Gita 18.18 Analysis of the components of action is meant to direct towards non-reactive action

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Bhagavad Gita 18.18 Krishna is now going to analyze action in terms of the three modes of material nature and in that connection he speaks about the components of action over here we interact with the world through the knowledge acquiring senses and we function in the world through that through the action senses Jnanendriya and Karmendriya so correspondingly we could say that our action involves certain perception or conception and certain execution like we are driving on a road and we see the car in front of us slowing down then if it’s a single lane road then we also slow down otherwise whether we can shift lane and overtake them so there is a perception and then there is proper action which is implemented Krishna has in the previous verses talked about how there are actions in the three modes there are various components of actions the five factors of action and then based on that he said that to think we are the soul doers that is the illusion the whole section is meant to discuss or explain how we can act without bondage and Krishna has talked about how we can act in the mode of goodness so to do it do work in the mode of in considering that this is my duty to do that is the best way of functioning Krishna has said so carrying that idea forward let’s consider now that Krishna is focusing on further breaking down action into its components there are factors of action that is the five factors which Krishna has talked about earlier Krishna is using the Sankhya system of analysis of breaking things down into their components so now he is going to give a brief description of what are the factors involved in action and based on that he will talk about or rather components of action and then he will analyze those in various modes so gyanam, gheeyam, parigyata trividhah karma chodana gyanam, gheeyam and parigyata gyanam refers to knowledge gheeyam refers to the objective knowledge or the that which we are perceiving and parigyata is a perceiver So, when we look at things, there is a person who is looking at the things, there is a way they look at things and there is a thing that they look at. All these three vary and these three are broadly the parts of the knowledge acquisition mechanism.
So, for example, the earlier example of driving a car, so then the parijnata is be the driver, the jnana is observing the road ahead of us, jnana is the object of knowledge that is the car in front of us, it is slowed down. So based on such observation, then we have to make some decision about how we are going to act. Now, for acting, there is karnam karmakarteti, trividha karma chodana, jnanam jnayam parijnata trividha karma chodana.
So Krishna says that actually there are three motivators of action, karma chodana and karma sangraha. So once we decide to act, say for example, the vehicle in front of us, we see that they slowed down, then we will press our brake so that we to slow down, for that karnam, our senses are required, we use our foot to press the brake, the foot is the karnam, karma is the action, the action of pressing the brake and then karti, karta is the doer. So, in the future verses, Krishna will analyze these items broken down further into various components.
So now karta and parijnata are the same, the observer and the executor are the same, the driver observes that the vehicle ahead is slowing down and the same driver slows down their own vehicle. So out of the six elements, karta is the same, karta and parijnata is the same and Krishna will talk about the karta in the three modes in 18.26 to 29, 26 to 28. And then karnam karmakarteti, so karma is the action, Krishna will talk about action in the three modes also from 18.23 to 25 and jnanam is knowledge there, knowledge also in three modes Krishna will talk about in the next, in the first three set of verses, that is 18.20 to 22.
So basically, these six components, they can be, three of them will be described, three with one of them combined, so the list of six gets reduced to five, because parijnata and karta are one and the same, out of those five items, we will see that Krishna will explain about jnana and karma in the next section and then what remains is jnana, karnam, which remains. So now there, the object that we perceive and the senses that we use for responding to the perception, these Krishna will elaborate through dhruti and buddhi, when we are going to use our senses, how do we use our senses, our senses may be inclined to go in a particular direction, but we determinedly prevent them from going in that direction and we push them and we make sure that they go in another direction, that is dhruti and buddhi means that we are able to perceive things in terms of their consequences, not what feels good but what leads to good, what is the consequence of a particular action, so buddhi enables us to perceive that, so jnana, we don’t see the object in isolation, but we see the object in connection with how it is, how our interaction with it is going to be and what is going to be the ramification of that interaction, the consequence of that interaction and based on that an appropriate course of action will be chosen. So in this way, Krishna is actually tri-vidha karma-sangraha, so he talks about three factors which shape action, three factors which shape perception and based on this combination of three things, he goes further and states that how each one of us can actually try to bring as many of our actions as possible in the mode of goodness.
So a major part of the next 20 verses is going to be focused on explaining the various components of action in terms of the three modes of material nature and based on that explanation, Krishna will take things forward and further explain how we ourselves can act in a way that will keep us free from bondage. That is our ultimate purpose, that is the basic purpose of Arjuna’s question and that will be answered by Krishna. So in the jnana, the object of knowledge, once we get the knowledge, another way of analyzing this is that after the object on which we act, so jnana, parijnata, all these are what Krishna has, this concept Krishna has talked about in third chapter and now Krishna is talking about all this again here to explain it in a more action-centered framework to guide Arjuna.
In 13th chapter, it is more in an analytical framework just to understand the broad concepts. Here it is more in terms of how they affect our actions and how we can choose to act in a responsible way by which we will not get bound.