobindo said, “The Gita gives us the its psychological foundation with an unsurpassed completeness and clearness”. What did he possibly mean?
Reading Gita gives an insight into the nature of Nature. It gives an individual the power of discrimination. This is how Gita empowers the mind.
- Why should I act?
- How can I reduce or get rid of my fear, ego, passions, bondage, and ignorance?
- How can I handle dejection?
- Can we ever get rid of violence around us?
- Can the world ever be free of injustice?
- What is happiness?
- What is dharma?
- Who is a yogi?
Krishna elaborates on the futility of religious concepts such as worship and rituals, and has established the Self as the only source of lasting happiness.
Gita educates the user about tyaga (relinquishment) and sannyas (renunciation), but with the caveat that “their pursuit cannot be in disharmony with anything else.” Gita is one text that clearly illustrates why even rituals are unable to bring peace and tranquility in life – rituals don’t transform the mind. Gita clearly states that inaction is not an option. Work should not and cannot be abandoned or relinquished. There is no escaping the work.
Nature doesn’t allow relinquishing external work. The art is to do work that is niyatasya (as prescribed) as per the gunas (nature). It is not the work itself, but the attachment to the results of the work that is to be abandoned. Gita provides tools and techniques to tame mind’s internal disturbances and undue attachment, which should be renounced. Mind transcends concepts such as ishta-anishta, paapa-punya, etc. once the concept of dharma is becomes clear and sang-tyaga and phala-tyaga is achieved. Especially, when the fifth factor (panchama) of daivam is understood.
One of the biggest expositions of Gita is about the three fold nature of Nature – sattva, rajas, and tamas, also known as guna-treya. It has a hold on everything about and around us – knowledge, wisdom, will, intelligence. This is the foundation on which humans establish their pursuits in life. It is the awareness, and not a suppression which allows us to transcend these gunas and become happy. As Swami Chinmayananda says, “In the vision of Sri Veda Vyasa, he sees a world-order in which man pursues a way-of-life, wherein the spiritual and the material values are happily wedded to each other.”
Gita not only reassures to us, but constructs in the confidence that solution to all problems in this world lie in our mind and intelligence alone. There cannot be any happiness without sannyas, and there can not be any sannyas without intelligence, which requires discernment. Happiness and cheerfulness requires discernment, which a religion cannot provide. If we use our intelligence and wisdom (vivek) in our actions, dharma is the natural outcome and moksha (liberation from attachment) is the ultimate end result.
The confusion and the struggles on the field of Kurukshetra have a stark similarity to how our own individual lives unfold. Everything we go through emotionally and psychologically on daily basis has been discussed in the Gita.
Then there is the plot itself.
- Why did Krishna choose to talk to Arjuna? Why not to any of the other Pandava brothers? Why did the classroom have to be a battlefield?
- Why did Krishna, having know Arjuna lifelong, choose to withhold his profound wisdom for the battlefront?
- Why did Krishna not try to change Duryodhana?
- Why did others (Drona, Bheesma, etc.) did not have a second thought and doubts about the war? Why were they so resolute and remorseless in facing their grandsons and pupils?
- Arjuna was the the best warrior. Why did he fear? What is fear?
- Are outcomes effort or luck?
The struggling warrior on the battlefield, which Arjuna has been portrayed as, is the struggling individual in the theater of life, that most of us are; certainly that I am. Arjuna has Krishna. But we have nobody – unless we treat Gita as our Krishna. Gita is the text that can help us navigate through our ethical and existential anxieties.
Bhagvada Gita is Prasthana-Trayam together with Upanishads and Brahmasutras. It discusses yoga-shastras, moksha-shastra, sannyas-shastra, and gyan-shastra. It discusses Brahma-vidya. An important aspect of Gita is its profound exposition of maya (unreal).
Bhagavad Gita is the detox that all humanity can benefit from. If nothing else, Gita’s cursory reading will bring a much-needed balance to life. While to a casual reader it is a good exposition of what it means to be spiritual, Gita is all that one needs to actually get on the path of spirituality.
धार्मिक छवियाँ 