Moving toward self-mastery through fear of dishonor and detachment – Gita 2.31.63

[Gita Life talk at The Bhakti Center, New York, USA]

Video

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, very sorry for the delay to keep you waiting and I’ll talk about the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. It’s mentioned 31 to 53. So, I will take three main points from each of the sections.
I think you already recited the verses. I’ll just mention some of the verses and I’ll explain. So, I’ll talk about three points.
The first point I’ll talk about is the importance of a sense of honour. The second point I’ll talk about is the power of detachment and the power of detachment in daily life. And the third point I’ll talk about is the art of inner mastery, of self-mastery.
So, the Bhagavad Gita is spoken by Krishna to Arjuna when he is disheartened thinking that I cannot fight this war. And Krishna is guiding him not so much to fight the war, but to learn how to decide what is the right course of action. Suppose you join a class and say the class is over and a question and answer session has started.
And you come after the question has been asked. Now you may start hearing and okay, this point makes sense. What is going on? What is the topic going on? So, if you know the question, then the answer makes more coherent sense.
So, the Bhagavad Gita is an answer to a question. And that question is, in 2.7 he says, I ask you, what is dharma? Dharma means natural action. Action that is in harmony with the nature of who we are.
That is the essence of dharma. So, the question is not just should I fight or should I not fight? It is what is dharma? And that universalises the Gita. The Gita we are discussing about 5000 years after it was spoken because the question driving it is universal.
So, all of us have to discuss at every moment what is the right course of action. To be alive means to face ethical dilemmas. Even if we have a high sense of morality or low sense of morality, everybody has that.
Should I do this? Should I do that? The Gita guides us towards a framework within which you can make those decisions. The previous section till 2.31 talked about one’s spiritual identity. So, we all have different identities in life in the sense that say you might say that I am a father, I am a mother, I am a software engineer, I am an artist, I am an American.
So, all these are identities. What the Bhagavad Gita says is all these are functional identities. Below that is a fundamental identity.
Our fundamental identity is that we are spiritual, that we are souls. Now after establishing this fundamental identity in the second section that is you could say the second section that Krishna is speaking, that is from 2.31 to 2.38, there Krishna is reasoning with Arjuna how should he decide how to act. And this is in 2.34, that Arjuna, if at this battlefield you do not fight, then you will be dishonoured.
People for time immemorial will speak about your dishonour. People will say you are a coward and you ran away out of fear from a war. And that will be worse than death for you.
So here Krishna is telling fear that dishonour. We therefore do the right course of action. There are different levels of motivation by which we can do the right thing.
I saw a hoarding or a cartoon you could say that a person was caught speeding. And the cop asked him, didn’t you see the speed limit? I saw the speed limit. I just didn’t see you.
What that means is that they don’t think speeding is wrong. Getting caught while speeding is wrong. So it’s sometimes we may do the right thing because we know it is the right thing to do and we feel inspired to do the right thing.
But sometimes we may do the right thing because we are afraid of the consequences. But that is not the best motivation. But that is also a good motivation.
Say if a student is studying, no degrade if they study out of love for the subject. But if they study at least because I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to have that feeling of shame at having failed.
That is also a good level of motivation. Our mind is very tricky and it’s like fighting an elusive enemy. One of my friends is in HIV research.
HIV is a very mutant virus. And whatever we find to deal with it, it mutates and comes up with something else. And that’s why it has a lot of resilience.
So we could say our mind is like the ultimate HIV virus. So we come up with this is what I am going to do. And this is why I am going to do it.
We make a resolution. And then after two days, we are caught doing the opposite. And then somebody asks, hey, you are planning to do that? I change my mind.
Well, whether you change your mind or your mind changed you. It’s difficult to say. So what happens is the point I’m making is our mind is very tricky, very elusive.
And so therefore, whatever motivation works, it’s best if we have the highest, the best motivation. But even if not, even a lower level motivation, if it makes us do the right thing, that is good. So Krishna is going to give Arjuna various levels of motivation.
So one level of motivation he gave in the first section, 2.11 to 30 is you are afraid they will all die. But everybody is eternal. Nobody is going to die.
So what are you afraid of? It’s all based on ignorance, thinking that they are going to die or that you are going to kill them. Then he’s given another level of motivation. That is, if you don’t fight, you will be dishonoured and the dishonour will be worse than death for you.
So now, one principle that we talk about in spiritual life is humility. We all should learn to be humble. Then why is Krishna talking in terms of honour over here? Consider your honour.
Don’t do something which will dishonour you. There is a difference between humility and humiliation. Humility is false ego rejected.
Humiliation is false ego frustrated. I want to feel great. But somehow everybody is greater than me.
Some people say I have many hidden talents. The problem is they are hidden even from me. So everybody has a feeling.
I want to prove to the world how great I am. But they are not able to do that. So when there is the false ego, we want to prove our greatness to the world, but we are not able to do that.
In fact, we turn out to be very small and insignificant and unproductive and useless and incompetent. Then that is humiliation. And humiliation is extremely painful.
So humility and humiliation, the difference is what is it that we want? Humility means false ego rejected. I don’t want to prove to the world that I am great. I may do something great.
I may do some great contribution. But I am not interested in proving my greatness to the world. So it’s a different ballgame.
And we can’t presume that we are at the level of humility. So quite often in life, it is a sense of honour that makes people do the right thing. Or rather the fear of dishonour keeps people on the right track.
And for all of us, if right now I am speaking something and all of you start frowning at me. If everybody starts frowning, what will happen? Am I doing something wrong? Say if I make a joke and instead of laughing, everybody starts glaring at me. Did I make a politically incorrect joke? What happened? So actually our actions are constantly monitored through the social feedback that we get.
Otherwise at every moment, we can have 100 options. Say right now all of you are sitting here. Every one of you is reasonably confident that the person next to you is not going to turn to you and punch you in the face.
Now why is that? You have come to a particular place and you have a certain set of expectations. Everybody has come in a particular way. So now if you consider the domain of possibility, which is possible.
It’s possible, but you could say there is possibility and there is probability. So it’s possible, anything is possible, but it’s quite improbable. So now what is it that keeps us behaving in a way we are expected to behave? Broadly, we all have the non-conformist within us.
