Gita 14.18 Goodness leads to elevation, passion to stagnation, ignorance to degradation

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. The questioner is speaking here about the general trajectories of people who live in the different modes.
So, urdhvam gacchanti sattvastha. Urdhva is upwards, gacchanti, they go. Sattvastha, those who are situated in the mode of goodness, go upwards.
Madhye tishthanti rajasaha. Those who are in the mode of passion, they stay situated in the middle. Jaganya gunavrttistha.
So, jaganya is reproachable or even despicable, abominable. Those who have very low-level mentalities, jaganya gunavrttistha. Adho gacchanti tamasaha.
Such people in the mode of ignorance, go down, adho. So, Krishna is broadly talking about three trajectories. Go up, stay where we are and go down.
And later, of course, in this chapter he will introduce a fourth alternative. That is to get out. Now, going up and getting out are not the same things.
Because we talk about going up, it can refer to going up in this material world to a higher planetary system, where there may be better facilities for material, life and material enjoyment, but still they are also temporary. Krishna has underscored this earlier in the 8th chapter, 8.16, when he says that ābrahma-bhuvana-loka-punarāvarthino arjuna mām petya tu kaunteya punarjuna This is ābrahma-bhuvana-loka, that from the highest planetary system down to the lowest. Punarāvarthino arjuna.
They are all places where one has to come back again, of rebirth. They are places where the cycle of birth and death is perpetuated. mām petya tu kaunteya But those who worship me, O Arjuna, punar janma na vidyate They don’t take birth again.
So this getting out is not dependent on which mode we are situated in. It is dependent more on whether we are devoted to Krishna. That devotion to Krishna will be mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita about 8-9 verses from now.
This is 14.18. Krishna mentions that in 14.26. But as of now, he is talking about these three alternatives. Going up, staying where we are and going down. And he says that if we live in the mode of goodness, in urdhvaṁ gacchanti, we go upwards.
Krishna has talked about this also earlier in this very chapter. About 5 verses earlier, 14.14 he had said that yadā sattve pravṛdhetu pralayam yāti deha-bhret pralayam yāti deha-bhret pralayam yāti deha-bhret yadā sattve pravṛdhetu pralayam yāti deha-bhret yadā sattve pravṛdhetu pralayam yāti deha-bhret pralayam yāti deha-bhret If the embodied soul leaves the body, meets with death, with uttama-vidhāma-lokāna, at that time, one goes to the abode of the learned beings. Amalāṁ pratipadyate That is the pure abode.
So here, Krishna is reiterating that. And rather than focusing on specific characteristics of the abodes where the soul will go, here he is giving a more general description saying that the soul will go upwards. So we could say that the mode of goodness leads to elevation.
Even when people worship the devatas for going to heaven, svarga, for enjoying worldly pleasures, or rather heavenly pleasures, still material pleasures, at that time also, although we could say that heaven is a materialistic place in the sense that there are many heavenly damsels and there is a lot of worldly prosperity, Krishna talks about bhoga and aishwarya in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita 2.41, 42, 43, 42, 43, 44, but still, to get there, one needs to live a regulated life. And that following of scriptural regulation signifies goodness. And even the devatas, although they have access to far more material enjoyment than what we have, still even that is within regulation.
The devatas are also following dharma. So in that sense, any planetary level of existence higher than ours is an elevation and it requires some amount of goodness to attain. So goodness leads to elevation.
Passion leads to stagnation. Those who live in the mode of passion, they are reborn in this world, in our level of existence. Here, there are a lot of desires for enjoyment, but there is also a lot of struggle in trying to fulfill those desires.
Krishna has said that living in the mode of passion causes insatiable desire and binds one to karma. So in 14.15 he has said that वजसी प्रले अंगत्वा कर्म संगीशु जायते Those who die in the mode of passion, they are born among those who are attached to karma. If we live in the mode of passion, seeking sensual pleasures, but not sinful pleasures, then we will be reborn in this world.
The difference between sensual and sinful is in terms of the principles of morality and spirituality as given in scripture. Ultimately, to become spiritual, we need to give up sensuality. But, scripture also recognizes that most people will not be able to give up sensuality immediately.
So there is a gradual program for accommodation and elevation of people according to their strength of desires and their level of realization to offer them some level of regulated sense enjoyment so that they can gradually become more spiritual and then they can go beyond sensuality to focus spirituality. So, those who live sensually but not sinfully, they will be reborn at the earthly level of existence. The mode of passion, when it is directed by scripture, then it doesn’t have to be sinful.
Even it can be a part of dharma. The kshatriyas, for example, in the past would live in royal opulence. They would often have many queens, many maidservants, many luxuries.
But while living thus, they would also be doing diligently their dharmic duties. They would perform sacrifices, they would respect the sages, they would create facilities for the brahminical culture to flourish. And that way, although they were living in passion, they were still living not sinfully but virtuously.
So, such sensual existence will lead to… living in the mode of passion will lead to return to the present level of existence. And then there is… Those who live sinfully, those who do deplorable activities, they will… they will get degraded. Now, the degradation can be in two ways.
They may either go down to the lower planetary systems, which is what broadly Krishna is referring to here, that they will go to the lower planetary systems where there is often greater suffering and lesser facility for enjoyment. And they may even go to the hellish planets where there is almost entirely suffering, not even the illusion of pleasure, which is present in this world. The other way one can go down is mentioned in 14.15, So, Krishna says that those who depart while in the mode of ignorance, they will go down to the lower species, the species of the deluded, of the foolish, that refers to the animal species.
So, when Krishna says, those who live in the mode of ignorance will go down, that can refer also to the species that are lower than the human species, that is, the animal species. So, when Krishna is using the word Urdhva and Adha, go up and go down, this is not in a geometric or geographical sense, it is a sense of consciousness. Because if we consider, say, people in India and America, both may say, if they are asked, where is heaven, they will point upwards.
But if you consider the earth as a globe, then when people in India and America, which is more or less antipodal countries, if both of them say up, then the two ups will be in two opposite directions. So, where is heaven? Is it in the up direction pointed from America, or is it in the up direction pointed from India, which are actually opposite directions? No, heaven is not just in the geographical sense above us, heaven is actually in a sense of the level of consciousness and the level of existence that corresponds to the level of consciousness, that heaven is upwards. So, Adhav Gacchanti Tamasaha, that one goes downwards, that refers not just to the lower levels of existence geographically, it can refer to the lower planet resistance, but it can also refer to the lower species, because the word lower is used, not in a geographical sense, but in a sense of karma and karmic qualification and consciousness.
So, just as heaven is not just physically upwards, but karmically upwards, similarly, lower is also used in a karmic sense. The essential point of this verse is that, goodness leads to elevation, passion leads to stagnation, and ignorance leads to degradation.