Karma yoga - Part VIII: The Two Great Enemies

[Guest guest]

The two great enemies:

 

After discussing elaborately the Karma yoga, Krishna gives a stern

warning to humanity. Those who follow my advise and do karma yoga, they

ultimately reach Me, enjoying the eternal unlimited happiness. But

those who disrespect Me and do not follow My advise, they get more and

more deluded and perish engulfed by their own extreme stupidity. They

go down the drain buried in samsaara. Here, disrespecting Him means

disrespecting the totality by catering only for one’s egocentric desires

even at the expense of the rest.

 

ye tvetad abhyasuuyanto naanutishhTanti me matam|

sarvajnaana vimuuDhaastaan viddhi nashhTaanacetasaH||

 

Obviously, Arjuna wants to know what makes the people commit such sins,

even after knowing very well that it would ultimately hurt them.

Arjuna’s question is very pertinent to all of us. We see ourselves

doing things we know that we should not be doing and we even advise

others not do, yet we cannot stop ourselves from doing. It is like a

cardiologist who is himself overweight and a chain smoker advises his

patients not to overeat and not to smoke, since they are bad for the

heart.

 

There was interesting episode attributed to Shree Ramakrishna

Paramahamsa. Once a disciple of Shree Ramakrishna brought his son to

his guru and requested him to talk to his son. The son was eating too

many sweets, and the father knew that if Paramahamsa instructs his son

not to eat sweets, out of respect, his son would listen and follow.

Paramahamsa asked him to come back after a month with his son, and at

that time he can instruct the boy. The disciple wondering why he had to

wait for one month for such a simple instruction, returned with his son

after a month. Paramahamsa called his son aside and said “My child, do

not eat sweets. They are not good for you”. The boy hesitatingly

agreed but promised that he would not eat sweets anymore. The disciple

asked Paramahamsa, “Sir, this simple instruction could have been given

earlier. Why did you wait for a month?” Paramahamsa, smilingly replied,

“I could have given at that time, but that would not be meaningful. I

could not instruct the boy not to eat sweets earlier, since I myself was

eating sweets that are not good for me. It took a month for me to stop

the craving for sweets. Now, only I could give such an instruction”.

yadyat aacharati shreshhTah …” whatever the elders do the children also

follow. For parents, it is important to learn that the only way the

children will learn is by setting themselves as an example. Not only

will they learn, they themselves will teach their children by their own

example. For example, it will be meaningless to ask a child not to

watch TV while the parents themselves keep watching. Unfortunately, we

find ourselves doing things we know that they are not good for us. We

essentially compromise our values, while at the same time insist that

others should follow them. It is like the lawmakers violating the law

that they passed. Krishna calls us mithyaachari-s or hypocrites. What

Arjuna asked was a universal problem.

 

Krishna answers:

kaama yeshha krodha yeshha rajoguNasamudbhavaH|

mahaashano mahaapaapmaa viddhyenamiha vairiNam||

 

Desire and anger born out of rajoguNa are the two powerful forces that

propel an individual to engage in inappropriate or adhaarmic action.

Desire is a reflection of a sense of incompleteness, apuurNatvam. Even

though the scripture says, I am puurnaH or complete or an adequate

person, I feel I am incomplete and inadequate. Hence, I go after

objects, places and/or people to make myself an adequate person or full.

When I go after the objects or people, the enjoyment leaves subtler

impressions in the mind called vaasanaas, which manifest as raga-dveshas

or likes and dislikes. These vaasanaas subsequently manifest as desires

at the intellect level, causing agitations at mental level and actions

at the body level. The very presence of desires disturbs the mind by

creating a sense of incompleteness or inadequacy. In addition, the

desires have ingenious capacity to multiply themselves. Someone has

defined the peace of mind as the ratio of number of desires fulfilled to

number of desires one has. By this equation, as one gets older, one

should be peaceful, since with age the number of desires fulfilled

should increase. The problem, however, is that the denominator i.e. the

number of desires that one has does not remain constant, since with each

desire fulfilled there will be mushroom of many desires that germinate.

Hence, attempt to get happiness by fulfilling desires is a loosing

battle. Krishna calls it as mahaashanaH, the one whose hunger increases

with each feed like the fire being put out by pouring gasoline.

 

Another problem is intense desire is slowly converted to greed (lobha),

since one cannot satiate by fulfilling the desire. A greedy person

tends to violate dharma, since a greedy person cannot fulfill his desire

by legitimate means. In addition, a greedy person does not like to part

with whatever he/she has, nor would like to share with others. The

immediate result is he fails to perform the panca mahaayagnas that

involve sharing with those who are less fortunate. Only solution is to

eliminate the desires not by suppressing but by sublimating them. This

can be done by snipping them in the bud when they first arise in the

intellect using the very intellect. If I have desires for sweets and am

diabetic, then I have to sublimate the desire for sweets by

intellectually convincing that it is not good for my health. Since

total elimination of all desires is difficult proposition, as we

discussed earlier, we can neutralize those by bringing Iswara and

offering them to Him as naivedyam. However, once offered to the Lord,

they come back from the Lord as prasaadam, which has to be shared with

everybody. One cannot be greedy with prasaadam. In the process, the

desires are neutralized by Lord’s touch and they become vehicles to

share with everyone, thus contributing to pancha yagnas.

