Gita 03.28 – To know the truth means to see how spirit can stay disentangled from matter during action

Thank you Krishna is continuing his instruction to Arjuna about why he should fight and how he can while doing his prescribed duty stay free from entanglement so he is describing here he has told Arjuna in the previous verse that the deluded people think that they are the doers now in this verse he is telling if they are not the doers then what is the reality at first level, at first glance it does seem as if we are the doers so how do we actually understand that we are not the doers so he is describing how the wise people, how those who are knowers, tattvavit those who are knowers of the truth how do they see the reality so Krishna has used a similar word earlier in 2.16 when he said na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate satah ubhayor api drishton tas tvanayo sattvadarshibhi he said that tattvadarshibhi was the word over there seers of truth, here it is knowers of truth same point it is tattvavit mahabaho oh powerful Arjuna, one with powerful arms use your power to overcome the power of illusion and perceive as those who are in truth perceive gunakarmavibhagayo gunakarmavibhagayo refers to what actually it refers to guna and karma vibhaga vibhagayo, so actually essentially it refers to action under the modes vibhaga is division, gunakarma is karma within the gunas it can also of course refer to the quality of the work so guna can refer to modes modes guna can refer to qualities also either way the point is the people in knowledge can see how what the nature of the work is guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajyate guna guneshu vartanta means they understand that actually the modes are acting, interacting with the objects iti matva, understanding this na sajyate, they don't become bound so actually in this world often we find that we do things under some stormy influence and then afterwards you wonder why did I do that why did I speak like that, why did I act like that and it is only later that we realize that oh, it was as if something possessed me and made me do this thing, what was it that possessed me what made me do such a thing so to understand that it is important to recognize that it was actually the influence of the modes which made us do certain things so guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajyate, understanding that it is the modes which are interacting with the objects one can stay detached, one can stay indifferent one can stay disentangled guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajyate, one will not get bound if one stays detached now what exactly do the people in knowledge see now tattvavit, so what is the tattvavit that Krishna is talking about, he has not yet talked about about himself, about the supreme absolute truth in much detail there are only occasional references to that but he has talked more about the atma tattva, about how there is a soul beyond the body and how spirit is different from matter so understanding the difference between spirit and matter helps in recognizing that spirit is actually transcendental to matter that spirit is actually different from matter and this is one of the characteristics of the Gita's philosophy that there is no haziness about the understanding of spirit that spirit is not used metaphorically to refer to animating energy or something like that spirit is a concrete tangible entity that is the atma tattva and the tattvavit does not see spirit metaphorically but tattvavit sees the spirit literally literally means to see it as a distinctive truth as something which is the reality in terms of being a higher truth when one understands this then one moves onward in one's life without getting entangled without letting oneself be deluded without letting oneself be confused by things which one does not need to be confused about so when one understands that the modes are actually the doers, what the modes exactly are we will discuss later especially when we come to the 14th chapter in much more detail but suffice it to say that when a person starts seeing with knowledge then one sees that actually that which is happening as a process of nature I do not have to invest my emotion in that and if I invest my emotion in that I will get entangled but if I keep my emotion distance from that then I can avoid getting entangled and that way I can stay safe and steady in my onward journey and that is what is required and that is what is being offered over here that we can all move forward and onward in our journey if we keep ourselves disentangled if we keep ourselves emotionally distanced from the interaction of matter with material objects just as when we are putting fuel in our car at that time we don't invest our emotion in it we know that the body needs fuel, put the fuel in it why get excited and emotionally involved in that process it is required to do it and move on with your journey similarly we have to meet the body needs and senses may have to interact with the sense objects in the process of meeting the body's needs but we don't have to let ourselves become emotionally entangled in the process to the extent we can avoid emotional entanglement to that extent we can even while working in this world stay disentangled and not only stay disentangled, move further towards liberation by seeing the difference between the body and the soul clearly and by knowing that the bodily functions happen as programs or scripts ingrained in the psychophysical machine that is our body and they meet whatever needs they have to be met for the body according to its nature but they don't let themselves get emotionally invested in it and Krishna underscores to Arjuna if you don't get yourself emotionally invested in the fight then you can stay disentangled you can use this as a prescribed duty to march onwards towards liberation.