Gita 03.08 – To engage the world, first engage the heart in Krishna

Bhagavad Gita 3.8, Niyatam Guru Karmatam Karmajyayoya Karmana, Sharira Yatra Vijyate Naprasiddhya Karmana. The spiritual culture of ancient India is often thought of as world rejecting, world negating, saying that this whole world is illusion, it's a place of misery and one just has to get out of it, at a philosophical level the world is a place of entanglement, it is a place of misery and one does need to get out of it, so these are true assertions but the overall spiritual culture that was developed in ancient India based on this philosophy that culture was not world negating or world rejecting, that was world engaging, socially responsible culture and socially responsible spirituality is what is manifested in the Bhagavad Gita and this is what we can see in this verse, Krishna is telling Arjuna, Niyatam Guru Karmatam, Niyatam, you are prescribed, Kuru, do, Karmatam, you should do your prescriber, Karmajyayoya Karmana, Karmajyayo, Karma is better than Akarma, Akarma here means giving up activity, Sharira Yatra Vijyate, Sharira Yatra, Yatra we often use the word in terms of pilgrimage, so or a travel, now whenever we go for a travel at that time, we go to a particular place, stay at a particular place for a particular time, amount of time and then we move on, so the word Yatra can be used for the journey or Yatra can also be used for a place on the journey, so Sharira Yatra Vijyate, now for us the body is itself the means for a journey, the body is itself a stage in the journey and in this way our bodily existence is a Yatra, so that means it's like we are at a station during our multi-life, multi-station journey and the station itself is moving, so the body doesn't stay static and our consciousness inside the body also doesn't stay static, so Krishna is telling over here, Sharira Yatra Vijyate, Naprasiddhya Karmana, Naprasiddhya, you will not be able to achieve even basic bodily existence Akarmana, without doing your duty, so therefore you must do your duty Arjuna, because that is the way you will do, Sharira Yatra Prasiddhya, your Sharira Yatra, your bodily existence, bodily journeys more specifically will attain success, so now certainly it is true that we won't live without having food, without having a water, air and we have to work to make arrangements for bodily existence and we may also want a respectable material existence while we are in this world and that is fine, so Krishna is telling, Niyatam Kuru Karmathom, Arjuna do not renounce the world, similarly as devotees on the spiritual path we are not meant to renounce the world entirely, we are meant to actually engage the world and through engaging the world we grow, grow not just in the world in terms of our contribution in our position as happens to a materialist who does work responsibly but we also grow in our realization of how this material world is at one level a place of illusion and entanglement and misery, at another level this world is also an arena for remembering Krishna and serving Krishna, so engagement with the world is the practical way by which we engage with Krishna in this world, we can withdraw ourselves from the world and chant and hear and do directly devotional activities actually and that will connect us with Krishna but as long as we are in bodily consciousness we cannot do those activities for very long and even when we understand we are the soul we can't give up bodily consciousness overnight, we have to practice a systematic process of yoga for rising from bodily consciousness to spiritual consciousness in a steady and systematic and sustainable way, now while doing this while you are practicing yoga we also have to live and act in this world and if our consciousness is at a basic level infused with Krishna then acting in the world with a Krishna infused consciousness will actually deepen our Krishna centered realizations, we'll see the Krishna connection with everything and we will get realizations of Krishna's spiritual Krishna's teachings in the Bhagavad Gita and in the words of Guru Sadhu Shastra in general but for that so we certainly have to do our duty but as the Bhagavad Gita will expand the conceptions of duty further and it will describe the duty doesn't just mean our material duty, we also have our spiritual duty and our spiritual duty is to develop our relationship with Krishna by doing directly devotional activities, so without doing such direct devotional activities again na prasidhyet sharira yatra na prasidhyet our bodily journey will not be successful, if we give our material side it's due attention yes that may grow but ultimately the body is temporary and whatever we attach to the material side will be lost so that will be if we just if we reduce the conception of duty to only the material level then our fate will be what will be depicted later in this chapter aghayur indriyaramo mokham parthas jeevati aghay mokham partha a life filled with sin a life in vain so Bhagavad Gita is not endorsing here a materialistic definition of karma just and not endorsing the material definition of success wherein maintaining the body and attaining material respect and the other definitions of prasidhyet rather prasidhyet is a holistic concept where our karma our duty iniyatam kuru karmatam our duty includes our spiritual duty to develop relationship with Krishna and with that relationship with Krishna when we engage in our worldly activities also it means we have through intense devotional activities we have infused our consciousness with Krishna and then with that Krishna infused consciousness we can see and do our work with this with the spiritual motivation with the spiritual inspiration that's why the time when we do our direct devotional activities is so vitally important that is the time when we have opportunity to directly contact with Krishna in the form of sound vibration in the form of darshan of the deities and if at that time we are not conscious of if we don't become conscious of Krishna when he is directly apparent to us when he is much more easily accessible to us then if we can't be conscious of Krishna then then how will we be conscious of him at other times when the surroundings around us are materialistic and the activities that we are doing are also material so for the rest of our life to be infused with devotion with the devotional mode it's vital that we do our directly devotional activities earnestly and when we meditate when we pray when we chant at that time these are precious opportunities for us to invite Krishna into our heart and to beg him don't just come into my heart oh lord please make your residence here and become my guide help me see you and your wisdom and your love in the things that happen in life in the moments of the world let the world point to you who are the lord of the world and let my heart through this chanting and through my devotional service and through my engagement in the world let my heart always keep coming steadily closer to you thank you.