 

The second enemy that Krishna mentions is anger. The desire itself

transforms into anger when the object desire is obstructed by something

or some other person. Anger makes a person to act impulsively. It

suppresses the discriminative faculty and creates a turbulent mind. In

anger one is even ready to abuse one’s own mother or teacher. In the

second chapter Krishna discussed exhaustively how desires germinate and

grow in an individual and how it could contribute to one’s downfall

(dhyaayato vishhayaan ….). In essence, by constant thinking of an

object causes desires for the object, desire can lead to anger, anger

to delusion, delusion to loss of memory, loss of memory to loss of

discriminative intellect and ultimately falls down into a whirlpool of

samsaara. One can use the mechanism to reverse the process, to help

saadhak in his evolution. By constant thinking of the Lord, one

develops love for the Lord, which provides a quiet mind (this is where

love for an object differs from love for the Lord since the later lifts

ones mind higher). Shankara provides this evolution process beautifully

in Bhajagovindam:

sat sanghatve nissanghatvam nissanghatve nirmohatvam|

nirmohatve niscala tatvam niscalatatve jiivanmuktaH||

Association with sat sangh or noble people or thoughts will lead to

detachment, detachment leads to lack of delusion and lack of delusion

leads to steady mind and steady mind will lead to liberation. Thus,

desire for the higher sublimates all other desires and contributes one’s

evolution.

 

While discussing that desire (kaama) and krodha (anger) are two enemies,

Krishna uses a singular word, vairiNam rather than vairiNou. The

implication is that desire and anger are not two separate forces since

one leads to the other. Hence, controlling one is as good as

controlling the other. Krishna says later that one who can manage to

control the onslaught of these two, desire and anger, is the person who

is really a yogi and is the person who will attain the absolute

happiness (shaknotii haivayashhoDum……….).

 

Since both are related, Krishna discusses further how to manage the

desires since managing desires would also help managing anger. Three

methods are suggested which are based on the hierarchical structure of

the human psychology. In the body-mind-intellect complex, the mind is

superior to body and intellect is superior to the mind. Superior of all

is the self. Thus, Krishna says:

 

indriyaaNi paraaNyaahuH indriyebhyaH param manaH|

manastu paraa buddhiH yobuddheH parastu saH||

 

In this hierarchical structure, one can think of intellect as the

officer, mind as the chief clerk, and the sense organs and organs of

action as workers. A proper management of the whole system involves a

proper chain of command with intellect to mind to sense organs. Such a

chain of command result in ‘aarjavam’ or straight forwardness, a value

that Krishna says needed for spiritual growth. Yoga integrates the

individual and establishes this chain of command. For a yogi, what he

thinks, what he feels, what he says and what he does are all aligned.

If mind overpowers the intellect, this chain of command becomes crooked

resulting in crooked personality. That person does as he feels like

rather than what is right (which his intellect knows). When the mind and

intellect diverges, the actions become irrational and that is what is

defined as sin. Sin is the degree of divergence of mind and intellect.

Karma yoga helps to integrate the personality of the individual so that

proper chain of command is established by aligning the mind and

intellect so that there is no split personality or crookedness. For

spiritual growth, the discipline is very important – this is stated in

terms of yama and niyama, which are essentially do-s and don’t-s. This

involves a three-prong approach. The first is control at the level of

sense organs (indriya nigraha), next at the control of the mind (mano

nigraha) and finally at the intellect level using viveka, using the

discriminative faculty. These are also discussed in term of shamaadi

shat sampatti – the group of six starting from shama, considered also as

diavii sampatti. Thus at sense level, avoidance of situations that tempt

illegitimate or unhealthy desires – this is also called dama. At the

mind level, controlling the mental indulgence so that they do not

develop into vasanaas (shama). Thus, undesirable (adhaarmic) thoughts

are discouraged by substituting with noble thoughts (dhaarmic). At the

intellect level one needs to perform critical analysis of the purpose

and goal of human life and redirecting the mind away from dissipating

pursuits . This in management techniques is called prioritizing ones

goals and synchronizing the actions towards the goals. If one cannot

manage oneself as an integrated personality, the management outside

becomes even more difficult. It is like marriage councilors trying to

council the other married couple while his own marriage is in turmoil.

Hence, Vedic management techniques start at an individual level. They

start at child hood or brahmachaari level than at later stages when it

becomes even more difficult to control.

 

Depending on the degree of the intensity of the desires, to that degree

discriminative intellect is empowered. We need to decrease the

quantity, quality and the direction of desires. The desires rob one’s

mind away from oneself. Hence, Krishna says the shitaprajnaa is the one

who has shunned away all desires from his mind (sarvaan kamaan

prajahaati) and finds happiness in himself. Karma yoga helps in

neutralizing all the desires by surrendering to the Lord. They become

like snakes whose poison has been removed. Lord Shiva uses them as

ornaments (phannaga bhuushhaNa) and Lord Vishnu uses as a bed (phannaga

shaayi). With the saadhana the desire is neutralized and the mind

becomes purer and purer. Krishna compares the covering of the intellect

by the desires just as the smoke covering the fire, or dust covering the

mirror or the placenta covering the fetus. Just blowing wind is

sufficient to remove the smoke, where as one has to do little bit more

work to remove the dust from the mirror to see oneself clearly. Finally

one has to wait for 9 to 10 months for the placenta to drop off. Thus

depending on the degree of the intensity of the desires one has to make

an effort to purge them out of the system.

Thus Krishna identifies who are the real enemies for humanity and how to

get rid of them. The saadhana is not meant for realization, but for

purification of the mind. ‘cittasya shuddhaye karma na tu

vastuupalabdhaye’. Karma yoga helps in purifying the mind and thus

prepares the mind for jnaana yoga.

 

In the next post we discuss how a jnaani acts.