Bhagavatgita a detailed study-chapter3-karmayoga

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34.indhriyasya indhriyasyaarThe raagadhveshouvyavasthithou

thayoH na vaSam aagacCheth thou hi asya paripanThinou

Desire and aversion is attached to each sense object through the respective sense organ. One should not come under their sway because they are his enemies.

External restraint is of no use unless the inner equipment, consisting of mind and intellect, is trained with the discipline of discrimination and detachment, viveka and vairagya. So, Krishna tells Arjuna, a man should never allow raga and dvesha, attraction and repulsion to overpower him because they are like highwaymen on the path of perfection.

The way to evolve spiritually involves the control of desires and aversion. We contact the outer world through our senses which create desire for the pleasant sense experience and aversion for the unpleasant. This desire and aversion leads one to action, either to acquire the desired object or to shun the undesired one. Thus the attachment to result through desire and aversion create further karma and one gets bound by that and goes through the cycle of birth and death.

Hence raga and dvesha, desire and aversion are the two highwaymen who plunder the travellers on their way to spiritual progress. They lure them by the attachment to sense objects away from their goal and finally destroy them by robbing their wealth, namely, the discrimination.

Perhaps Krishna sensed the doubt in the mind of Arjuna that simply by not acting such as refraining from fighting he could get rid of likes and dislikes which propitiated the war and hence why should Krishna force him to fight. So Krishna enforces the performance of svadharma which no one can or should avoid doing, in the next sloka.

35. SrEayaan svadharmo viguNaH paradharmaath

svanushtithaath

svadharme niDhanam SreyaH paraDharmo bhayaavahaH

It is better to do one's own duty however faulty than the duty of others even if meritorious. Death doing one's own duty is preferable because that of others is wrought with fear.

This is not only oft quoted sloka but also often misinterpreted. Those who want to perpetuate the caste system quote this to suit their purpose. The meaning of the sloka, `one's own duty, though devoid of merit is preferable to that of another, though more meritorious,' is often misconstrued to mean that one should stick on to the work or kind of life with which he is born and should not strive to come up in life. They quote the words paradharmo bhayaavahah, another's duty is fraught with fear. .

 

There is no other word more misunderstood in sanskrit than the word svadharma,. It really means the work suited to one's own nature, which may change as the individual changes. It is not uncommon to find that a person qualified to be an engineer, for instance, turn out to be a successful businessman because he has the inborn talents to become one, or a man giving up his successful profession and choose a less lucrative one because his attitude has changed. So svadharma is what naturally comes to you and not something which others do, however tempting it may appear to be. Here in the context Arjuna wanted to give up his svsdharma which is that of a warrior and Krishna points out that to leave his duty as a kshathriya is dangerous as he will come to ruin as he is not fit for other life, say, that of a sanyasi.

 

The varnasrama dharma was prescribed for the people according to their aptitudes and nature as Krishna himself says in the next chapter(4-13) Thus it is not due to birth, as we have example for this in srimadbhagavatha (vide skandha5 chapter4) where it is mentioned that out od\f the 100 sons of Rshabha , of whom Bharatha was one after whom our country came to be known as bhaaratha varsha, 81 of them were humble, learned and pure and became brahmanas.

 

We also have an example in the kaThaasarith saagara of Somadeva the story about a housewife and a butcher who were more evolved than a yogi who acquired occult powers and who took advice from them to do his duty without attachment, giving up raga and dvesha.