And we may be not conformed, but to a large extent we conform. And that’s how we can have reasonable social interactions. So it is the feedback from others that helps us to monitor our actions and expanding it to a broader level.
It is a sense of honour that I don’t want to be dishonoured by others. At the very least, I want to be accepted by others. It’s even better if I’m respected by others.
Again, this is not in a sense of ego, although it can be. It’s just in the sense of human connection, belonging. We need that.
So a society that has a sense of honour and dishonour, that is a mechanism by which people are encouraged or you could say impelled to do the right thing. And where there is no sense of honour, then what happens? People can do anything and society collapses. So to some extent, this shaming of people who do wrong, that is not bad.
Now, of course, this can go to an extreme. And even when somebody is doing the right thing, the social environment may become such that they become shamed for that. So that’s always possible.
Any kind of hierarchy, any kind of structure that is made in society, that structure can go towards becoming tyrannical. That’s always a possibility. But in general, the sense of honour impels people to act honourably.
And for a warrior, for a hero to turn away from the war field and not fight, to run away, that’s a great disgrace. And that fear of disgrace enables the warriors to fight heroically. That’s not the highest motivation.
But as I said, we are dealing with a tricky mind. So whatever motivation works. So it is not that those who are warriors, those who are in the army or the navy, it’s not that they are not afraid of death or injury.
Everybody has that fear. But if the culture is such that they fear dishonour more than death, then it is not that they have no fear of death, rather they have a greater fear of dishonour. And that makes them courageous in the face of death.
So Krishna is telling Arjun over here, if you don’t fight, the world will not think that you are not fighting because of compassion. They will think you are not fighting because of cowardice. And you have been reputed as a great hero.
As the foremost of archers. And if you act wrongly, you act in a way that is seen as cowardly by others, that will be a great disgrace for you. In the material world, the more we get a good thing, the more the loss of that good thing becomes painful for us.
If somebody has been wealthy and then they become poor, poverty becomes unbearable. If they have always been poor, ok, this is the way I have lived, I got used to it. It’s not comfortable, it’s not joyful obviously.
But if we have got something and then we lose it, it’s very painful. So Krishna tells Arjun, you have already been honoured. Now act honourably.
If after being honoured you are dishonoured, it will be unbearable for you. So this is one level of motivation that we can have for doing the right thing. That is the fear of dishonour.
Any questions or comments about this? I said I’ll take three points. So after each point I speak, we’ll have some pause and we’ll have some discussion. I’m just kind of struggling with the text.
Arjun could say, well, if I’m killing respectable people, that is also dishonourable. How is there honour in me behaving violently against people that are respectable, who have given many things to me that I value and whom I have some sentiment for? Yeah. Arjun could argue that those respectable people who have given me so much, isn’t fighting against them and killing them dishonourable? Yes, definitely.
That is one of the arguments and Krishna will address it later. Morality, there are two broad conceptions about ethics. There is categorical ethics and there is contextual ethics.
Categorical ethics means that right and wrong are two discrete categories. Everything that falls in this category is right. Everything that falls in this category is bad.
So speaking truth is right. Speaking lies is bad. That is one idea of ethics, categorical ethics.
Contextual ethics says that yes, there is categorical, but there are categories. But the categories are not absolute. So that means, say, if there is a racial or religious riot breaking out and one of our friends is being persecuted, being threatened.
The friend comes to our house and please save me. And we hide them in our basement or somewhere. And then those rioters come and knock on the door.
Is this person here? Now what should we at least do at that time? What should we do? Yeah, isn’t it? We should lie. Why? Because lying is bad, but here not lying will have a far greater bad result. So this is the understanding of contextual ethics.
So in contextual ethics, we have to understand which is a greater evil. Speaking lies is evil, but being the cause of the death of someone is a far greater evil. And that requires a sense of perspective.
Prabhupada explains later in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita that intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective. So now in this context, certainly Bhishma and Drona were his elders and fighting against them was inappropriate. But they had done the greater inappropriate thing of choosing to fight on the side of Duryodhana who was evil.
That was one evil that they had done. Along with that, earlier when Draupadi had been dishonoured, they had remained silent. That was also a grievous mistake.
It’s like you can understand the depravity of Duryodhana. Sometimes say there are some thugs or some abusive, violent some men say, some they may sexually abuse a woman, sexually violate a woman. Normally they will, somebody does like that, they will drag such a woman, catch a woman in private and then try to dishonour her.
Now if somebody does it in public, that means how brazen a person is. Now imagine if somebody comes to a police station and there they violate a woman. That means they have absolutely no fear of law.
And if the police stay silent at that time, then the police are also culpable. So Duryodhana is trying to dishonour Draupadi, he had tried to disrobe Draupadi in public, in the Royal Assembly. The Royal Assembly was, that was the time when there was this.
The court was where justice was given. That is the place where law is to be enforced. And there when law is violated, it’s a deadly thing.
So they had both passively consented to and actively, now they were actively supporting a person who was an outrageous offender. And thus, in that context, fighting against them was not dishonourable. Because they were supporting a dishonourable cause, although they were honourable men.
So fighting against them was the honourable course of action. Thank you. Yes please.
It seems like it would be good to have, to act according to the, as you said, at least out of fear of consequences. But in today’s society, we see that more and more, this whole system of honour has been put aside, the shame of doing something, something else, and something like weeping, weeping more for a lot of the things that probably in the 50s were unheard of. Now it’s starting to come into place.
So how do you act in a society, how do we act honourably in a society that has less merit for honour? Yes, that’s a very good question. How do we act honourably in a society which does not really value honour, or there is no sense of shame? I wouldn’t say that there is no sense of shame. There is definitely, but the form has changed.
I said there is a lot of political correctness to it. When somebody speaks one statement politically incorrect, they can get so much shamed in society. Every society has certain actions which are considered dumb.
And if they do them, say in today’s world, I’m not saying that we should do this, but there are certain minorities, as soon as you criticise them, you are labelled as anti-women, anti-religion, anti-Islam, or something like that. I’m not saying that we should do this, but if somebody does that, there is a certain amount of shaming that happens. So there is definitely still shaming, the form has changed.
