Gita 18.13 The journey from illusion to illumination requires philosophical education

Transcript

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thank you this is Bhagavad Gita 18.13 Krishna is telling understand that there are five causes of action these are analyzed as per Sankhya for action for it to lead to its result for any action to lead to its completion these five factors are involved it’s interesting that Krishna is speaking Krishna is speaking based on the understanding that Arjuna, although you are Mahabaho Krishna is using that word over here although you are extremely powerful although you are mighty armed still you are not the sole doer there are five factors involved and understanding these factors will help us to see our actions in context the whole context of the Gita is that we should act in a way that is not karmically binding but is spiritually elevating for us to perceive an action as spiritually elevating for an action to be actually spiritually elevating it may not simply agree according to our perception it may well be that we have to systematically and determinately move from illusion towards illumination by assimilating philosophical exposition illusion is to take that we alone are the doers illumination is to get proper understanding of how things work and therefore we have to have proper philosophical exposition proper philosophical exposition means we should see people as we should see our place and purpose in the overall context of things without seeing the overall context without seeing our place and purpose in the overall context whatever we do we will not be able to move forward in our life with much clarity and the overall scheme of things understanding it is basically a function of philosophy the Bhagavad Gita draws here from Sankhya to explain how things happen when we fall, when say we have a cough uninformed vision would be oh I have a cough no I have a cough is true but what exactly is the problem I am coughing that’s the problem that’s the problem but what is causing that problem sometimes we just take some cough medicine and things get cured and then we move on sometimes simply taking cough medicine may not help we may need something more we may need to diagnose what exactly is causing the cough if say it’s tuberculosis in the body but the cough is not the disease the cough is the symptom of the bigger disease and trying to treat tuberculosis with cough medicine is not only going to be unproductive it can be counterproductive to the extent of accelerating the disease and even causing the death of the person so we need to see things holistically and an important part of seeing them holistically is seeing that they all work progressively for our purification that they are all contributing to the action and we need to look at all the factors sometimes we do A and B results at that time we may not feel that any other factor is involved we study well we get marks we think my studies led to the marks similarly we have a cough medicine and we take the we have cough and we take the medicine and we get cured but sometimes we study and still we don’t get marks at that time we start contemplating and considering what is causing such problems what actually is if that is what is it that is the trouble that needs to be resolved what is it that needs to be addressed that’s when we see the complete look beyond our action as the sole cause of the result that we desire so Krishna in this context the previous is telling Arjuna that what is going to happen out there in the Kurukshetra war is not determined by his actions alone and therefore the results are not going to manifest by his own action he has to do his part in the overall scheme of things and there is a bigger plan a bigger context in which by which actions manifest so that bigger plan involves appreciating how nuanced and multilayered things are appreciating how everyone of us needs to take into account the particularities of every situation and after taking those particularities into account then act for playing our part in the in the whole scheme of things so Krishna in the previous verses has told that Arjuna be a renouncer in the mode of goodness that means to renounce work itself work with detachment and that was the previous section and just the previous verses were saying that Arjuna work in such a way that if you work with detachment then you won’t be karmically entangled so how to function in that way that is the thrust of the Gita and that is what Arjuna will focus on here Arjuna will be guided Krishna’s focus in the subsequent sections subsequent verses about what the five factors are, how they interplay and what their interplay means in the context of the battlefield thank you