Gita 18.16 To think that we are the sole doers is to have deluded intelligence

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 18.16 Krishna is continuing to analyze action into its components by which we can understand what it is in action that causes bondage that causes distress and how we can act properly so in the previous verse he has talked about five factors of action and now he says among those if one thinks I alone am the doer in that person intelligence it is not well formed it is not mature, it is not developed and that person is not able to see their consciousness is misdirected so Krishna here is clarifying what is the illusion with respect to doership to think we are the doers is not the illusion to think that we are the sole doers is the illusion the very word karta which is used in the Gita indicates doer and karta is one of the factors in action to think that karta is a sole factor is the problem when we understand that the soul is one of the doers then there is humility because we are in connection with reality when we understand that we are one of the doers but when we start thinking that we are the sole doers then our intelligence is not seen properly actually even a little experience of life helps us see that we are not the sole doers but though we may try to the best of our capacity there is no guarantee that things will work out the way we want them to in sports for example a team may play brilliantly but in the last phases of the match say rains come and prevent the possibility of a result then the team can’t win so this principle that we alone don’t determine the results requires intelligence to perceive atmanam kevalam keval is only we see not with our intelligence we see not with our intelligence but with our deeper faculties that means we see with our we don’t see with our senses actually we see with the intelligence that’s why Krishna is saying buddhitvaan we may see with our senses but it is with our intelligence that we make sense of what we see with our senses and if our intelligence is not well developed then sometimes we can’t make sense of things or we make a false sense of things so a player who thinks that I am a great player and I can achieve anything and everything that player is in terrible illusion and sometimes despite the best effort the player may not be able to achieve any result similarly sometimes we despite our best effort may not get the desired result at such times we need the humility to recognize that life is not solely dependent on who we are trying or on what we are trying but on bigger factors beyond us also it is our intelligence that helps us to see the things which the eyes can’t see in fact the purpose of philosophy is to see reality philosophy comes from two words philosophy and so forth philosophy means to love and so forth is truth so philosophy is the love of truth to understand the true nature of things to understand that the nature of reality is not as we think it to be the nature of reality is much deeper and it is we humans who have the capacity to contemplate the purpose of existence and to contemplate our place in the overall scheme of things when we understand that our position is intermediate in the hierarchy the Upanishads talk about the Tattvatraya the three realities which can be referred to as Jagdish, Jeeva and Jagat the Supreme Lord the soul, the conscious being and material nature so we based on our karma have been given some control over material nature and with that control we can do certain things however there are only certain things which we can do beyond these we can’t act and to be able to act truthfully we need to recognize what is in our control and what is beyond our control when things go wrong due to factors beyond our control if we have believed or portrayed that we alone determine the results then we feel humiliated or even shattered humiliated is how we feel in the world’s eyes shattered is how we feel ourselves internally and thus failure will devastate us but if we have got a more mature and complete understanding of reality then we won’t let reversal devastate us for we will see that no matter what happens we remain at our core souls and although our external capacity to do things has not manifested in our actually getting the results but still our core remains inviolable and thus we can act knowing that our actions even if they don’t bear fruit at the material level if we do them in spiritual consciousness they will help us to grow spiritually so when we see ourselves as parts of Krishna then we understand that our actions are part of the plan they are not the full plan and therefore we don’t get disturbed if our plan doesn’t work because we know that Krishna has a bigger plan and that plan will work out in due course