Oh Vāsudeva sutaṁ devam kaṁsa-cāṇūra-mardanam
Devakī-paramānandam kṛṣṇaṁ vande jagadgurum
We studied the second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita, Shri Krishna’s teaching on Jnani yoga - the nature of the self. Who am I? What am I actually? That is now over. The next great subject, the next great theme of the second chapter is karma yoga. That’s going to come later, but in between there is an interlude where Shri Krishna is going to talk some common sense to Arjuna. So that’s the part we are at. The verses are simple, meaning is also simple. Not much philosophy in there, but we will ignore those verses or dismiss them lightly at our own peril. Often, probably to put our life back in shape, this is exactly what we need. So let’s hear what Sri Krishna has to say.
We saw in the last class the 31st verse:
“Svadharmam api cāvekṣya na vikampitum arhasi
Dharmyād dhi yuddhāc chreyo ‘nyat kṣatriyasya na vidyate”
Immediately he says that considering your duty, you should not hesitate to perform this admittedly terrible duty of fighting a righteous war against evil, because there is no greater good fortune for a Kshatriya (warrior) than a righteous battle. Now here the key concept is of svadharma, and last time we discussed it. I’m not going to go deep into it. That’s the basis on which Krishna is going to argue his case - not now on the basis of high philosophy or Vedanta, but on the basis of morality and the sense of honor, sense of dignity and duty. So that’s what’s going to happen now for the next few verses up to verse 38, before he switches to the next great teaching of karma yoga.
Verse number 32:
“Yadṛcchayā copapannaṁ svarga-dvāram apāvṛtam
Sukhinaḥ kṣatriyāḥ pārtha labhante yuddham īdṛśam”
“O Partha (Arjuna), happy are the Kshatriyas who get such a battle, which comes unsought as an open door to heaven.”
So here, if you read closely, you’ll notice something interesting in the language that Krishna uses. I had mentioned it last time that often these verses are a direct answer to certain questions that Arjuna had raised in what we saw in the first chapter - his objections to what he’s supposed to do right now. His objections, the language he used. For example, look at this verse: “Sukhinaḥ kṣatriyāḥ pārtha”. He says, “O Arjuna, happy indeed is the warrior who gets an occasion like this, a duty which is so clear.”
Now, “happy is the warrior” - if you contrast this with Chapter 1, Verse 37, Arjuna had asked a question:
Kathaṁ bhīṣmam ahaṁ saṅkhye droṇaṁ ca madhusūdana
Iṣubhiḥ pratiyotsyāmi pūjārhāv arisūdana
“How can we be happy by killing our own relatives?” Which seemed like a very pertinent question. But look at the language he used. He said, “How can we be happy if I do this?” And what is Krishna saying here? “Happy indeed is the warrior who gets a chance to do this.”
See how the whole picture changes when the little self - self with a small ‘s’ - is removed from the picture. With what kind of mindset had Arjuna approached this battle? He thought he was going to take revenge on the Kauravas for all the wrongs they had done him. That is true, they had wronged him. He was going to get the kingdom which was righteously his and his brothers’. But notice, and there’s nothing wrong in this, you can’t find fault with it, it’s common sense. But in a deeper analysis, it reveals one thing: it is all self-centered. It’s all self-centered. “I will take revenge. I want revenge. I will get the kingdom for myself and my elder brother and my brothers because it is our kingdom.”
Now what happens is, when suddenly the little self gets a shock - “my relatives” - see, it’s still the self - “my relatives, what will I do with the kingdom?” This is the framework he is thinking in now. The same thing which was an incentive for him to fight a battle has now become a disincentive. He’s no longer feeling motivated because he says, “I don’t want revenge at this cost.” He says, “What is the use of a kingdom drenched in the blood of our relatives?” But what is he thinking? Kingdom for myself. And so, what is the use of getting such a kingdom?
What Krishna is now doing is reframing the entire problem, not in terms of the little self of Arjuna, but in terms of what should be done, what is the duty of a warrior in this situation. It is to protect society from evildoers, and not because you are going to personally take revenge on those guys. Okay, those guys are villains, but not because you are going to take revenge on them or you don’t want to take revenge on them. No, in any case, you are appointed by society to protect it. This is what you have to do. It is not relevant then whether they are your relatives or not. If a policeman starts thinking, “How can I arrest this guy? He is my brother or he is my nephew,” then society is in deep trouble.
So he is reframing it in terms of ethics and an impersonal code of ethics and duty. And of course, it’s the direct answer to Arjuna’s questions also. “Yadṛcchayā” - without any effort, you have got this tremendous opportunity to make your life meaningful. You are a warrior, you have got a particular duty in society, and now an opportunity has come. How many people get an opportunity to do something good and great in their life? Here you are being called upon to do something, rise to the occasion. And it’s a very beautiful phrase: “Svarga-dvāram apāvṛtam” - without any effort, the gates of heaven have swung open for you.
Here he means it in a particular context of Arjuna’s battle, but it is true for all of us in the wider context of spiritual life. See, literally the gates of heaven in the sense of spiritual life, liberation, moksha, God realization - those gates have swung open for us. What a great blessing it is to hear this message, to have this opportunity, to have a mind which wants to pursue this. We all do, otherwise you wouldn’t be here today. You are all spiritual seekers in some sense.