Now in some ways, this may also be good, because we don’t want people to carry stereotypes around them and label people and condemn people. So definitely the principle of shaming has not gone away. The context in which it is done has changed.
But the major actions in society, for example, say, the nuclear family is probably one of the most time-tested sustainable units for the continuation of humanity. And in the past, people, if they formed a relationship, they had a sense of responsibility, by which they continued, they took care of their children and they did it. Now, it has become commonplace.
Again, this is a complex issue, and I’m not making any categorical statements about what is right or what is wrong. But the point is that where commitments are just taken very casually. There is no sense of discipline of society.
Doing the wrong thing becomes relatively easier. So what can we do? I would say two main things. First is that we have to strengthen our own conscience.
So we study scripture. We try to purify ourselves by practising bhakti. And our conscience is like our inner guide, of what is right and what is wrong.
So to the extent the conscience is stronger, it is not because of the social disapproval that we don’t do the wrong thing, because we ourselves feel strongly. This is, I should not be doing this. So by studying scripture and purifying ourselves through bhakti practises, we can strengthen our conscience.
Second is that we can try to, ourselves, have some relationships that hold us accountable. Even if the broader circle may not have a sense of, broader society may not have a sense of shame and disapproval. But we have some friends to whom we are accountable.
And with those friends, we are not accountable in a humiliating sense, but just in a sense that we are close enough to each other, that they can question our actions without risking a permanent break up in relationships, break in the relationship. So one friend of mine, he said, no, I have stopped giving feedback. Now I only give feed front.
What do you mean by feed front? I just feed people. I just give them food and be nice with them. If you give feedback, they get alienated.
So now, a strong relationship is a relationship where some negative feedback can be given and that doesn’t destroy the relationship. So we can try to create at least some relationship where we are accountable. So without that, it is difficult.
You had a question? Yeah, probably not, other than it absorbs both life and death. As far as I can understand, what happens to ethics? If military propaganda like that goes on, so when people say, you don’t fight against the Vietnamese, or you don’t fight in Yemen, or you don’t fight, then you will be shamed. I think the word shame also needs to be changed because what is shame? You talked about conscience, I understand, understanding one’s own mind, but people that do crazy things, it’s not so much that they are shameful, most of them are either disturbed or mentally thrown one way or another.
So I can never really tackle with this person saying, either fight or you will be dishonoured, because then what happens to ethics? That’s true. It’s a very valid concern. Shouldn’t we be acting ethically and not so much by the point of being dishonoured? Okay, there are two, three different points, and as you rightly said, it’s a difficult issue to grapple.
See, there is a difference. Okay, I’ll come to that. There is a difference between weakness and wickedness.
Weakness is where all of us have a lower side within us. We have anger, we have lust, we have greed, and sometimes this overpowers our intelligence, it overpowers our conscience, and we do something wrong. That is, in moments of weakness, we become overcome.
That is weakness, where our intelligence and our conscience, both are active, but they are temporarily overpowered. But different from weakness, at quite another extreme is wickedness. When somebody is wicked, at that time, their conscience is more or less numbed, mute.
You could say, not dead, but almost dead. And their intelligence, instead of resisting their lust or anger or greed, has become an instrument of their lust, anger or greed. That means, they use their intelligence to act according to their vices, not to discipline their vices.
So, where somebody has weakness, forgiveness is desirable, that forgiveness is essential. But where somebody has wickedness, forgiveness is foolishness. So, somebody is shooting criminals, shooting ordinary people, like a terrorist.
The terrorist has a gun, and the terrorist is shooting innocent people in the street, and a police person comes over there. The police person has the opportunity to shoot the terrorist. And he says, okay, I’ll forgive you.
That terrorist will shoot the police person. So, forgiveness, our society needs it very much. We have become very unforgiving about small, small, small, small things.
So, definitely forgiveness is important. But forgiveness works amidst weakness. It doesn’t work amidst wickedness.
Where a person’s whole worldview has become so controlled by their vice, where they think that doing the wrong thing or grievously hurting others, killing others, is a proof of their heroism and their greatness and their strength. So, they have no conscience. But there is no inner force stopping them from doing wrong.
At that time, forgiveness is full sense. So, we have to look at not just the Bhagavad Gita Krishna telling Arjuna to fight. We have to look at the bigger context.
Now, what all did the Pandavas do to try to avoid the war? See, for year after year after year, when they were just teenagers, Duryodhana tried to poison one of them. They remained silent. Then, they were just a little older.
They tried to be burnt alive with their mother. You know, these are warriors. It’s the natural instinct to retaliate when somebody attacks.
They controlled themselves. Then, eventually, they married Draupadi because Draupadi was a very powerful king. So, reluctantly, they were given half the kingdom.
But even what kind of half kingdom? It’s like completely barren half. They accepted that. By their own merits, they developed that into a flourishing kingdom.
And what happened in a rigged gambling match? Everything was taken away from them. Then, after that, their wife was publicly dishonoured. And they were exiled for 13 years.
They honourably fulfilled that sentence. And after that, as per the terms of the gambling, they were supposed to be given back the kingdom, half the kingdom. But, what did Duryodhana say? He said, I will not give you enough land even to put the tip of a needle through.
See, there are different ways of saying no. Say, if we invite somebody for a programme. Say, for a spiritual programme, we like to go and invite them.
And they say, actually, I have to go here, I have this engagement, I can’t come. That’s a no to the request. But if they say, even if I die, my corpse will not come to your programme.
See, that is not just a no to the request, that is like a no banging in the face of the person. It’s a no to the person. So, the Pandavas were not beggars.
They had arrived to their kingdom and they had ready to come down to such a level with like five villages. They were the rulers of a prosperous kingdom, five villages. And that too, who went? Krishna himself went.
Now, imagine, say, there was some volatility between North Korea and America over the nuclear weapons. Say, the American president himself goes on a peace mission. It’s difficult to imagine the current president going on a peace mission.
But suppose he goes. And what does North Korea do? He’s gone there on a peace mission and they try to arrest him over there. It would be like an insult to the whole country.
An immediate outbreak of war would be there. How dare? So, through all these wrongs, the Pandavas tolerated it. And through all these wrongs, there was not even a single apology, not even a sense of remorse.
