Gita 02.39 – Use buddhi to transform theoretical sankhya into practical yoga

Resonance in its message. Thank you. Bhagavad Gita 2.39 This verse marks a very significant, critical, even decisive transition point in the discourse of the Bhagavad Gita.

Krishna is conscious of the seeming contradiction between the multiple levels of the discussion that he is having, of the contradiction between the multiple levels that he has been talking at. So, in 38, he had said that we equipoise amidst happiness and distress. But just the previous verse is talking about avoid happiness, avoid distress, gain happiness.

So, how is this to be reconciled? So, Krishna is telling that I am taking this dialogue to a higher level, to the level of yoga. So, this verse marks the ascent of Gita to the level of yoga. And actually, the Gita is essentially a yoga text.

In the Sanskrit names of the Gita, actually, the word yoga is used in the colophons. Colophons refers to the sentences that are written traditionally at the end of a chapter and which are recited when a chapter is retired. So, for example, Om Tat Satiti Shreemad Bhagavad Gita Surupanishad.

So, like that it goes on. Krishna Arjuna Samvade Sankhya Yoga Namaha Nityo Adhyaya So, Om Tat Sat refers to the absolute truth. It is a yoga shastra.

It is a book which is essentially about yoga and in its discourse about yoga, Krishna Arjuna Samvade, it is a shastra about yoga, which is in the format of a samvada, a discussion between Krishna and Arjuna. And in that discussion, Krishna Arjuna Samvade, so for example, second chapter is called as Sankhya Yoga. So, Sankhya Yoga Namaha Nityo Adhyaya, that is the name of Nityo Adhyaya.

So, this the point which we are trying to make over here is that the Bhagavad Gita has its own focus as it has been traditionally understood. It uses the word yoga many times and further the traditional commentators and the traditional reciters and the traditional redactors. So, they also considered the Gita to be a yoga shastra.

So, the word yoga is introduced here for the first time in the Gita and it will be referred repeatedly in the future also. So, actually there are many words which are introduced in the Gita here. Sankhya is also used for the first time.

So, yoga is also introduced for the first time in the Gita. Further, buddha, buddhi is also introduced for the first time and the concept of karmabandham, that is also talked about for the first time here in the Gita. So, the Bhagavad Gita is, as I said, a yoga shastra and there are, so each chapter is called yoga and the word yoga itself appears 78 times in the Gita and the word yoga also is modified in its forms as yukta and yogi and in those forms it appears 155 times, along with those forms.

So, yoga appears 78 times and if you take yukta and yogi then it appears 178 times, sorry, 155 times. So, there is a significant number of occurrences of this word. So, if you consider the 700 verses then it is almost like more than almost one-sixth of its verses or you could say one-fifth of its verses actually.

So, 155 is 75. So, 155 which if we divide by 700 we get less than 5. If 700 is divided by 155 we get less than 5. So, the point is the Bhagavad Gita is a yoga shastra and the discussion of yoga will begin from here. The word yoga is related etymologically to the English word yoke.

Yoke is a device which is used in farming especially blowing which is put on the back on the neck and the back of a bull or any other farming animal and that is used to guide the animal during blowing. So, here what is being said is that just as yoke connects the blower with the bull in the blow, it will, yoke basically connects and sometimes the word yoke is used also to connect. So, for example, a man and a woman are yoked together in marriage.

The Bible says do not be unequally yoked. That means that a believer should not marry a non-believer. So, yoking is often used for connection in that sense through marriage or through some other way.

So, yoga also means connection. It comes from the same root and it means the same thing to connect. Now, connect what? Our spiritual side to the universal spiritual side.

That is the most broad understanding. There is within our body, there is a spiritual side to our life and within the universe beyond the matter, there is a spiritual level of reality. So, to see, connect the cosmic reality within with the cosmic, connect the spiritual reality within with the spiritual reality without.

Now, this connection is not a connection of merging as sometimes thought about because neither the spiritual reality within nor the spiritual reality without are impersonal. They are persons and it is not a merging of beings but a meeting of hearts, meeting of love that is the culmination of yoga. We will see this in 6.47 when Krishna declares that those who are devotees, those who constantly remember him and serve him and love him, not those who merge into him, those who satatam, those who always remember him and love him, they are the most intimately united with him.

So, the yoga is a whole process which will repeatedly be talked about in the Gita. So, Krishna talks about yoga here and he also introduces the word Sankhya. We will discuss about Sankhya a little bit and we will come to yoga in the future verses.