What Krishna is telling us is: recognize the great blessing that is here. You’re all idealists. You might not think of yourself, “Oh Swami, not me.” You are. I forget the name of the book, a very recent book - Mark Edmundson, I think, “In Defense of Ideals: Self and Ideals.” It’s a very recent book. I read the book review and I was browsing through the book itself. The first page was so shocking. I don’t remember the exact language, but it could go something like this. He says the day of ideals is long past. We live in an eminently pragmatic age where everybody wants to know how to be successful in society, how to make a little more money, how to get the pleasure and the power and the wealth that one can get. Whatever helps me to get that is practical; whatever does not is irrelevant to me and silly and meaningless at worst. Ideals have been dismissed as delusional or not practical, not useful.
Then he goes on to say that the knowledge we consider to be useful in society - we mean especially advanced societies like this, and where more so than in New York - the knowledge that we consider to be useful is not spiritual knowledge, is not philosophical knowledge, is not religious knowledge, not knowledge about higher ideals and ethics. No, what we consider to be useful is what is immediately helpful to us to attain our hedonistic goals. Some kind of practical knowledge is in enormous demand. To be practical, practical, practical - in what? Practical to do what? To earn a few dollars more, to enhance my pleasures, the central sign of the pleasures of my senses. That’s what the meaning of practical is today.
And then he goes on in the next paragraph to say: academia today, if you go to college or university today, they will relieve you of the guilt of not being idealistic. Oh, it is - anybody who’s taken a degree today in sociology or philosophy, in modern philosophy, the cleverest of philosophers are on your side to show that any kind of ideals is foolishness. Those who follow ideals, idealism is somehow seen as delusional. Those who follow ideals are either hypocrites or cheats, or they are stupid. All of them will create views, use all their intellectual prowess to create doubt about whether any kind of idealism, including of course religion, all of that - so the whole book is actually a defense of being idealistic in the modern age.
He says as a result of this, what we have got is - he says we’ve got poison. As a result of this, he quotes Nietzsche, who was at the source of all of this today, but he himself did not approve of it. He said this is what’s going to happen in the wake of what he called the death of God. It’s going to happen, but he was not in support of this. He says modern man - and modern meant at that time 200 years ago - he says modern man has his poisons for the day and poisons for the night. The way we keep ourselves engaged in, you know, forgetting anything higher and grander and transcendental - everything here and now, finished.
So Krishna is saying here how lucky we are that we have a mind which believes, which feels there is something transcendental. Can you hear me at the back? Yeah. That there is something transcendental, there is something higher. Call it God, call it moksha, call it liberation, whatever - salvation - but something beyond the world of senses. We truly believe it. We truly believe a spiritual solution for the suffering of life is possible.
In that book, Mark Edmundson goes on to talk about Buddha, Confucius, and Christ as embodying the spiritual ideal. He says so we are blessed that we have a mind which has this feeling that the spiritual ideal is possible, and it is for me, and it is helpful to me, it’s real for me and helpful to me.
“Sukhinaḥ kṣatriyāḥ pārtha labhante yuddham īdṛśam” - happy here. Krishna, of course, means it in a slightly narrower sense that for you, your life will become meaningful if you fulfill your role as a warrior in a good cause. All of us are not called - very few of us are called to be warriors, but in each of our professions, personal life, in professional life, we are continuously faced with this decision between what is called śreya and preya. Śreya means that which is good for us and for society, beneficial. I know what is right. Preya is that which is easy, that which is pleasant. And often the two are not the same.
Often that which is easy and pleasant - I know, nobody has to tell me, I know that if I complete my assignment tonight, that’s the thing I should be doing and not watching a game on TV or binge-watching my favorite soap opera. You know, I know. Nobody has to tell me, really. But that one is difficult, and being a couch potato is easy. Śreya and preya - I know, really, nobody has to tell me this.
So this is what Krishna is pointing out. Suppose one does not do this, if one does not follow this path of śreya, that which is beneficial for me, then what will happen?
33rd verse:
“Atha cet tvaṁ imaṁ dharmyaṁ saṅgrāmaṁ na kariṣyasi
Tataḥ sva-dharmaṁ kīrtiṁ ca hitvā pāpam avāpsyasi”
If you do not do that which is before you right now, then you will:
Pāpa - remember that in India, it’s a common idea, the law of karma. The law of karma is: if you do what is right, you know what is right and you do it, that is called dharma. And if you do something, that has an effect. The effect of doing dharma is called puṇya, and that puṇya gives rise to a result in your life. The result of puṇya - put literally, if you translate, puṇya means merit. The result of merit is sukha - happiness.
If I consciously, deliberately do what I know to be wrong, that is called adharma - not dharma, adharma. And the result of adharma is what is called pāpa - demerit. That’s the closest word we have to sin - demerit. And the demerit will give rise to an effect in our lives which is called duḥkha - suffering, some kind of suffering.
So all the suffering and happiness that we get in our lives is due to puṇya and pāpa, and in earlier lives maybe. And that puṇya and pāpa, merit and demerit, is earned by our own righteous conduct or unrighteous conduct. And here Krishna is saying not only will you fail in your duty, not only will you lose your reputation, but you also positively incur adharma - that is pāpa. As a result of pāpa’s duḥkha, suffering, you will get suffering as a result of this.
