Gita 02.51 – Same action with higher motivation bestows higher destination

To Krishna. Thank you.

Bhagavad Gita 2.51 By engaging in karma now we get normally entangled in reactions so karmajam that which is born of karma. So, what is born of karma? The reactions, the actions that produce reactions. Karma jam buddhi yukta hi.

So, by using our buddhi to connect the fruits of karma with transcendence, he certainly, so those who connect the fruits of their work with transcendence by practicing buddhi yoga, and in this process, phalantyaktva, they give up the fruits of their work, manishinaha. Such people are manishinaha. Manishinaha means that they are very deep thinkers.

Isha, as we know, means controller. Manishinaha means those who are controllers of their minds. So, the mind normally goes to the surface of things and looks at that, looks at this, looks at that.

Mind itself doesn't go deep. But when we have controlled the mind or those who have controlled their minds, they can check the mind's tendency to flip from the surface of one thing to another and they can push the mind to go deeper and see the substantial essence of things, substance of things beyond their surface. So, this way they see the spirit beyond matter and they see God beyond the world and they pursue spirit and they pursue God.

So, manishinaha. Janmabandha vinirmuktaha. Such people, what happens to them? Janmabandha.

So, the bondage of birth and death. That is put in a short form here as janbandha. So, vinirmuktaha.

They become not just mukta, vinirmukta. Thoroughly liberated. Completely liberated.

Visheshrupenamukta. Padamgacchanti. Padam, it sometimes refers to footsteps.

But padam also refers to the place where we can place our footsteps. So, pada also refers to designation or position. So, padam here refers to the position.

Padamgacchanti. They go to, they attain. Anamayam.

Maya refers to misery. Anamayam refers to freedom from misery. So, they attain the place that is free from misery.

The eternal place. So, Krishna, this verse is the first explicit mention of eternal abode. So, the eternality of the soul has been repeatedly talked about in this chapter from 2.12 onwards.

And the attainment of eternality in terms of amritattvaya kalpate has also been mentioned on a few occasions. But eternal place, that as the ultimate goal of life, has not been mentioned till now. Here, padamgacchanti anamayam.

That abode which is free from misery and which is attained after janmabandha vinirmuktaha. Which is attained after one becomes liberated from the cycle of birth and death. That is, both these are clearly references to the eternal spiritual world.

To the eternal spiritual sanatana sky as we say. Now, because Krishna has not yet introduced himself in the Bhagavad Gita, so he does not refer to this as his abode. That sort of references will come later in the Gita, once he starts talking about himself more in detail.

But here, Krishna is simply saying that the soul will, the eternal soul will attain a destination that is like its eternal nature. That is also eternal. So, for that, what does the soul have to do? By doing karma, dovetail or harmonize or spiritualize the work with transcendence.

So, that, of course, as was discussed earlier, is the art. And by that, phalam tepra maneshanaha. By that, stay detached from work.

And then, janmabandha vinirmuktaha. One will stay free from bondage. Now, one will become free from bondage.

So, here Krishna is telling in more explicit detail what will be the result of practicing karma yoga. Earlier, Krishna had talked about how by practicing karmakanda. Although these specific words, karma yoga and karmakanda are not used.

But from the discussion which is going on, it is clear that now Krishna is talking about a spiritual path, which is karma yoga, which we can infer from the, what is being described. Now, earlier Krishna was talking about karmakanda. So, there he had talked about attainment of heaven.

So, he has mentioned heaven several times till now in 2.3, 2.2 rather, asvargyam akirtikaram. And then again he mentioned it in hathovaprapsisi svargam in 2.37. And he had mentioned it earlier also in, he has talked about it basically in svargadvaramapavrtam in 2.31, 2.32, 2.34. So, till now, the svarga as the desirable destination has been talked about. So, Krishna has been more or less going on with the normal understanding of kshatriyas.

It is not that even in the past, everyone was a pure devotee aspiring for the eternal destination. No, there also, there were people who were not yet ready to give up the world entirely. And they practiced, they lived in the presence of dharma, but they did not necessarily practice paradharma.

So, they practiced dharma to get artha and kama. And gradually after many lifetimes, they may practice, they may aim for moksha. So, that was the general understanding of people.

And if you look at the Mahabharata's broad context, the kshatriyas consider attaining heaven as a cherished goal. But here Krishna is taking Arjuna's understanding much higher than the conventional understanding of the kshatriyas. And he is saying that even heaven, he is not told explicitly that heaven is also temporary.

But he is talking about how those who aim for heaven are also avipashchitaha. He is talking about in 2.42 and 43. And he will tell explicitly how heaven is also temporary in 9.21 later.

But that the aimers or those who aim for heaven are avipashchitaha, whereas here those who go to the anamayam padam, padam gacchanti anamayam, are manishinaha. The contrast is quite clear and emphatic. So, those whose mind is abducted by bhoga and aishwarya, they cannot pursue the eternal destination.

They chase after heavenly pleasures or they are caught and dragged towards heaven because of their infatuation. Whereas those who are focusing on, those who control their minds and those who understand what is their ultimate spiritual interest and focus on attaining that and pursuing that, they attain an eternal destination. And Krishna emphasizes that this is anamayam, this is free from misery.

So, Arjuna says that just by fighting or by not fighting, you can avoid misery. Ultimately, to avoid misery, you have to raise your consciousness to the spiritual level. And for that, practicing yoga.

And for you practicing yoga, the best way to do it is to fight in the war. So, we see here how Krishna has raised the discussion to a much higher level while keeping the course of action for Arjuna consistently the same. So, Krishna has talked about fighting directly in 2.37. So, there it was based on Karmakandi, prophet clause calculation that you should fight.

And immediately after that in 2.38, Krishna reiterates the same instruction but drastically alters the motivation. So, he says, There also, it was but it was no profit loss calculation at all. Let's go beyond profit loss calculation, Krishna says.

So, then if one does not think of profit loss, what is the point in acting? What is the in fighting? So, Krishna gave one aspect of that is that you will not get papa. But that is only one aspect of the benefit. You will not become entangled.

But our goal in life is not just to stay misery free. Our goal is to be joyful. And to be joyful, we need to attain an abode of joy.

So, that is further elaborated here by saying that you will go beyond all misery. So, the result of acting with detachment is to go beyond all distress and attain eternal destination. How the eternal destination will be positively joyful will be discussed when the positive activity of the soul in relationship with Krishna in devotion will be discussed.

But here, essentially, Krishna reiterates the same course of action that Alina fight, but with a higher.