There was only more and more tediousness. So, when we see this whole history, then this is clear wickedness and non-violence with the wicked is violence to the victims of the wicked. So, certainly forgiveness is needed and we all need to cultivate forgiveness.
But there are times when forgiveness can be foolishness. So, all this moral reasoning has already been done. And as I said, Krishna is given multiple levels of reasoning.
And you see, Krishna’s main reasoning is not that you’ll be dishonoured, so don’t fight. So, therefore, fight. If that had been, if dishonour or honour were the sole basis of making decisions, then the Pandavas, they had to go to the forest.
They had to live like mendicants in the forest. That was so dishonourable for them. For one year, Arjuna had to live like a eunuch.
That was so dishonourable for a man who was a warrior, an embodiment of virility. So, they had accepted dishonour also. So, here Krishna in this context is just telling that various levels at which you can do the right thing.
So, this is one motivation. Yes, the sense of honour and dishonour can be definitely misused to make people do terrible things. And we have to guard against that.
How do we define honour? Yeah, it just means that actually there are two, there is a sense of honour which is inside and there is a honour which comes from outside. Honour is very different from pride or arrogance. See, honour, many times people say, give me your word of honour that you’ll do it.
When you say the word of honour, what does it mean? Promise. Now, why would somebody keep a word of honour? Unless they take their word seriously. They consider that I am a honourable person.
That’s why I have to keep my word of honour. Otherwise, it’s said that in elections, before the elections, the politicians shake your hands. After the elections, they shake your faith.
So, when people don’t have a sense of honour, nothing can function. Now, we have so much internet commerce going on. So, when eBay and stuff like that started, initially, if there had been no basic trust, so people could have sent bounced checks, checks that don’t work, and the seller, the buyers could have sent checks that didn’t work, and the sellers could have given faulty products.
And this whole e-commerce would have collapsed. But because of basic trust, a whole new economy was generated. So, I would say that if we find the word honour a little, it has negative connotations, because there are honour killings and things like that.
But the sense in which I am using the word honour is trust. That it is a sense of honour that makes us trustworthy. And when we are talking about somebody being honoured in society, that is not simply that they are given bouquets and garlands and they are praised.
That honour means that they are considered trustworthy. So, in the world’s eyes, Arjun, you are considered a martial protector of society. See, if some people are rioting, and the police go there, to defend the citizens who are being targeted by the rioters, and if the police run away from there because of fear, then what will happen? Then the citizens will lose all their trust in the police.
For the citizens to trust the police, the police have to function as trustworthy. And that means, like when the twin towers fell over here, it was so horrendous. But there are firefighters who risked their lives.
They knew that the towers might collapse any time, still they went inside. Now, what made them do that? They risked their life, a sense of honour. This is my duty, I will do it.
And they were honoured for that. They were respected for that. So, it is when we have a sense of honour, then we can be trusted.
And that’s why those who are in a position where they have power, and they are meant to give protection, they need to have that sense, they need to be trustworthy. I am using the word honour in the sense of trust. It is the sense of honour that makes us trustworthy.
And when somebody is honoured, that means they are considered trustworthy. So, if Arjuna is seen to be fighting, running away from a war field because of fear, then who will trust that he can be a worthy protector of society from aggressors? So, it is in that sense honour is talked about. We will talk more about this maybe after that class.
So, that’s the first concept. Now, I will move on to the second concept. So, this is 31 to 38.
He is talking about this concept of urgent fight because otherwise you would quote dishonour. It is your duty and not doing your duty will dishonour you. Then from 38 onwards till 53, Krishna moves to another level.
And he says work with detachment. See, earlier just the previous verse he says, Okay, you do this, you’ll be honoured. You do that, they’ll dishonour.
Thinking of the fruit. But now suddenly he says, don’t bother about the fruit. What’s going on? So, there are contradictions and there are paradoxes.
Contradictions means two statements are just opposite to each other. But paradoxes are two statements that seem to be opposite. But there is some underlying truth to it.
So, for example, if you say that in traditional Indian hermeneutics, this example is given. Say somebody, say John. Is anyone by the name John over here? I don’t want to offend them.
So, John fasts throughout the day. And John’s weight is increasing. How can they be true? They are contradictory.
But if both are true, then there is a paradox. Two statements that seem to be contradictory, but they point to some deeper truth. What is the deeper truth? John eats secretly at night.
So, here Krishna is poking first. And actually Krishna is not even telling Arjuna to fight. He is saying, do your duty.
In this context, your duty is fighting. Krishna’s choice is not on fighting, but on being dutiful. So, he says, be dutiful because otherwise you will be dishonoured.
That’s one level of motivation. But then he’s given another level of motivation. That is, be dutiful because that will lead to your spiritual growth.
So, be dutiful while being detached from the fruits of the work. So, this concept of detachment is quite difficult to understand in today’s world. I was, last year I was giving a talk in Princeton, the university that I was invited over there.
So, I spoke on this topic, the Bhagavad Gita. And then there was some Muslim scholar. He says, I read the Bhagavad Gita.
And he says, this never makes sense to me. How can you work with detachment? We work, when we work, we set goals. It’s the goals that inspire us to work.
We work so that we can get a salary. How can, if you are supposed to be detached from the results of your work, then what will be the motivation to work at all? So, you have to understand this. First of all, terminology has to be very clear.
The difference between goals and results. The Gita is not telling us don’t set goals. In fact, immediately after this Gita happened, Gita is spoken, then the war starts.
And every day in the war, all the warriors set goals. Arjuna himself sets goals. So, what is the difference between setting goals and being attached to results? Goals are set before our actions.
And goals inspire us to act wholeheartedly. Whereas results come after the action. And results are not in our hands.
I’ll talk about an equation of four D’s. How our actions lead to results. You see this duty plus destiny plus duration leads to desired result.
I’ll repeat this duty plus destiny plus duration leads to desired result. So, if you see examples to illustrate this. Say, somebody is into farming.
Then their duty is to plough the land and sow the seeds. Then, now that alone does not guarantee a harvest. This duty, then the rains have to come.
The right time, the right quantity. That is destiny. Then, even if the rains come, it’s not that the next morning the harvest is going to come.
Duration. Time has to go. Duty, destiny, duration, all three together lead to the desired result.