This is an argument based on appealing to a person’s sense of duty, sense of honor. You will lose your reputation. Often we say, why should we care what other people think of you? Krishna will say people will criticize you. We should - why should you care? This is true in one sense, but it’s also not true in another sense. Our reputation in society is good feedback. But today we might call it feedback. Often we are delusional about ourselves. What other people say - you don’t have to swallow it completely, but check: is it true? To what extent is it true?
Swami Vivekananda said unselfishness in the long run is more paying, but it requires maturity to understand that. We think if I am selfishly pursuing the goal - what’s the goal? Make number one happy. Who’s number one? I. Make this number one happy, then everything will be alright. You keep trying, and it doesn’t work. This number one is a black hole. Can’t be filled with anything. At one point, the maturity must come: I will do something for others.
See, a lot of work has recently been done - these are very old things, but in a modern form, positive psychology is working on this. So in positive psychology, Seligman - Martin Seligman, “Authentic Happiness” - there are websites you can go and take the test and find out how happy you are. You’re guaranteed to be less happy after the test than - here, you know, very interesting tests.
What Seligman found was - to put it very briefly, he said happiness is a function of three things. H is equal to P plus E plus M. Happiness is a function of pleasure, engagement, meaning. Pleasure, engagement, meaning.
Pleasure is the first thing that we try to do when we - I want to be happy. So eat a cookie and go to your favorite restaurant or watch a movie. The - what we run towards to become happy is pleasure. And it does give an immediate burst of happiness, some kind of little elevation. It gives, but it’s very limited. It’s very limited. Why? First of all, it’s transitory. The happiness that you get from eating a cookie is just a few seconds. Once it’s down your gullet, it’s gone. The happiness is gone. Unhappiness starts after that.
Then it’s habit-forming. Next time you need more of that or better variety of that. The law of diminishing marginal utility in economics - each unit you consume gives you less and less satisfaction. So first cookie gives you a lot of happiness, second one little less, third one little less, fourth one nothing at all, fifth one you feel sick. So diminishing marginal utility.
Because of these reasons, and then there’s so many other problems - for example, we change. Same thing which used to give - make you happy when you’re a teenager no longer makes you happy. It will just irritate you. The same - our capacities are limited. How much will you eat? How many movies will you watch? How many vacations will you take? Take - capacity to enjoy - you get exhausted. You’ll get tired. You will finally break down if you try to consume too much.
So all of these are limited, and therefore pleasure is not the - not the solution for in our search for happiness. Luckily, there is something better. Seligman says engagement. Engagement is much greater. Happiness comes when you like what you are doing. If you are one of those fortunate people who enjoy your careers, whatever you’re doing - it need not be a career. Sometimes if you don’t enjoy the work that you’re doing, hobby - people take up hobbies because of that. An activity - see the difference between engagement and pleasure is this: watching a game on TV is pleasure; going out and playing the game is engagement. This is the difference. Actually playing a game out there might not be all pleasurable. It’s hard work, but it gives happiness. It gives satisfaction.
And so Seligman found invariably engagement would give more satisfaction than pleasure. Remember the equation: H, happiness, total happiness is equal to - on one side is H, on the other side of the equation is pleasure, engagement, meaning. Engagement gives more happiness, lasting happiness, compared to pleasure.
But even there, there is a limit. What - workaholic people are - they work day and night. But there are many people who, after retirement, they break down because there is nothing more in life. They feel meaningless, helpless. Nervous breakdown, burnout - what is the term? Burnout. Hmm.
There is something which gives more happiness than even engagement. What is that? Meaning. A purpose, a higher purpose in life. A meaningful life - usually not always, but usually meaning always involves - usually involves other people, where you can do something for other people. So he said happiness is a function of pleasure, engagement, meaning. Pleasure gives momentary, immediate bursts of happiness, but it’s very little and it’s very problematic. Engagement gives more happiness than pleasure. And meaning in life, if you are lucky and fortunate enough to find a meaningful and purposeful life - and one clue to that, how to find meaning in your life, is what can I do for other people? How can I make other people happy? That will immediately give meaning to your life.
So these three - now when I read this, immediately what came to my mind was pleasure, engagement, meaning. Do you see kāma, artha, dharma? Kāma is pleasure, literally. You can map it. Engagement is artha. Artha literally means wealth, but it means career, success, name and fame in a general sense. Artha is overall success and attainments in life. Higher than that, meaning and dharma - I have to stretch. Dharma is a wide term, but you can stretch it to morality, meaning a purposeful life. Mokṣa is beyond these three. Seligman does not include mokṣa. --- HERE
So these three - that’s why - and that’s at certain point in life, you have to go beyond pleasure and your career. You have to expand outwards into what is called dharma. That gives more satisfaction.
We have gone way off topic. Oh no, not really. We have - yeah, it’s true. It’s a good way to think. And not as happy as I want to be. All right, let me check. Yes. Then these are good slogans, but what do you mean, follow your heart? And how many people can follow their heart? What Arjuna would say - my heart tells me that I will not fight this battle, and I want to become - I’ll go to the Himalayas and meditate. Disastrous for him and for everybody else concerned.
