Gita 18.30 Intelligence means to see beyond appearance to consequence

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you in these three verses 30, 31 and 32 Krishna is talking about buddhi, intelligence in the three modes and he begins in this verse by talking about intelligence in goodness buddhi, sāpārtha, sātvikī the overall context here is Krishna is speaking about how we can act in a way that keeps us above karmic bondage if the various components of action are in the mode of goodness then action will be in the mode of goodness if the various components of action are handled in such a way that they are conducive to transcendence then the action will also be conducive to transcendence so here Krishna tells that pravṛttiṁ ca nivṛttiṁ ca there is action to be done and action to be given up kāryā kārye bhaya bhaye that there is something which is to be done and something which is not to be done now pravṛtti and nivṛtti can also refer to that which we feel inclined to do and that which we don’t feel inclined to do bhaya bhaye there are certain things which we should be afraid of doing and there are certain things which we should not be afraid of doing bandhaṁ mokṣaṁ chayā vetti to know what will cause bondage and what will lead to liberation buddhiṁsā pārtha sātvikī so intelligence means to see things based on their consequence not their appearance how things look how things feel often that’s not at all a reliable parameter for deciding how they are and or what their effect will be as for example for a person who has got diabetes food with sugar may taste great but that food can have disastrous consequence that food may well lead to a person being caught and trapped in sickness even in mortal sickness also so how severe the diabetes is and how severe the sugar overdose is the complications can be mild severe or even fatal so for a diabetic person to be intelligent means to see actions to evaluate things based not on their appearance oh this looks so good this is so tasty I’ll enjoy it so much but rather their consequence similarly we are all bound in various ways some of us may be bound to certain behaviours and some of us may be bound to certain other things certain substances usually we think of addiction in terms of substance addiction alcoholism that’s bondage addiction is essentially bondage of slavery but there can be also behavioural addiction so for example net surfing addiction to porn could be a substance addiction porn is not exactly a physical substance but still it’s a product but sometimes some people may just have addiction to surfing just have to surf some new site and look at something, get some update only when they get that they feel good so that way if they try to live trying to simply get rid of their try to somehow get that substance or do that behaviour that may give some release some dopamine and make them feel good for some time dopamine is a brain chemical associated with stimulation which is said to give us a kick sense of stimulation and that dopamine boost makes us feel good temporarily but a wise person will see that this is actually might feel good right now but it is going to have it will make me bound to this behaviour it will make me behave in the same way again and again with intelligence you can see that every action is not just that action in isolation it is a commitment to similar action in future and thus that action needs to be carefully monitored before it is entered into to be carefully considered so this capacity to perceive the consequence to perceive what action will have what consequence that is characteristic of the mode of goodness and intelligence, the way Krishna is analysing it is not so much in terms of observation per se in terms of taking information but it is in terms of execution of action what kind of action is to be done and what kind of action is not to be done it is not that the person in goodness does not have likes and dislikes they may also have raga and dvesha it is there in everyone certain things which we like and certain things which we don’t like now there are two extremes one is just because I like to do something I will do it and just because I don’t like to do it I will not do it and the other is we try to torment ourselves by going against just our innate likes and dislikes that just because I like something I will not do it and just because I dislike something I will do it our purpose is not to torment ourselves our purpose is to use ourselves to transcend ourselves we want to use our body and mind which is where our present set of likes and dislikes are situated we want to use that body and mind to realize our actual self to realize ourselves as souls over parts of Krishna that means that we are purpose driven neither pleasure driven nor pain driven we are not driven by the purpose of giving pleasure to the body and mind nor are we driven by the purpose of giving pain to the body and mind we don’t want to pander to the body we don’t want to torment the body also we want to utilize the body for realizing the soul and for realizing love for the supreme soul so this consequence when we are able to see then then we will understand which actions are healthy for us to do and which actions are not healthy and thus we will be able to choose wisely understanding that every one of us has to act action is just unavoidable but what kind of action we do that is something which we can choose and there may be some of our likes which may be usable or harmonizable with our purpose of growing towards Krishna and then we can use those likes so Kshatriya likes to manage likes to organize likes to fight and that is a very valuable resource which can be used for serving Krishna a Brahmana likes to be intellectual likes to study, discuss, analyze and that can also be used for serving Krishna so in this way if we act then we can move towards Krishna and ultimately attain Him by looking at that consequence and focusing on ensuring that that consequence which we seek the word consequence is sometimes used in a negative sense we could use the word result that the result of deepening of our devotion to Krishna the result of deepening our realization of our spirituality that result we seek and for that purpose based on that purpose the intelligence that discerns what should be done and what should not be done that is healthy intelligence in the mode of goodness in the next two verses, Krishna will talk about intelligence in passion and ignorance and how those intelligences differ from the intelligence and goodness and how they lead to lead us in a very different direction from what intelligence and goodness leads to all this we will discuss in our future talks