Say, if a couple get married, they want to have a child. The duty is that they unite. Destiny is, you know, union doesn’t necessarily always lead to conception.
Sometimes some couples want to have a child, but they keep trying, trying, it doesn’t happen. So, there is something beyond our control. That’s destiny.
And even if conception happens, it’s not the next day the child is going to be born. It’s a period of gestation. Nine, ten months, whatever.
Then, that is duration. Then they will have a child. So, duty, what are the four things? Duty, destiny, duration, desired result.
Thank you. So, now, when Krishna is saying, be detached from the results. This is 2.47 in the Bhagavad Gita.
कर्मण्ने वाधिकारस्ते माफलेशु कदाचन माकर्मपलहे तुर्भूर माते संगोस्त्व कर्मणि He says, that कर्मण्ने वाधिकारस्ते You have a right to do your work. माफलेशु कदाचन You do not think that you, you are not entitled to the result. माकर्मपलहे तुर्भूर Do not think that you are the cause of the result.
माते संगोस्त्व कर्मणि Do not be attached to not doing your duty also. So, four things Krishna is saying over there. Now, let’s try to understand these four things in terms of this context.
So, Krishna is saying, you have a right to do your duty. But, you don’t have a right to the result. What that means is, don’t think that you are the sole cause of the result.
माकर्मपलहे तुर्भूर You are not the sole cause of the result. There are factors beyond you that produce the result. So, actually if you understand this, Setting goals, what will it do? Setting goals will ensure that we do our duty properly.
Say, before, if you are going to study for an exam, then I want to get this grade A. And if I want to get this grade A, I need to study this much. If I want grade B, okay, I study this much also I can do it. So, once I set a goal, that will inspire me, motivate me to do my duty.
But, after we have done our duty, then the result is not in our hands. There are factors beyond our control which shape the results. So, detachment, when Krishna says we detach from the results, He is not saying don’t set goals.
He is saying you do your work and then let go of the results. If the destiny is favourable, the results will come. If the destiny is not favourable, the results may not come.
But, you have done your duty, that will help you grow. So, imagine that, say a student has to give five exams, one after another, after another. And, say the first exam, they don’t do very well.
And then they are thinking, how many marks will I get? What if I get this much? What is this answer? I could have written it like this. Will the exam let me in a good mood when this answer is assessed? If they keep thinking about that exam which is already passed, what will happen? What do you think will happen? Yeah, they will not be able to focus on the next exam. Or, to take even a more graphic example, say if there is a cricket match or here in America we have baseball.
So, somebody is playing baseball. And, the ball is bowled and they could have hit the ball. But, somehow they missed it.
And, they have now another chance. And, they are thinking, why did I miss that ball? Why did I miss that ball? Why did I miss that ball? And, forget it now. Now, the next ball is going to come.
So, detachment means, in this context, put your work in discrete compartments. So, detachment is not, do not care about the results. It means, put your work in discrete compartments.
I have done this work. Okay, this ball I tried to hit, I missed it. But, that is over now.
Let me move to the next ball. So, detachment is actually empowering, not demotivating. Because, if we do not have the detachment, what will happen is, sometimes we may have tried our best and still the result may not come.
How many of you have this experience? That you worked very hard at something. You did your best, but the result didn’t come. Many of you have that experience? Almost everyone, isn’t it? So, now, of course, if we are honest, we can also think of times when we didn’t do much, but things fell in place.
Isn’t it? So, destiny is not always unfavourable. As a speaker, I have this experience. Sometimes, I prepare thoroughly for a class.
And then, the audience is looking at me like I am speaking in a foreign language. I don’t know what is happening. And then sometimes, I am not able to, maybe because of other work pressure, service pressure or whatever, I don’t have much time to prepare for a class.
I just come and give a class. And, everybody is so receptive. So, actually speaking in public gives you that understanding that you are not the determiner of the result.
It’s a very common realisation that we get. So, if we start thinking that I am the producer of the result, and then the result doesn’t come, then what will happen? I will start beating myself up. I am good for nothing.
I am worthless. I am useless. Of course, all of us can improve and all of us should improve.
But, the fact is, sometimes in life, even our best is not good enough to get a result. And, that is happening. Destiny is not favourable over here.
So, we try to form a relationship with someone. We try to be as nice and as courteous, as good with them. And still, they abandon us and go away.
If we do not have a core security, we start thinking, maybe I am going to be alone always. Maybe I am unloved. Maybe I am unloveable.
To feel unloved is depressing. But, to feel unloveable is devastating. So, sometimes, some things are just not meant to be.
Destiny is there. We tried our best. It didn’t work.
It didn’t come. So, detachment from results is empowering because it enables us to let go of that which is not in our control. Endeavour is in our control and Krishna says, do endeavour, definitely.
But, after that, let go. Because we don’t alone produce the result. Now, if we have done the right thing, if we have endeavoured, if we have worked, then we will grow.
Grow in what sense? We will grow internally. We will grow in self-mastery. We will grow in discipline.
We will grow in our spirituality. It’s like a student studying for an exam. Now, a student, if they study just to get the marks in the exam, they might get the marks, they might get the grades, but they may not get an understanding of the subject.
They may not get an educated mind. And, in the long run, if especially that’s a field in which they are going to do research, that’s their specialisation. And there, in that field, they study for marks.
Then, later on, they are going to struggle. But, somehow, because of some reason, they study very well, but they don’t get good marks. Now, of course, some doors may close because of that.
But, at the very least, they have developed the habit of discipline study. They have developed an educated mind. They have developed a broader understanding of the subject.
And that will stand them in good stead. So, detachment is empowering because it frees us from dependence on results that are not in our control. I’ll repeat this.
Detachment is empowering because it frees us from dependence on the results that are not in our control. If we are not having detachment, then we tie our self-worth and self-identity to the results. And they are not in our control.
So, it’s primarily, now depression can have many, many reasons. But one reason is that, in today’s world, we have tied our sense of self-worth and self-identity to a lot of external things. So, if I tie my self-worth to how much money I’m earning, then I might, if I lose a job and I get a job which is more according to my liking, but it pays less.