Now, there are six systems of philosophy within the Indian thought and they are often grouped together. So, among them Sankhya and Yoga are grouped together. Nyaya and Vaiseshika are grouped together and Mimamsa and Vedanta are also grouped together.

So, sometimes they are called as Mimamsa is Purvam Mimamsa and Vedanta is Uttar Mimamsa. So, these are the six systems of philosophy. Now, why are Sankhya and Yoga grouped together? We will see that Krishna also uses the word Sankhya and Yoga together in this verse.

I have talked about Sankhya till now. I will talk about Yoga. You just hear about it.

So, the Sankhya refers essentially to analysis. A Sankhya is counting. So, actually analysis itself means to break down something into its components and it also implies counting within it.

So, Sankhya is analytical breakdown of a thing into its components. So, generally Sankhya as a system of philosophy is thought of as breaking down the material world into its components, matter into its components like say the 8 elements along with the senses, the sense objects and things like that. We will see that Krishna will talk about the 8 elements in 7.4 and the 24 elements in 13.6 and 7. But Sankhya does not just involve breaking down matter into its components.

Sankhya actually involves breaking down all of existence into its components. So, materialistic Sankhya talks only about 24 elements and that is the, although it is the mainstream version of Sankhya today, it is actually a deviation from the Vedic standard. So, there was an atheistic Kapila and there was a subsequent scholar Ishwara Krishna who wrote Sankhya Karika.

And they are prominent texts for the atheistic version of Sankhya. But atheistic version of Sankhya does not imagine that the existence contains only material elements. It recognizes that existence also has spiritual dimension to it and the spiritual dimension, that is also eternal.

So, when Krishna is saying that he is spoken about Sankhya in this chapter, what he means is that he is talking about the analytical difference between matter and spirit. So, he is not analyzing matter itself, which is often thought of as a business of Sankhya, but analysis, breaking down, that is the essence of Sankhya actually. And the persons with whom Arjuna has to fight and the person that Arjuna himself is, Krishna has analytically broken down that into two aspects, the body and the soul, matter and spirit.

Now, we cannot live a ruptured, fractured existence between our matter material and our spiritual side. They have to be harmonized. And how they can be harmonized, that is all about Yoga.

So, Yoga is ultimately meant to connect with the spiritual reality. But how do we deal with the material reality that we are in right now, that is also talked about in Yoga. So, what I have talked, so Sankhya in that broad sense means the theoretical analysis of the difference between the body and the soul, which Krishna has given from 2.11 to 2.30. And Yoga refers here to the practical knowledge of how to live knowing oneself to be the soul who is present in a body right now.

And Krishna says that Buddhi Yoga, we will discuss about Buddhi Yoga later again in the same chapter when the word will come. But it basically means it is not another form of Yoga, there are primarily 4 forms of Yoga. Karma Yoga, Gyan Yoga, Dhyan Yoga and Bhakti Yoga.

But Buddhi Yoga here refers to just Yoga that is done with Buddhi. And that can refer to various levels of Yoga. We will see in 10.10 it refers to Bhakti Yoga.

So, here Krishna is saying use your intelligence, how to, Buddhya Yukto Eya Partha. If you use your intelligence like this, so Yoga came in the second line and a variant of Yoga Yukta came in the next line. Buddhi Yoga came and then Buddhya Yukto.

So, use your, it is a Buddhi Yoga rather than being seen as a separate Yogic system. We see it from the usage as something to be used to become Yukta. Yoga is meant to make us Yukta, connected, harmonized.

And using your intelligence, if you harmonize yourself, Buddhya Yukto Eya Partha, Karma Bandhan Prahas, you see, you will break free from karmic bondage. So, till now Krishna had talked about ascending to heaven, but he has not talked about breaking free from matter itself. And this is how Krishna is raising the dialogue to a higher level because the goal he is pointing out is not just to avoid Papa, but it is actually to avoid all form of Papa and Punya and to get out of material existence itself.

So, Yoga is not just meant to take us to heaven because even heaven is temporary. Yoga is meant to take us to eternal destination. Eternal destination means that you have to break free from both Papa and from Punya.

So, how to use your intelligence to practice Yoga, how to use your intelligence to apply the Sankhya knowledge of the difference between body and soul, that Krishna says, I will speak this to you and the benefit of your hearing and understanding it will be that you learn how to act in a way that will.