Yes, there’s a point to that because when Krishna said svabhāva, your own nature, your heart - oh, if consistently if it’s telling you something, that’s probably your own nature. Yeah, so that’s something to listen to. In this society especially, especially for the last 30 to 40 years, young people have been continuously told that - won’t find your meaning in life, find your purpose in life, find what - to find your passion in life. But there’s a pressure. And I can’t find any passion in life, so I am a loser.
What Krishna says here is go back to the basics. Are you doing what you’re supposed to be doing? How are the basics in your life? Have you fulfilled your responsibilities? What is the feedback from other people in society about you? Are those things okay? Then after that, you search for your passion in life.
In Indian society, at least - it’s changing now, but until recently, it was just the opposite. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. In Indian society, I know if a kid said, “Oh, I’m going to drop out of college and I’m going to paint or play the guitar” - “What are you doing?” “Following your passion?” You’d be condemned all around because a good kid is the one who studies, fulfills his duties, his or her duties in life, what is expected from parents and from the society and all of that. If you have done that, you can take satisfaction in having done what you’re supposed to be doing. And there’s a negative side to that also. There’s a negative side to that. So there are these two opposites. --- HERE
Yes, where you are going, even if you don’t do it, you don’t know. All right. It is important to have a high goal in life, to have a high goal in life. These are the things which help us. That will - should the goal be pleasure? No, because ultimately it will lead to unhappiness. Should the goal be my career, my hobby, my passion? Is little better than pleasure, but ultimately it’s still not enough. Should it be a meaningful life? Yeah. Now what is a meaningful life? That will differ from - and it may differ at different times in our life also. That’s why in India, the highest goal was always kept as spirituality, which is just sheer meaningfulness.
If a person has that, person doesn’t need anything else. Look at somebody like Mahatma Gandhi. So he had this tremendous thing that he is doing for millions of his countrymen, and so he didn’t need fancy clothes. Loincloth was enough for him. He went to meet the - what was that? I think not Churchill - King George. And they asked him, “Mr. Gandhi, do you think this is appropriate?” It’s in the movie, or just happened really. And they do - “Things appropriately dressed to meet the King?” King George, who wore all the medals, and there is a gorgeously dressed - so Gandhi replied, “I think he wore enough for both of us.” Good.
Let’s go and anybody who has found meaning in life. I met a few people at a conference for inspiring young people in India. There were some who were young and had done something interesting in their life which would be inspiring for school or college kids. Among them were a couple of Silicon Valley millionaires who had their own startups and they had given it all up. One was running an NGO in Karnataka to teach school kids in rural Karnataka. Another was engaged in an NGO whose task was to gather used clothes so that they could be given to very poor people who did not have clothes.
Now one thing they were asked - all of them had given up the so-called pleasurable life or even successful life. They had given up pleasure and engagement, and they were doing something else. People were saying, “What a great sacrifice you’ve made.” Wrong. I was a moderator for the discussion, so I asked all of them, the entire panel - all of these people were very motivating people for society. I said, “Do you think you made a sacrifice?” And all of them said no. We have given up something much lower for something much better. People think that you are doing something idealistic and you have made such a sacrifice. No, no. Even if you’re given that old life back, I wouldn’t take it because I’m much happier now.
Why are they happier right now? They are not earning much less than they were earning earlier. They’re having much less parties and fun than they were having earlier. Then how are they happier now? Meaning. The last one in Seligman’s equation: pleasure, engagement, meaning. Your feelings, sustainable feelings over time. If you want a more technical definition, psychologists will call it positive affect, if that helps.
So happiness is not just pleasure. That’s what we just discussed. Not necessarily. A person who has a meaningful life, for example - one example Seligman gives is of moms with young children. Very little of their day-to-day lives is pleasurable, and they are often irritated, overworked. But over the years, if you ask them to look back on the last five years of raising the kid, was it satisfying? Almost all of them will say it was very fulfilling. At any one point, if you ask what is your delta in this inner happiness, they’ll say, “I’m not at all happy. Can’t you see I’m overworked? I don’t get enough sleep. I am tired.” And they even say, “The kid has just ruined my life.” They may even say all these things. But in general, because this person depends on me, that automatically gives - though it’s biological - but it automatically gives a certain amount of meaning to life.
One thing one must understand is this imperative to be happy. Suppose you ask this question now: why should we try to be happy at all? It’s a meaningless question. Do you see? In depth, our primary drive is to avoid unhappiness, overcome unhappiness, and be happy. Your definition of happiness might change. Your understanding of happiness - you can call it some other names. You can call it satisfaction, you can call it fulfillment, you can call it bliss.
I know some very intelligent people should know this idea that we are meant for chasing happiness. It’s not correct. He’s a scientist, so he has written in his book that whether it makes me happy or unhappy, I want the truth. I am pursuing, I want to solve these mysteries of the universe. Great. And I wondered, how can such an intelligent person be so stupid? Just ask the question: discovering the truth satisfies you, makes you dissatisfied? Satisfied. That is happiness.
Pursuit of happiness - call it pleasure, satisfaction, joy, whatever you call it, fulfillment - it is primary for all conscious beings. And overcoming unhappiness, sorrow, is primary. Dispute that. Disputed. Think about it. If you think a little bit about it, you’ll see it is there.