So, our self-worth is not the same as our net worth. But if I equate the two, and if my net worth goes down, my self-worth plummets down with it. So, in many cases, if we are too attached to the results, if we tie our self-worth to external results, and those don’t come, we become disheartened, we become depressed.
When we have detachment, then failure is an event in our life. But if we do not have detachment, then failure becomes the defining event in our life. Defining event means, we don’t think, I failed here.
We start thinking, I am a failure. There is a difference between, I met with a failure, and I am a failure. When we tie our self-worth to getting results, and the results don’t come, then what happens? I start thinking, I am a failure.
So, that is very unhealthy. So, Krishna is telling Arjun, don’t think in terms of results. Think in terms of, by doing your duty, you will grow spiritually.
And, you know, one moment about the Bhagavad Gita is that, the Bhagavad Gita has been there around for thousands of years, and there are hundreds, there are almost more than thousand commentaries that have been written in the Bhagavad Gita. None of the commentaries that I have read, I have read traditionally, and I have read analysis of commentaries also, none of the Bhagavad Gita’s commentators have ever called upon people to fight wars against. India had been invaded by so many aggressors.
But that is not the thrust of the Gita. The Gita’s description rises to a much higher level. So, Krishna is talking to Arjuna, work with detachment.
That means, do your duty, and leave the results. And this can be very empowering, you know, in the creative field. I have written about 25 books.
So, I am an author, and almost all the top authors, Nobel laureates in literature of the last century, every single one of them has committed suicide. Or they have gone mad. All the big names.
Why is that? Again, we can’t generalise, but broadly speaking, we can say that creativity requires something beyond us to come into us and act to us. When we write something extraordinary, compose a poem, or write a book, or write a story, there is an author who said that actually, I just sit and a character comes to me, and the character starts enacting. I just follow and write down the script.
That’s how I write my novels. So, what happens, in the past, if you look at the Greek tradition, the Indian tradition, they had the idea that there are gods, and they bless you. And then they give you the ideas, and then you write them.
So, it was seen like a communion between the human and the transhuman, whatever it is. So, in the past, if somebody would dance expertly, somebody would write beautifully, somebody would sing wonderfully, in the past, it was said that you have geniuses in you. So, genius, if you go to the etymology of that word, it was that some higher being enters into you.
You have that sublime presence within you. And that’s how you’re able to write so well. That’s how you’re able to speak so well.
That’s how you’re able to sing so well, and draw so well. So, now, today’s world, we don’t say you have genius in you. We say you are a genius.
So, what has happened now to claim ownership of our talents is to put too heavy a burden on ourselves. To claim ownership for our talents is to put too heavy a burden on ourselves. Because sometimes we might be inspired and do something phenomenal.
And the next day, we can’t do any ordinary thing. And then if I start thinking, I was that good, how did I become so bad? Then we’ll start beating ourselves up. We’ll just not be able to function.
If I understand that I have to do my part, I will do my part, and if that higher spirit, that higher insight, that higher inspiration, higher wisdom comes, then this will come out to be extraordinary. If not, I will have done my part. So, I have to do my part, but I am not the sole producer of my work.
If we have that understanding, then we can be creative without being destructive. Some people are creative, but in the process of creating wonderful works of art, they become destructive towards themselves. I did so well yesterday, why can’t I do it today? Well, it’s not you alone.
Yes, you are there definitely, you have to do your part. But there is something bigger than you that is manifesting through you. So, if we have this understanding, when we do something extraordinary, we won’t become proud.
And when we are not able to do something extraordinary, we won’t become dejected. We will diligently do our part, and when the higher powers grace us, we will do something extraordinary. If not, we will keep doing our part in whatever way we can.
So, detachment can not only be empowering, detachment can be life-saving. If we do not have detachment, we may beat ourselves up and kill ourselves thinking, why can’t we be up to the standard that we were earlier during phases of creative inspiration. So, detachment can be life-saving also.
So, any questions or comments about this? Yes, please. How do you comment about the power of positive attitude? So, detachment is in general, and positive attitude and this law of attraction, which I think there is a popular concept that you imagine that you are successful, and there is a greater probability of success, which is trying to become true. Okay, good question.
So, the power of positive attitude or the law of attraction, how do we see this in the context of detachment? Okay. When we have to do our duty, it is the body and the mind, both have to work together. So, if say, I am going to give a talk now, and if inside me, my mind is thinking that I am going to make a fool of myself, nobody is interested, people are going to laugh at me, this is going to be a disaster.
Now, if that voice is coming within me, and that voice starts dominating within me, that will dishearten me, and I won’t be able to perform optimally. So, our attitude is a part of our endeavour. And our endeavour is in our hands.
So, to say that attitude doesn’t matter at all, just do the thing. We are not machines. How well we do a thing doesn’t depend just on the actions that we take.
It also depends on our disposition. So, cultivating a positive attitude is vital. So, we could have two extremes of thought.
One extreme of thought is the mind is irrelevant, the mind is important. We just treat ourselves as functional automatons. That means, you know, you do this, this, this, you get the result.
It doesn’t work like that. So, to think of the mind as important, as irrelevant, that is wrong. But, say, some books, like, say, I would say The Secret, some of the books, they go to the other extreme and make the mind omnipotent.
They say, if you desire this, if you dream this, it will happen. So, say, a woman is walking along a jewellery shop, and she sees a costly necklace. She realises, this necklace isn’t on my neck.
And then next morning, she wakes up, the necklace is on her neck. It’s not going to happen like that, is it? So, to imagine that the mind is omnipotent, that is also a delusion. So, I’m going from here to Phoenix, and Phoenix and Intel, I’m speaking on this topic of the positive power of negative thinking.
So, you see, there are some people who by nature are adventurers. And some people are cautious. And in a team, you need both.
Because the adventurers will do something. The cautious will make sure that you don’t just fly away in the sky. You can have your head in the sky, but your foot has to be in the ground.
So, the adventurers, they risk going completely into the sky. The cautious, they risk getting buried under the ground. So, we need a combination of the adventurers and the cautious.
And what can apply in a team can apply to us also, and to the individual. So, yes, positive attitude is required. But positive attitude alone doesn’t necessarily mean that everything that we desire is going to work out.