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you Krishna is continuing his instruction to Arjuna about why he should fight and how he can while doing his prescribed duty stay free from entanglement so he is describing here he has told Arjuna in the previous verse that the deluded people think that they are the doers now in this verse he is telling if they are not the doers then what is the reality at first level, at first glance it does seem as if we are the doers so how do we actually understand that we are not the doers so he is describing how the wise people, how those who are knowers, tattvavit those who are knowers of the truth how do they see the reality so Krishna has used a similar word earlier in 2.16 when he said na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate satah ubhayor api drishton tas tvanayo sattvadarshibhi he said that tattvadarshibhi was the word over there seers of truth, here it is knowers of truth same point it is tattvavit mahabaho oh powerful Arjuna, one with powerful arms use your power to overcome the power of illusion and perceive as those who are in truth perceive gunakarmavibhagayo gunakarmavibhagayo refers to what actually it refers to guna and karma vibhaga vibhagayo, so actually essentially it refers to action under the modes vibhaga is division, gunakarma is karma within the gunas it can also of course refer to the quality of the work so guna can refer to modes modes guna can refer to qualities also either way the point is the people in knowledge can see how what the nature of the work is guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajyate guna guneshu vartanta means they understand that actually the modes are acting, interacting with the objects iti matva, understanding this na sajyate, they don’t become bound so actually in this world often we find that we do things under some stormy influence and then afterwards you wonder why did I do that why did I speak like that, why did I act like that and it is only later that we realize that oh, it was as if something possessed me and made me do this thing, what was it that possessed me what made me do such a thing so to understand that it is important to recognize that it was actually the influence of the modes which made us do certain things so guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajyate, understanding that it is the modes which are interacting with the objects one can stay detached, one can stay indifferent one can stay disentangled guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajyate, one will not get bound if one stays detached now what exactly do the people in knowledge see now tattvavit, so what is the tattvavit that Krishna is talking about, he has not yet talked about about himself, about the supreme absolute truth in much detail there are only occasional references to that but he has talked more about the atma tattva, about how there is a soul beyond the body and how spirit is different from matter so understanding the difference between spirit and matter helps in recognizing that spirit is actually transcendental to matter that spirit is actually different from matter and this is one of the characteristics of the Gita’s philosophy that there is no haziness about the understanding of spirit that spirit is not used metaphorically to refer to animating energy or something like that spirit is a concrete tangible entity that is the atma tattva and the tattvavit does not see spirit metaphorically but tattvavit sees the spirit literally literally means to see it as a distinctive truth as something which is the reality in terms of being a higher truth when one understands this then one moves onward in one’s life without getting entangled without letting oneself be deluded without letting oneself be confused by things which one does not need to be confused about so when one understands that the modes are actually the doers, what the modes exactly are we will discuss later especially when we come to the 14th chapter in much more detail but suffice it to say that when a person starts seeing with knowledge then one sees that actually that which is happening as a process of nature I do not have to invest my emotion in that and if I invest my emotion in that I will get entangled but if I keep my emotion distance from that then I can avoid getting entangled and that way I can stay safe and steady in my onward journey and that is what is required and that is what is being offered over here that we can all move forward and onward in our journey if we keep ourselves disentangled if we keep ourselves emotionally distanced from the interaction of matter with material objects just as when we are putting fuel in our car at that time we don’t invest our emotion in it we know that the body needs fuel, put the fuel in it why get excited and emotionally involved in that process it is required to do it and move on with your journey similarly we have to meet the body needs and senses may have to interact with the sense objects in the process of meeting the body’s needs but we don’t have to let ourselves become emotionally entangled in the process to the extent we can avoid emotional entanglement to that extent we can even while working in this world stay disentangled and not only stay disentangled, move further towards liberation by seeing the difference between the body and the soul clearly and by knowing that the bodily functions happen as programs or scripts ingrained in the psychophysical machine that is our body and they meet whatever needs they have to be met for the body according to its nature but they don’t let themselves get emotionally invested in it and Krishna underscores to Arjuna if you don’t get yourself emotionally invested in the fight then you can stay disentangled you can use this as a prescribed duty to march onwards towards liberation