Gita 18.19 The Gita’s flow verses make its question-directed discussion more accessible

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
So here, Krishna is now giving a summary of what he will be describing in the next 10 verses, next 9 verses actually. So here is, jnanaṁ karma ca kartā ca, hṛdayaiva guṇa-bhedataḥ, knowledge, work and the worker. These can be declassified according to three modes, projyate guṇa-saṅkhyāne, said about this, it is said that they can be classified according to three modes, yathāvaśvanutānyapī.
Now please understand this, what I am going to speak. There are several places in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna speaks what we could call as flow verses. Those verses broadly tell us the flow of the Gita, what has happened earlier and what is going to happen later.
The Bhagavad Gita is a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna, but it is not an ordinary conversation about casual topics, it is a very serious philosophical conversation and thus to help us make sense of things, there are repeated occasions where directions are given. It is like when we are travelling, we would like to have some directions about how to get to that place. If we are invited to a particular program at a place where we have never been before, then along with the program invitation, we are given a direction.
So similarly, if we consider a conversation also to be like a journey, a journey from incomprehension to comprehension, a journey from confusion to clarity, a journey from ambiguity to certainty, then in such a journey, our guide, whoever is leading the conversation, normally if you consider a conversation or a dialogue, it is between two people, a monologue is where only one person is speaking. A discourse is usually a monologue, but sometimes it can also be a conversation. The Bhagavad Gita is a conversation, but it is not a conversation in which both people are speaking equally.
It is more like a question-driven, question-directed conversation, depending on whatever questions Arjuna asks, Krishna answers. Of course, Krishna has his own structure in what he is speaking and he does direct the conversation in a particular way towards clear understanding of overall concepts. At the same time, if you were to compare the Bhagavad Gita with a discourse, then we could say that it is a question-answer-directed discourse.
Normally, we can have classes at the end of which we have question-answers or we can have question-answer sessions. If a question-answer session is held in a class setting, then different people may ask questions and thus the various questions may go in very different directions. If it is a proper class, if it is a discussion between two people alone, then it is possible that the question-answers may be a little more structured and directed.
Say a person comes wanting to understand a particular subject and thus asks many questions and those questions are answered one by one and if those questions are related with various aspects of one particular subject, then those questions can help us get a broad understanding of that subject. Sometimes the questioner may come prepared with a list of questions and then the teacher simply answers those questions. Then the flow of the conversation will depend on whether the sequence of questions asked by the questioner are related or structured.
Otherwise we could well have the question-answers moving over various subjects. Now if we consider a comparison between Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam, Bhagavatam is of course much bigger, thousands and thousands of verses, still Bhagavatam is spoken with one speaker and one questioner but many audiences, thousands of sages in the audience. Suta Goswami is speaking to the sages of Namesha Aranya but all questions are asked by one person, Shaunak Rishi and some questions the Acharyas explain, Shaunak Rishi is asking based on what may be the conception of other people in the audience.
As far as the Bhagavad Gita is spoken, it is in the middle of a battlefield and Krishna and Arjuna are speaking at a conversational tone. So the primary audience for Krishna’s speech is Arjuna, of course Arjuna also asks questions for Lokahitam, for the benefit of general people, Lokasangraha, that is the word Bhagavad Gita uses. So for example, he is questioned about the Vishwaroopa, asking Krishna to show the universal form in the 11th chapter, that is meant primarily for people who need some visual demonstration to gain philosophical conviction.
So, Krishna sometimes answers questions and then does E+, exceeds expectations by further elaborating on a subject if some pertinent knowledge about the subject is to be given. So sometimes when a conversation is going over complicated subjects, at that time having flow verses helps in understanding where things are going. Like, of course, Vishwanatha Chakra Thakur as well as other Acharyas give us their commentaries which also explain to us how the flow is going and where the flow verses are not directly given by Krishna, there each one of us, there the different Acharyas sometimes give different explanations of how one section flows into another and as long as the overall conclusion remains consistent with the conclusion of the Gita, then these different understandings of the flow are perfectly fine.
In fact, they help us to appreciate the richness of the wisdom in the Gita, that there can be many levels and layers to its sublime message. Especially when a subject is technical, then having a flow helps. So here Krishna is speaking about gyanam karma cha karta cha dhriva guna bhedah.
So between point 20 to 22 we will talk about jnana, then 23 to 25 we will talk about karma and 26 onwards till 28 we will talk about karta. And this way Krishna speaks about the various components of action, first he has mentioned in the previous verse how gyanam niyayam parijnana trividhah karmachodana karanam karmakarteti trividhah karmasangraha. So these are the various components and out of which karta and parijnata are the same which will be discussed over here.
Jnana is also mentioned in 19th verse, so the six elements of text 18 are now shortened down to three elements. Jnana, especially in terms of if we are working, if we are not just observing in a passive sense but we are observing so that we can work, then the object of knowledge is what we act on. So in that sense the object of knowledge can be equated with karma.
And then karanam, the senses themselves, they are what we direct or regulate through our dhruti and buddhi, through our intelligence we see things in proper perspective and through our determination we act properly no matter, so the buddhi keeps our sensual perception in proper perspective. That means our eyes may go towards a particular object but if our intelligence is more focused and directed then we will decide whether this is the object I want to focus on and when it is not we need to see the whole picture. So the moment of the karana is regulated by buddhi.
Sometimes if we are driving a car and we see something very attractive, we see an attractive looking person on the sidewalk, if we start looking at that person then we might hit the car ahead of us. So our buddhi keeps us in perspective, helps us to see okay, for me to focus on the car is right now more important, focus on the car and driving the car properly is more important. So that is buddhi helps us to regulate the karana and buddhi helps us to at least understand what it is to focus on and dhruti, determination helps us to focus on that.
So buddhi and dhruti are also what Krishna talks about later from 32 and 33 to 35. So in this way Krishna is now giving a summary of what he will be analyzing in terms of three modes in the future verses.