Why would you want a definition of peace? You know it when you have it. You know it when you feel it. That’s a very wise thing to say, sir. In spiritual life, this pleasure or excitement or thrill - that is not happiness. Peace is happiness. Yes, contentment. Peace. Deep peace. Yoga. Patanjali Yoga. What is the definition of yoga? Yoga chitta vritti nirodha. The complete cessation, serenity, quietness. The peace of the mind is yoga. That is happiness.
An immature person thinks a thrill is happiness, excitement is happiness. In this country especially, it’s become a fashion to say, “Are you excited?” In Vedanta, this is asked: “Why are you excited? What’s wrong with you? Don’t be excited.” That is true. Peace of mind is deeper. It is the deepest happiness.
Okay, now let me go ahead. 34th verse:
“Akirtim chapi bhutani kathayishyanti te ‘vyayam Sambhavitasya chakirtir maranad atirichyate”
People will talk about your everlasting dishonor, and for one held in esteem by many, infamy, dishonor is worse than death. So it’s an appeal to honor. Not very deep philosophy here. It is for a person of repute to lose reputation is far worse than to lose wealth or health or anything else. Reputation is very important. And remember, Arjuna is a warrior, very well-known warrior. You’re going to lose all of that when people will criticize you.
What will they say? 35th verse:
“Bhayad ranad uparatam mamsyante tvam mahatrathah Yesham cha tvam bahumato bhutva yasyasi laghavam”
These mighty warriors, your colleagues, your mighty warrior colleagues, will think that you have run away from battle because of fear. Having been highly esteemed by them, now you will fall into disgrace in their eyes, in their ranking. So you are in the top 10, now you’ll sink without a trace. So this is what he’s saying to Arjuna. You lose your reputation.
36th verse:
“Avachya-vadams cha bahun vadishyanti tavahitah Nindantas tava samarthyam tato duhkhataram nu kim”
And he goes on: What will they say? Your enemies will be saying many unmentionable things. They’ll say abusive things, and they will make fun of your prowess. What can be more painful than that?
So it’s something that is bound - it’s very psychological. It will work for anybody who has high self-esteem, anybody who has a high reputation to maintain. Not somebody who doesn’t think much of oneself. Well, I’m no good. Let people say whatever they want. I know I’m no good. Not for that. Not for that kind of person. A person who has, say, a high professional esteem in one’s own profession, in one’s own circles. And what really hurts is people in your own circle, people whose opinion you value.
I remember there was this, for example, two monks who are strict but in different ways. When I was a young novice, one monk would shout and yell and scold us, and we didn’t think much of that because we knew he was a very jolly kind of person. He was a simple person, you know, and when he got mad at us, he would just yell at us and shout at us and threaten to beat us. Once he whacked me with a stick, but you don’t remember that, and it’s alright. I mean, I don’t even remember the number of times he yelled at me.
His way of, say, waking up the novices to go meditate at four o’clock in the morning - see, his way of waking them up, and for most of us, we are not used to getting up early in the morning. So his way of waking up the youngsters would be to go and kick the door in early in the morning. It’s still dark, and you would hear the almighty bang on the door and a shout: “You rascal! How long are you going to sleep? Up with you! I want to see you in the temple!”
I remember the first time I saw that. I mean, I was just three or four days into it. I had just joined. I was sitting, and there was this - I’m meditating early in the morning, this blinding light, and it’s hot. I was enlightened, I said. Already, it’s just been three days. And then I saw, no, entered in the temple this monk, this tough monk. He’s there with a flashlight. He’s looking at each of the youngsters to see who has come and who’s missing. He’s taking names. It’s dark in the temple, so you can’t make out who’s who.
That’s one side of it. That’s one kind of person. The other kind of person is another monk whose name I won’t mention. He has only once or twice scolded me, and I’ll never forget it in my whole life. I mean, this scolding was just like this. I mean, I didn’t - it wasn’t a lie, it was kind of an evasive thing. He asked me to do something, and I had totally forgotten about it. When he asked me again, “Where is that letter?” And I said, “Oh yes, I’ll do it,” neglecting to mention that I had forgotten about it. I should have said, “I’ve forgotten about it. I’m sorry. I’ll go into it now.” I sort of pretended as if I was about to do it.
And he called - he was the head of the center. He said, “Come back here,” as I was rushing off and disappearing. “You come back here.” He just said one thing, and I could never forget it as long as I live. He just said, “If that’s what you’re going to be, why be a monk?” And I felt like I could have sunk through the floor. Because you hold this person in such high repute, and if you have fallen low in his eyes - so this is the thing, reputation.
So Krishna is a very good psychologist. He says where philosophy won’t work, psychology is going to work. Then, what’s going to happen if he actually does it? Either he’s going to win or lose. Krishna’s now going to show him both ways he wins.
37th verse:
“Hato va prapsyasi svargam jitva va bhokshyase mahim Tasmad uttishtha kaunteya yuddhaya krita nischayah”
If you lose the battle, you’ll be killed in battle, and you will attain heaven reserved for the great warriors who have fought there, you know, had done their best in battle. Or if you are victorious, then you will gain the kingdom. So in both ways, you are the gainer.
