My Gita

by Devdutt Pattanaik

Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic, said that the essence of The Gita can be deciphered simply by reversing the syllables that constitute Gita. So Gita, or gi-ta, becomes ta-gi, or tyagi, which means 'one who lets go of possessions.'

Hindu thought, however, looks at truth quantitatively: everyone has access to a slice (bhaga); the one who sees all slices of truth is bhaga-van. Limited truth is mithya. Limitless truth is satya. Satya is about including everything and being whole (purnam). The journey towards limitless truth expands our mind (brahmana).

Krishna’s discourse continuously speaks of yagna, a Vedic ritual that binds the individual to the community. He elaborates on the relationship of the individual, whom he identifies as jiva-atma, with divinity, whom he identifies as param-atma, which is etymologically related to ‘the other’ (para). The Buddha spoke of nirvana, which means oblivion of individual identity, but Krishna speaks of brahma-nirvana as an expansion of the mind (brahmana) that leads to liberation (moksha) while ironically also enabling union (yoga), indicating a shift away from monastic isolationism. That is why, in Hindu temples, God is always visualized with the Goddess as a householder, one half of a pair. The devotee looks at the deity (darshan) and the deity, with large unblinking eyes, looks back; the relationship is ‘two-way’ not ‘one-way’.

Before we proceed, we must keep in mind that the historical approach to Hinduism is not acceptable to all Hindus. The ahistorical school of thought sees all Hindu ideas as timeless. The rather chauvinistic proto-historical school sees all Hindu rituals, stories and symbols, Vedic or Puranic, as having been created simultaneously over 5,000 years ago. These have become political issues, which influence scholarship.

We must also guard against a masculine view of history based on conflict and triumph alone: natives versus colonizers, polytheism versus monotheism, Hindus versus Buddhists, Christians versus Muslims, Shias versus Sunnis, Shaivites versus Vaishnavites, Protestants versus Catholics, Mughals versus Marathas, democracy versus monarchy, theists versus atheists, capitalists versus socialists, liberals versus conservatives. This has been popularized by Western academics and their love for the Hegelian dialectic, where thesis creates antithesis until there is resolution and a new thesis. This approach assumes that history has a natural direction and purpose. An alternate, feminine view of history looks at every event as the fruit of the past (karma-phala) as well as the seed of future tendencies (karma-bija), without the need to play judge.

Thus, we can see the writing of the Gitas as a response to, not an attack on, Buddhist monasticism, and the feminization of Buddhism as a response to, not an appropriation of, the idea of the Goddess found in Hindu Puranas. No idea emerges from a vacuum. Different ideas amplify from time to time. Old ideas coexist with new ones. Contradictory ideas influence each other. Here the world has no beginning, no end, no value, no purpose. All meaning is created by humans, individually and collectively: the boundaries we establish and fight over.

Veda essentially refers to a set of hymns, melodies and rituals put together nearly 4,000 years ago that symbolically and metaphorically communicate knowledge (vidya)—observations of seers (rishis), people who saw what others did not, would not, could not see.

The Upanishads speculated on these ideas while Buddhism and other monastic orders challenged the rituals inspired by these ideas.

For 2,000 years before this, society was dominated by Vedic lore. At the heart of the Veda was the ritual called yagna, which involved exchange, giving in order to get, thus establishing a relationship between the yajamana, who initiated the ritual and the other—family, friends, strangers, ancestors, gods, nature and cosmos. It was all about the household.

Vedic transmission is highly symbolic, with the onus of transmitting the ideas resting on priests (brahmanas, or Brahmins) and the onus of decoding them resting on the patron (yajamana).

The narratives by ‘Vyasa’ were called the Puranas, or chronicles, which included the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata that spoke of family quarrels over property. They were also called Itihasa. Itihasa, taken literally, means stories from the past. Itihasa, taken symbolically, means stories that will always be true: past, present or future. They reiterated the concept of ‘iti’, which means ‘as things are’—accepting the reality of sex and violence, desires and conflicts in relationships, household and life. Those who affirmed iti were the astikas. Those who denied iti were the nastikas. Later, as Hinduism turned more theistic, iti denoted faith in God, and so astikas and nastikas would come to mean believers and non-believers.

Commentaries on The Gita start appearing from approximately the time Islam entered India. One of the world’s oldest mosques was built on the Malabar coast in the seventh century, and Adi Shankara, who wrote the first elaborate commentary on The Gita and made it an important scripture for Vedanta, was also born in the Malabar coast region in the eighth century. A relationship cannot be denied. Whether this was pure coincidence or the cause for the resurgence of The Gita remains a matter of speculation, mired in contemporary politics.

