Bhagavat Gita - 3

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Bhagavat Gita - 3

 

Necessity of the Doctrine of Nishkama Karma

 

Actions like leading men in war have many evil consequences, though they may

be a part of one's duty. Is not avoidance of such duties better than doing

them and incurring sin? How can their performance promote spiritual life at

all? This question is answered by Krishna.

 

The ideal of a person who is absolutely indrawn and unperturbed, who is the

master of the senses and mind - is so far removed from that of a soldier

engaged in the form of a dreadful action like war, that it looks incredible

that action of that type can ever lead a man to that state if spiritual

excellence. This doubt persists in Arjuna's mind in spite of Krishna's

exhortation to action.

 

In answer to this Sri Krishna propounds the doctrine of Nishkama-karma - the

doctrine of actions done with detachment and dedication to the Lord. Actions

in themselves are amoral, if we eliminate the self-centered agent from them.

Nature's cataclysms with their terribly destructive effect cannot be

classified as moral or immoral. They are amoral. All actions are a mixture of

beneficence and destructiveness as far as their effects are concerned. They

are like the brilliance of fire accompanied by the obscuring cloudiness of

smoke.

 

Work at the human level has various ramifications. There is work done under

compulsion like slave labour, which may be charecterised as submoral in its

effect on the worker. Higher than that is work prompted by the profit-motive

(kaamya karma), on which human civilisation as constituted today is based.

Kaamya karma can take two forms: On one hand there is anti-social work which

is technically denoted as Vikarma or Adharma or Nisiddha-karma; on the other

hand there is socially oriented work which is termed as Dharma. Anti-social

work is done by persons with demoniac nature. Everything they do is for

ostentation and self-aggrandisement and no form of cruel exploitation and

selfish indulgences is repungent to them, provided their pleasure, profit

and ambition are promoted thereby. Such anti-social beings are endowed

with Asuri-sampat (demoniac nature) characterised by pride, greed, passion

and cruelty. Moral and spiritual degradation is the wage for their actions.

 

In contrast are men with Daivi Sampat (divine nature), who follow dharma

or socially oriented action. They too are self centered and seek

pleasure and power, the good things of life, but their pursuit of these

is socially oriented and is regulated by norms that take others and

their needs too into consideration. In return for what they seek and take,

they are ready to give away what is due from them. They observe the

law of Yajna (sacrifice). They are Dharmikaas, men who too pursue pleasure

and power but always subordinate such pursuit to a code of give and take

based on a sense of collective good and of moral responsibility. When their

sense of obligation to society dominated overwhelmingly over the demand for

individual fulfillment, they become elevated into patriots, philanthropists

and votaries of similar other noble values.

 

Arjuna was in his early life a Dhaarmika of this type, when he found himself

all of a sudden in the predicament described earlier, wherein the old

sanctions for action like swadharma (discharge of one's duty), socially

approved pursuit of power and pleasure, communal welfare, patriotism etc

become meaningless as inducements of action. A new sanction has to be

found if Arjuna were to take part in action, and this sanction, different

from even the one applicable to the Dharmikas, is expounded by the

Lord. It is the doctrine of Nishkama-karma, the doctrine of work without

desire, applicable to men who seek only liberation. In expounding it, a

sublime theology and a devotional metaphysics are propounded as the

spiritual rationale of such desireless action. Without the spiritual basis,

desireless action will only be an incomprehensible and a puzzling concept,

as we cannot think of an action devoid of the promoting of some desire or

other.

 

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Based on " Srimad Bhagavat Gita - The Scripture of Mankind "

a translation by Rev Swami Tapasyanandaji, published by

Sri Ramakrishna Math - Chennai. http://www.sriramakrishnamath.org/

 

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