See, this is an answer to something that Arjuna had asked him just before Krishna starts teaching. Arjuna had said in the 6th verse of this very chapter:
“Na chaitad vidmah kataran no gariyo Yad va jayema yadi va no jayeyuh”
“I don’t know,” when he was saying, “I won’t fight this battle. I don’t know which is better. This thing is so horrible. I don’t know which is better. Is it better to lose? At least I won’t kill these people. Or is it better to win? Because winning is good, but what good is winning? Because it’ll be a kingdom gained at the cost of my relatives’ blood. It’s a civil war. So I lose whether I win or I die or I lose the battle. In both ways, I’m the loser.”
And Krishna says he has reversed the thing. He’s used the same language to say in both cases, whether you win the battle or lose the battle, in both cases, you are the winner. See the whole difference is from taking a selfish attitude to “What’s going to happen to me?” versus doing the right thing. If you do the right thing, whatever the result, you are the winner.
“Hato va prapsyasi svargam” - if you are killed, you will get the heavenly realms. And if you win, you will get the kingdom, the kingdom of the earth. You will get it. The commentator says, “Ubhayatha api tava labhah” - in both cases, you come out ahead.
I remember this question about - somebody asked, “What should we do in life? Do you just keep on doing what is our responsibility? Or what is the thing to do in life? How do you know what is going to be meaningful for me?” Seligman says do the thing which is meaningful, do the thing which is purposeful, meaningful. But even there, if you say that - whether the slogan is “find your passion” - difficult. I’ve been trying so many years. All the passion has gone out of my life, but I still haven’t been able to find my passion. That is not working.
But if you say something like “find a meaningful life” - even that also, how do you find a meaningful life? Suppose somebody asks. So there was this - there is this young man who graduated from India, one of India’s best engineering colleges, and from one of India’s top management schools. Those who know IIT and IIM - and then what he did was he started an orphanage for kids. And now there are more than a thousand kids who don’t have parents, or at least have one parent, or no parents, or parents are too poor to take care of them. More than a thousand boys and girls he takes care of them.
And he has been tremendously successful because his approach is not that “I’m running an NGO and I’m doing some good to society.” Not that way. He says, “My approach is like I am their father and mother. I take unlimited responsibility like real parents will do until the boy or the girl grows up and gets a job and moves out. Until that time, I have full responsibility. I take complete responsibility for the child.”
Other NGOs, what they do is - NGOs are non-profits in this country. What they do is somebody provides food for the kids, somebody provides clothes, or somebody provides a school bag or pencils. You can’t bring up a child like that. A little boy or a girl - you can’t bring up a child like that by getting a half a dozen different agencies to provide a few necessities of life. That’s not the way to bring up a kid. And he says, “I will take care of everything for the kid. I’m like their parent.” So he is very, very successful. He got the Indian President’s Award for children’s welfare a few years ago, and so on.
Now, my point in raising this is two things. We are in a conference together. He’s a very deep thinker. He is very motivated by Vivekananda. He reads the writings of Vivekananda. Everything that he has done has come out of the teachings of Vivekananda.
Now, two questions here. One question is: How did he find this meaningful life? How did he come upon this? The second question is: What motivates him? Both are relevant here.
Somebody asked him, “Where do you - how did you decide to do this?” It’s a meaningful life, correct? Like Seligman would say, “How did you decide to do this?” His answer was very interesting. He’s an original thinker. He said, “I didn’t decide to do it. What happened was, after finishing college, I was thinking what should I do, and I couldn’t come up with any answer. So I just thought, what should I not do? What is it that does not motivate me?”
So, do I want to be an executive in a multinational corporation like most of my classmates? No, that quite doesn’t motivate me. Do I want to be a professor like my teachers? No, that quite doesn’t - that doesn’t quite motivate me. What he just was looking, you know, what is the feeling in his own heart? Like he’s saying, what is inside you? He was actually actively searching what comes up within him.
And then he noticed these children, street children. This is in Calcutta, outside Calcutta IIM. He found these street children outside, and he felt they need me, and I can really help them. And does it satisfy me? Yes. He felt a call in his heart. I should do something for them. And no sooner had he thought than he went out and did it. He got three kids. He started with three kids from straight off the street. He rented a room, took the three kids in, started taking care of them, educating them.
I remember years later, a group of young men had come to start a non-profit, and they were asking for advice from me. And I asked, “What’s the problem?” “Oh, registering the non-profit, there are all these legal clauses, and fundraising, there are this problem and that problem.” I said, “What have you done so far?” “No, we haven’t started yet, but we have…” I said, “Contrast it with this guy who is running this model non-profit. He didn’t start with the problems. He started with what the kids needed right now. They don’t have a place to sleep tonight. They need a bath. They need food. They need education. And I’m going to provide it. The rest will come.”
Of course, he’s extraordinarily talented, so the organization is built up, is very well organized. I mean, it’s very efficient. That means really it has grown so, so, so well.
So notice this. How do you find a meaningful life? If it’s difficult to ask, if you’re not getting an answer - what is meaningful for me? No answer, not very clear. Then find out what is not meaningful for you. That is easy, easier actually. Then you might actually stumble upon what is meaningful. That was one question.
The second question he answered was this thing, the question of motivation. What motivates you? He said, “I have two kinds of motivations, motivators - intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic is I look at what I am doing and how successful I have been and what I need to do next. So I started with three kids, and then it was 50, then it was 100, then it was 500, now it’s a thousand. And good, we are expanding and doing more and more. And why not? We are able to do so much.”