The first wave involved Sanskrit ‘commentaries’ (bhasyas) by Vedanta scholars, the most celebrated of whom were Adi Shankara from Kerala in the eighth century followed by Ramanuja from Tamil Nadu in the eleventh century and Madhva Acharya from Karnataka in the thirteenth century. They were concerned about the nature of God, and the relationship of divinity and humanity. Was God within or without? Was God embodied (sa-guna) or formless (nir-guna)? Their language was highly intellectual. What is significant is that all three commentators were celibate monks, who either did not marry or gave up marriage and established Hindu monastic orders (mathas), suggesting very clearly that Hinduism, once champion of the householder’s way, had ended up mimicking the hermit’s way of Buddhism it had previously always mocked. It contributed to the gradual separation of the more intellectual Vedanta from the more sensory Tantra, with the former becoming more mainstream and the latter being seen more as the occult.

Long before the war, when negotiations for peace had broken down, Krishna had revealed his cosmic form (virat-swarup)—the same form he shows Arjuna during the course of his discourse— to both Dhritarashtra and Duryodhana, perhaps to impress upon father and son that his words needed to be taken seriously. But Dhritarashtra, granted momentary sight, had simply declared his helplessness before such awesomeness and shrunk back into blindness, while Duryodhana had seen it as a magician’s trick. Both father and son refused to see what was shown. They clung to the view that they were the victims. Thus, showing does not guarantee seeing. Telling does not guarantee hearing. Gyana is not vi-gyana.

A world created based on judgement evokes rage. Life becomes a battleground (rana-bhoomi) like Kuru-kshetra, where both sides feel like victims, where everyone wants to win at all costs, where someone will always lose. A world created by observation evokes insight, hence affection, for we see the hunger and fear of all beings. Life becomes a performance on a stage (ranga-bhoomi) aimed to nourish and comfort the other, while deriving nourishment and comfort from their delight. Krishna’s performance (leela) leads to him being worshipped as Ranga-natha, lord of the stage. He never judges, so he sees no one as a victim. This is how he begins The Gita:

Arjuna, you grieve for those whom you should not feel sorry for, and you argue as if you are a man of wisdom. But the wise grieve for no one: neither the living, nor the dead.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 11 (paraphrased).

Do you see me as hero, villain or victim? If yes, then you are not doing darshan. If you can empathize with the fears that make people heroes, villains and victims, then you are doing darshan. For then you look beyond the boundaries that separate you from the rest.

Our body is mortal and so it seeks security and creates boundaries. But within this body is the immortal atma that does not seek security and so, does not care for boundaries. Wrapped in mortal flesh, it experiences life and death, again and again. By introducing the idea of immortality and rebirth in Chapter 2 of The Gita, Krishna changes the scope of the discussion, for without death serving as a boundary, there is no fear, no yearning for food or meaning, nowhere to come from, or go to, for the end is no longer the end and the beginning is no longer the beginning. Rather than change the world that defies control, rather than seek validation from things temporary, we engage, observe, discover and enjoy.

The idea of rebirth forms the cornerstone of Hindu thought. It is also the mainstay of Buddhist and Jain philosophies. But there are differences. Buddhists do not believe in the existence of the immortal resident (atma), and Jains do not believe in the concept of God (param-atma), but they both agree on the concept of rebirth (punar-janma).

In one story, Karna was an asura blessed with a thousand armours called Sahasrakavacha. To destroy each armour, a warrior had to acquire special powers by meditating for a thousand years. Even with these powers, destroying the armour would need a thousand years. So Nara and Narayana, twin sages, avatars of Vishnu, attacked this asura simultaneously—while one meditated, the other fought, taking turns to acquire the power and to destroy the armour. By the time they had destroyed all but one of the thousand armours, the world came to an end. But the world was reborn; the asura was reborn as Karna, Nara as Arjuna and Narayana as Krishna. We are told that only Krishna knows the full story and so, while Karna is a victim if we know only his present story, he becomes a villain if we know another backstory.

In another story, when Vishnu descended on earth as Ram, he killed Vali, the son of Indra, and sided with Sugriva, the son of Surya. So when Vishnu descended as Krishna, he was obliged to restore the balance in the cosmos by killing Karna, son of Surya, and siding with Arjuna, son of Indra. Here, one story is one half of another story, and Karna’s misfortune neutralizes his fortune in another life. Free of any obligations or expectations, he would thus be liberated from the wheel of rebirths. So his killing, which we feel is a sad incident, becomes a wonderful event.