So, even with positive attitude, so I would say positive attitude is part of the endeavour. Before we do an activity, we have full positive attitude. This is my opportunity, let me do the best that I can.
Now, after we are done, the result comes good. If it doesn’t come, I’ll move on. I endeavoured, I disciplined myself, I worked, I grew with it.
And if not this, I’ll get success in a future opportunity. So, positive attitude and detachment, if both can be there, that can be a powerful combination. Because we’ll do our best, and we’ll be able to move on from one to the next to the next.
Any other questions or comments? So, I was told this class ends at 8.30. So, we have one more section. Should I quickly go over that or should I stop it? Quickly go over that. Okay, thank you.
I’m detached. Whatever answer you give, I’m fine with that. Okay.
So, the third point I was talking about is the art of self-mastery. So, here, the second section, which I talked about 2.38 to 2.53, where Krishna talks about the power of detachment. And then Arjuna asks the question, okay, you’re talking about this detached person who is peaceful.
What are the characteristics of such a person? Because he’s thinking, will such a person fight a war? He will not fight a war. So, he asks, what are the characteristics of such a person? And then in answering that, Krishna’s defining answer is, defining characteristic of a person who is detached or who is spiritually advanced is that they seek happiness internally, not externally. The defining difference between the materialist and the spiritualist is materialists seek pleasure externally, spiritualists seek pleasure internally.
2.55, Krishna says that put out external pleasures and seek inner pleasure. So, and the subsequent section talks about how to turn away from outer pleasures. He talks about broadly two principles.
One is regulation and the other is redirection. Regulation means what? All of us have certain weaknesses, certain things that we get tempted by. So, if we know what are our weak points, then we create some barrier between us and them.
I just came from the Silicon Valley and San Jose. So, there I spoke at Intel, Stanford, Google also. So, Google, they had done an experiment and I quoted that in my class with Google also.
They had found that a lot of their employees were suffering from obesity because their work is sedentary. And then they decided that they consulted some psychologist and the psychologist suggested that in your cafe, cafeteria, all the candies that are there, you cover them or you place them in non-transparent containers. Not containers with advertisements of what is present in them, just containers where you cannot see what is there.
So, just by doing that, they did that for six months and they found almost 33% consumption of candies decreased. You could say that was a loss for their cafeteria, but that was a gain for their health insurance because they had to pay less for their employees health. So, what happens here is that if a temptation is readily visible and easily available, then we will indulge in it more effortlessly.
But if it is not visible, it is not accessible, then we are, it’s not that we will not indulge in it, but we are less likely to indulge it. Our mind often chooses the path of least resistance. In psychology, this is called the principle of propinquity.
Propinquity means the effect of space and time on activity, on human action. Say, if you are passing by a hotel, restaurant, where there is some food which you like to eat and you are passing by and we see, oh, there is a big crowd over there. We go now, it will take one hour for our order to be served, maybe some other time.
When we pass by and we say, oh, it’s completely empty, I can just go in, get the order and eat it. And now we may not really be hungry and that may not be healthy food also. But if it’s easily available, we’ll go for it.
It requires some effort. So, this is 2.58 I’m explaining. He says that withdraw your senses from the sense objects.
That means create a distance, create a barrier between you and the objects that tempt you. By that, and this is not a surefire guarantee. But this is a first level protection.
Because for all of us, desires attack at different levels or urges attack at different levels. Sometimes an urge is just a casual urge. If this food is available, let me eat it.
If this movie is free, let me watch it. This is here, let me do it. So, if the temptation is very easily accessible, we are more likely to indulge in it.
So, create some barriers. So, that is the principle of regulation. And regulation is very important.
For all of us, we can find out. So, suppose somebody is a recovering alcoholic. And their house is on top of a bar.
Now, if they have to recover, the first thing they have to do is change their house. Go to new house. They can’t stay there.
Because the path of least resistance, the distance between them and their object of temptation is too close for them. So, create a distance, create a barrier. That is regulation.
But, after Krishna says this, then he says, regulation is not enough. Why? Because sometimes some desires are so strong, that no matter how much distance is there, sometimes if some food is very good, people may fly from New York to LA just to eat some food there. Isn’t it? So, if a desire is strong, then just the distance is no barrier.
So, it is a first level. For casual urges that come up, the distance or the barrier, that helps us. That’s regulation.
And when our urges hit us also, they are of different intensities at different times. So, when they just casually come, sometimes they are intense. So, for the second part, Krishna says that it’s not going to work.
Even wise people who try to control their senses, when they are pulled, they are dragged by their senses. I think Oscar Wilde said, giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it over a hundred times.
So, I gave up smoking, but smoking didn’t give me up. So, if something is a deep rooted desire, then simply creating some regulation, some barrier, just making a resolution, that alone is not enough. And what is required? Redirection.
Like Krishna says in 2.61, where he says, तानि सर्वाणि संयम्य युक्तासीतमत्परावशेहियस्येद्रियाणि तस्यप्रज्याप्रतिष्ठिता He says, regulate your senses and direct them towards me. Now, Krishna is the all attractive divine. That means, Krishna is talking about the principle of redirection.
Redirection means that the focus is not so much on saying no to something. The focus is on saying yes to something better. It’s like say, I have this bottle now.
Now, I open this bottle and say, suppose this bottle were empty of all liquid. Now, naturally there will be air in it. Now, if I want to remove all air from the bottle, it’s a very difficult task.
I have to get some machine which creates vacuum, pull it out and even with a slight disturbance, little air will rush in. So if I want to remove air, one way is to try to focus on removing air. And it’s very difficult.
But if I fill it with water, air will automatically go out. So similarly, for us, if there are certain things which are very attached to and we want to decrease our attachment to them, to try to say, I will not do this, I will not do this, I will not do this. What happens, we have a mind within us.
We make a resolution, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this. The mind comes along with an eraser and then it erases the not. I’ll not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll do this.
So the not gets erased off. So negative resolutions are not very sustainable. And negative resolutions are certainly not pleasurable.
I will not do this, I’ll not do this, I’ll be deprived of this. So it’s much better. There are certainly certain things which we need to give up.
But don’t focus on that. Focus on something positive. Focus on what can I fill my life with.
Not what I will drive out of my life. So our urges cannot be driven out of our consciousness. But they can be crowded out of our consciousness.