But he said, “I have an intrinsic motivator too, that I know this is the right thing to do. This is really needed, and it should be done.” Now, the thing is, the extrinsic motivator might not work. There are so many non-profits. Some of them are not doing well at all. Maybe I would have failed. Externally, extrinsically, maybe there would be no money, no helpers, and the organization might not have really expanded the way it has grown phenomenally. It might not have happened. But I would still go on because my intrinsic motivator told me this is the right thing to do. This is the right thing to do whether you win or lose. I still win.
This is exactly what Krishna is telling Arjuna. Whether - if you take this outlook, this point of view, then whether you win this battle or lose this battle, you lose - you win in both cases.
38th verse, he’s concluding his argument:
“Sukha-duhkhe same kritva labhalabhau jayajayau Tato yuddhaya yujyasva naivam papam avapsyasi”
Very beautiful verse. Happiness and pain, or pleasure and pain - not happiness and pain, pleasure and pain - set them aside. Gained and lost, labha-alabha, gained and lost - set them aside. Jaya-ajaya, victory and defeat - set them aside. Whether it’s painful, whether it’s pleasurable, whether you are gaining or losing, whether you are - whether it’s a victory or a defeat, set them aside. Set your heart to do what is the right thing to do. Then you will not be touched by sin, papa, demerits.
This is again a subtle - not so subtle - indicated to what Arjuna had said in the 36th verse just before Krishna started teaching. 36th verse of first chapter, 36th verse, the first chapter, Arjuna had said, “Papam evasrayed asman.” We will, we will incur sin by fighting this battle. Krishna is saying, do it in this way, you will not get sin. Do the right thing without the mental attitude. Well, why am I doing it? I am doing it to be - it will be, it will be - I will be happy if I gain, and gain means victory. Defeat means a loss, and loss will make me unhappy. This kind of happiness-unhappiness equation you have set up is bound to make you unhappy. Set this aside.
Really, if you want to be happy, then do the right thing without regard to whether you get pleasure or pain. You know, this pleasure or pain or happiness-unhappiness equation you’ve set up is dependent on gain or loss. The common warrior in that battle, they will be happy if they get - if they win the battle. In the win, the battle they think it’s again - in Sanskrit, jaya. Jaya means victory. Victory is labha, gain. Labha leads to sukha, happiness. And ajaya, that means defeat, is equivalent to alabha, loss. And loss leads to dukha, unhappiness.
This equation itself, you throw out. Set them - shut this kind of thinking aside. Do the right thing. Happiness is guaranteed for you, and you will not incur sin. Nothing was nagging at him that - we had this is a battle I’m fighting, and these people are my relatives. So if I - even if they are bad people, but if I fight against them, won’t I get sin? No, you will not get sin. You will not get sin. The mental attitude is important. I am fighting against them to snatch the kingdom away from them - then it’s a very dicey situation. If the moral thing is clouded there - you’re doing it because it’s your duty to protect society, clarity is there.
Have you heard of Jordan Peterson? He is very famous these days. He speaks to packed houses. He comes to New York sometimes. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, but a little controversial. But he has written this book which is a huge bestseller. It’s called “12 Rules for Success in Life,” or sometimes “12 Rules,” “12 Rules of Life,” “12 Rules for Life,” “12 Rules for Life,” where the basic idea is exactly this kind of thinking.
For example, “Set your house in order before you criticize the world,” in which he has a whole chapter on that. That do what you are expected to do first before opening your mouth and finding out what’s wrong with others. And he said this is - these are the - he calls it the antidote to chaos. Your life is in chaos because you are violating these rules. Something like “Stand up straight when you walk,” or something like that.
He says, “Compare yourself not to what somebody else is today, but rather to what you were yesterday.” Never compare yourself to other people, what they are today. That will lead to unhappiness straight away. If you want to compare, compare to what you were yesterday. It may be a little better, little worse than that. That is a valuable comparison. That way, that lesson can be learned from that. Like that, 12 rules. But basically, this kind of thinking.
Yes, yes. And also the longest tree before that. Yeah, yeah, it was - it was - it was waged for dharma. It would be difficult for Duryodhana to be a good ruler because all that - the entire history of the Kauravas, of Duryodhana until that point was of maliciousness and envy and trying to take away the kingdom which really did not belong to him, take it away from Yudhishthira. That’s how this story is set up. And of the Pandavas and Krishna trying to accommodate them again and again and again, and a series of wrongs which had been committed to them, on the Pandavas by the Kauravas. So that’s the history.
If Duryodhana turns out to be a good ruler after all of this, would be little surprising. And the Mahabharata does not really say that. Mahabharata says, in fact, Yudhishthira was supposed to be Dharmaputra and things like that. So yeah, it has been set up as a battle of the dharma against adharma.
But I will point out one thing. Neither the context of Mahabharata nor whether the question of the battlefield and battle - these are not actually important. If the - if an ancient civil war which is hidden in a, you know, in a gray area between myth and history, nor the question of warriors fighting a war in ancient India - what utility does that have? What relevance does that have to millions of people across the centuries and millennia? How many of us are warriors with chariots and bows and swords fighting against relatives for a kingdom? No one. So why is it relevant to us?
Often we get caught up in the questions which arise from the Mahabharata context. Who was right? Who was wrong? And a related question is: Is the Gita promoting violence and war? Foolishness. This kind of question is fully - so why is it foolishness? Because so many commentaries have been written on the Bhagavad Gita. Shankaracharya’s commentary, you have got Madhvacharya’s commentary, you have got Ramanujacharya’s commentary, you have got Madhusudana Saraswati’s commentary. These are all the ones I know. See the Swami’s coming - these are ones we study. And there are many, many more down to the present age, down to the present age.
Not one commentary ever takes it up in the context of a war. So are we going to fight war? Is it - is Krishna teaching us to fight? Is Krishna teaching violence? And is he supporting warfare against peace? It’s only in modern times, partly with some Western commentators, and now some Indian commentators also, born out of the sheer perversity of modern-time thinking, they have raised this question that Gita encourages violence. On the face of it, it seems to be so. If it does, why has no commentator ever seen it for the last thousand hundred years? Nobody ever mentions it.
You know where it comes from, this question that we - is the Gita - if Gita is talking about violence, it comes from two things. One is the tremendous guilt that is in the West, especially in Europe, for these huge wars which took place in the 20th century. And both wars were entirely secular wars and nothing to do with religion. There is an enormous guilt in the Western mind because of that. And because of that, these questions keep coming up over linking of war to religion. That’s one thing.
The second reason why this question comes up is because nowadays, some people commit acts of terrorism based on religion. That’s why suddenly it is connected to a Gita war religion. Nothing to do with it. Mahatma Gandhi derives his doctrine of non-violence, and he is inspired by Bhagavad Gita.
That’s why I said Mahatma Gandhi, who took up non-violence as his preferred method of political agitation against the British rulers, he was inspired by the same text. If he would think like that, Gita will say you fight a battle. But he doesn’t say so. And again, so many people throughout the centuries, including monks who are pacifists, absolutely.
So why are we studying the Gita? Are we all going out to fight battles? No, it’s a call to action in our own respective battlefields. Clearly, the meaning has to be symbolic. Otherwise, we have to give a new interpretation. In that case, it’s this kind of thinking. As I said, it’s the modern sensibility, both in the West and now its impact on India too.
I’ve seen Indian commentators saying that. See, Krishna taught violence. Would Buddha have ever said that? So there’s a well-known writer who wrote that. Foolishness. It’s not a problem of the Gita. You are thinking about it right now because violence is in your mind. Hatred, violence issues in your mind. You are guilty of killing millions of people in the 20th century.
And what you refer to, that example - that’s a different issue. You see, religion is never a good guide towards policy right now. It’s the heart of the person which is the most important. Organized religions have always been - they always played second fiddle to the powers that be in every country, in every civilization. You will hardly find the priests or the research and all standing up in revolt against the Emperor. No, we have always been together.
This is one reason for that. What belongs to Caesar does not belong to God. The Caesars who rule on the world - it’s a secular thing. The central purpose of religion is spiritual. Take you to a spiritual life. And it becomes a guide to morality in the world. This thing has been lost sight of in the modern world. Most of the major world religions - people think of religion as something that is meant for giving us morals and values. It is, but not centrally. The central purpose of religion is it takes you to God, to God realization, to moksha, nirvana, salvation, whatever you call it.
It was well - it was well understood in the past. What has happened in the last two, three hundred years is that because, as Nietzsche said, death of God - since our faith in God, generally people do not seriously believe in God. So God - yet something is there. God knows what is God. But religion is good because it makes us tell the truth and respect each other and all of that. So it’s a source of values.
And so we get shocked when somebody uses religion to justify violence because it doesn’t seem to make - it seems to be against values. But religion is not primarily for that. You will often find the churches and Popes have stood with the Emperors and the powers which make war throughout history, not only in the West, everywhere in the world. And it’s understandable because they really are not invested in the politics. They want to protect their own - their temples and churches and the following and the wealth and the power. And for that, the best thing is to be associated with the powerful person.
And they will - see, in the Holocaust, the church - there are accusations that they were closely associated with some - some collaboration with the Nazis. Definitely with Mussolini. Why? You can criticize them now. I’ll play the devil’s advocate here that there is always the first interest is to protect the church itself. And are they wrong? Not quite, because they see themselves in terms of thousands of years, not your little war today.
Sri Ramakrishna’s importance here - he has, for the first time, he has strongly made it clear that the purpose of religion is God realization. Again and again and again, he says God exists. The purpose of human life is God realization. The purpose of religion is God realization.
My God, you’ve really gone out beyond time. I’m just seeing this. Let’s just hear the question and then we’ll end.
Yes, yes, yes. We’ll reserve that for the next time because the subject is karma yoga. And the reason we did not talk so much about sat-chit-ananda and Brahman and all of that - remember the topic of jnana yoga has concluded where we talked about all of these things. Now Krishna is using morality, sense of honor and duty to persuade Arjuna to do what Krishna wants him to do. And now we will go into the philosophy of action.
What you are asking - how do I live life with all this philosophy? How do I live life? How do I guide my actions in day-to-day life? What do I do with my life now if I want to be an enlightened person? That’s the very important subject which is coming up next class.
I’m sorry, I really went off beyond time. My God. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. Hari Om Tat Sat. Sri Ramakrishna Sharanam.