If we fill our consciousness with something positive, then the urges will get crowded out. And that is the power of bhakti. Bhakti Yoga which Krishna will talk about in the Bhagavad Gita gives us a wide variety of activities we can do by which we can spiritualise our consciousness.
So when we adopt this principle of redirection, focus not on saying no to something that we want to give up. Focus on saying yes to something that we want to take up. And that requires self-introspection.
What do I really want in life? Instead of thinking, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this. Okay, what do I want to do in my life? Instead of thinking, okay, I am not going to spend so much time on social media. Instead of that thinking, okay, what do I want to do? I want to read this book, it’s such a nice book.
Or I want to do this activity, I want to develop this relationship. And I saw one cartoon, it said that today my Wi-Fi was not there, so I spent some time with my family. They seem like nice people.
So, what we have to do is, we focus on what we want to do. And try to do that as much as possible. And the advantage of this is, that if we have, I’ll conclude with this point, that if we have a very rejection-centred definition of spirituality or devotion, I have to give this up, I have to give this up, I have to give this up.
Then what happens? We might say no to that for 30 days. And on 31st day, we succumb to it. And then we feel all my 30 days was a waste, it was a failure.
So, in a rejection-centred definition of self-control or self-mastery, actually there is no success. Because I might succeed for 20 years. And in the 21st year I do something wrong, all my 20 years of self-control is a waste.
I’ll think like that. But, if instead of a rejection-centred definition of spirituality, we have a redirection-centred, then, okay, for 20 years I did not do this, but I did this. I did constructive activities in my life.
I created a life worth living. I created a life that I’m happy about. And in that, this is a hiccup.
So, sometimes the urges may come up so strongly, that despite our best effort, we may not be able to resist. So, we don’t have to become disheartened. Even if we can’t resist the urges, we can persist between the urges.
The urge sometimes comes very strong, and we do something which we decided not to do. But after that, okay, if my definition is, not that I will not do this, but I will do this. Then, okay, at this point I couldn’t do it, but now I can do it.
So, we practise the lens of bhakti yoga, and there are certain standards of purity we want to follow. But if you’re not able to follow, it’s not that everything is alright. It’s sad, and it’s something we need to work on, but there’s no need to beat ourselves up with it.
Okay, it didn’t happen. Let me again connect with Krishna. Let me again practise bhakti.
This will give me inner strength. This will give me inner purity. And gradually I’ll become strong enough, that eventually when the urge comes, I’ll be able to say no to it.
So, for developing self-mastery, Krishna tells us, regulation and redirection. If we do these two things, then whatever it be that we are trying to battle against, we will sooner or later be able to overcome it. And more importantly, even if we’re not able to overcome it, in the near future.
But in between, by connecting with Krishna, we’ll create a better life for ourselves. So, it requires courage to admit our weaknesses. But it also requires courage to accept our weaknesses.
But it also requires courage to accept ourselves with our weaknesses. I have this anger, I have this greed, I have this lust, I have this envy, whatever. It requires courage to accept that I have this.
But, there’s another kind of courage required, that this is who I am, but still, I’m a spiritual being. I’m a part of the divine. And God, Krishna still loves me.
Krishna cares for me. Krishna’s love for me is not based on who I am. It is based on who He is.
He’s the all-loving Lord of everyone. He cares for me. So, I accept myself with my weakness.
That is also heroic. We have utopia. I want to be perfect.
Well, if I’m not, it requires courage to accept ourselves with our weaknesses and move forward in our life. When we do that, we accept ourselves with our weaknesses and strive for regulation and redirection. Gradually, we’ll be able to transcend our weaknesses.
So, I’ll summarise. I spoke today on three main theropics. The first point was about the, we say three levels of, three points versus the role of honour in inspire, impelling us to do the right thing.
So, we are very actively, we have ethical decisions to make at every moment in life. And social feedback often keeps us on the right track. So, if we are in a social culture where the sense of honour and dishonour guide us toward doing the right thing.
We can work with that. So, even motive, even this is also acceptable in some situations. Then, I talked about, after that about, we talked about honour.
The second was the power of detachment. That detachment is not being unconcerned about the results. It is, we set goals that come before the work.
And after that, results, we let go. Because we understand they are not in our control. We talked about the equation, duty plus destiny plus duration.
This is the desired result. So, detachment doesn’t mean we don’t care about the duty. No, detachment means we do our duty wholeheartedly, but we understand the result is not in our hands.
So, when we have detachment, then we don’t base our self-worth on the results, which are not in our control. Basing our self-worth on the results can make us depressed and can change failure from being an event in our life to failure becoming our own identity about our life. I am a failure.
So, detachment is very empowering in that sense. I talked about many of the artists being suicidal or manic depressive because they achieved levels of excellence and then they couldn’t replicate it. What’s wrong with me? Not wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you. But there are higher powers that work through you sometimes and sometimes they don’t work through you. It’s not that we are geniuses, it’s rather we may sometimes have geniuses within us.
So, detachment enables us to do our part while waiting for whenever grace comes. The last part I talked about was self-mastery. And then regulation, where if we have particular weaknesses, creating a distance or a barrier between us and the object of temptation can help us say no to casual urges that come upon us at the principle of propinquity.
And then I talked about redirection. Saying no is never pleasurable or sustainable. We focus on saying yes to something important in our lives.
So, we focus on not removing air from the bottle but on filling water by which the air is automatically removed. We can’t drive out our urges, but we can crowd them out. So, bhakti centres on connecting ourselves with the divine and redirecting our desires, our energy, our consciousness towards the divine.
And as we do that, gradually the darker side within us will go away. And even if it relapses, if we have a rejection-centred definition of spirituality, then when the urge comes and overpowers us, we will think I am defeated, I am useless. But if we have a redirection-centred understanding of spirituality, then even if the urge defeats us, okay, I couldn’t do the right thing at that time, but now I can do the right thing.
We will be enthused and we will move on. And it requires courage to accept our weaknesses. It also requires courage to accept ourselves with our weaknesses.
And when we accept ourselves where we are right now with our weaknesses and work with regulation and redirection, gradually we will attain purification and self-mastery. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So, if any of you have questions, you can talk personally.