In the Puranas, stories of past lives are continuously used to counter assumptions of another story. It reminds us that our story is part of a grand jigsaw puzzle. We are part of a larger narrative. Stories of the past impact stories of the present that impact stories of the future. We may not know these stories, but we have played roles in them. We must not assume that the story we encounter, experience or remember is the only story in the world. Our lives are the outcomes of roles performed in other stories. Even if we don’t remember those stories or those roles, we cannot escape their consequences.

But when you live many lives, alignments and achievements are rendered meaningless. What matters is wisdom: an understanding of why this world exists, why we exist, and why we live, again and again, in a merry-go-round. When we understand, we do not seek control of the other, hence are liberated. We engage with the world, but are not entrapped. We are no longer dependent, but we stay dependable.

Another life is another chance: either to stay entrapped in the cycle of fear, or break free by discovering the architecture of the world and observing it without judgement. This is why, in Hindu funerals, the corpse is first burned and then the ashes and bones are cast in the river. Fire and running water represent the two paths mentioned in Chapter 8 of The Gita, one offering liberation and the other offering entrapment.

The five sense organs are eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. The five response organs are hands, legs, mouth, anus and genitals.

Humans are dramatically different. In us, senses, emotions and intelligence are highly developed. But what really makes us unique is our imagination (manas).

Your reality is different from my reality, because your body is different, your filters are different, your experiences are different, your knowledge is different.

Krishna experiences every slice (bhaga) of reality, that of elements, plants, animals as well as humans. That is why he is called God (bhaga-van) in The Gita.

Imagination helps us create concepts, which filter our sensory inputs and ultimately impact our emotional experience. Thus, we can imagine a rock or river to be a deity and so condition ourselves to feel joyful whenever we encounter that rock or river. Our emotional experiences can also inform and shape our concepts. So, when a rock or river gives us joy in some way, we declare it must be a deity. Concepts therefore help us rationalize emotions; emotions help us rationalize concepts—it is a two-way process.

The journey from human to divine is to achieve conceptual clarity and appreciate the world as it is, while empathizing with how others perceive it.

Civilizations existed and thrived without the knowledge of these concepts for centuries. Buddhist, Jain and Hindu philosophers of India conceived both infinity and zero over two thousand years ago in their attempt to understand both the psychological and the physical world. The hermits preferred the concept of withdrawal into oblivion, hence zero, while the householders preferred the concept of embracing everything, hence infinity.

Like infinity and zero, immortality is also a concept. By introducing it, Krishna increases the canvas of Arjuna’s experience and expands the denominator of his existence. It makes him look at life differently—this life is not the only life we live; it is but one of many lives; our actions have infinite consequences; we have limitless choices, if we open our mind to them. Thus, a shift in imagination brings about a dramatic shift in identity, meaning, value, assumptions and aspirations.

The body we inhabit, and nature that is all around our body, is tangible (sa-guna). What resides in our body, and in nature, is not (nir-guna). Deha and prakriti are within the reach of the senses; they are bound by the rules of space and time, which means that they can be measured and are impermanent. Dehi and purusha, however, are outside the reach of the senses, and are not bound by rules of space and time, which means that they cannot be measured and are permanent.

Deha is that which separates us from other entities. Dehi is that which unites us to others. Deha establishes individuality. Dehi establishes universality. We discover deha through analysis (sankhya), by figuring out what isolates us from the world. We discover dehi through synthesis (yoga), by figuring out what connects us with the world.

Dehi is called jiva-atma and purusha is called param-atma, as dehi’s experience is limited by the deha it resides in, while purusha’s experience is unlimited, as it resides in limitless prakriti. Dehi or jiva-atma experiences a slice (bhaga) of reality. Bhagavan, who experiences every slice of reality, is then param-atma. The jiva-atma, who seeks fulfilment and fullness, is the bhagat or bhakta. Every living creature is a jiva-atma. For every jiva-atma, other living creatures are para-atma (the individual other). The collective of all living creatures makes up the param-atma (the collective other).

Though Krishna sports a male form, he refers to his ‘wombs’, indicating the metaphorical nature of the language used.

Some identify dehi/purusha/atma with the soul. But soul is a Christian concept and in Christian mythology, especially, there is talk of souls that can get corrupted and bodies without souls. Dehi/purusha/atma of The Gita is eternally pure and permeates everywhere, even beings deemed most sinful and foul.

Ultimately, the exact identity of dehi/purusha/atma will always be elusive, not just because it defies objective measurement, but also because you and I experience reality very differently, and use different words to describe our experiences. What is dehi to you may not be dehi to me. Also, what I thought dehi was today may not be what I realize dehi is tomorrow. Initially, dehi may be the mind, then it becomes intelligence, then consciousness, then imagination, concept, meaning, then something else which defies language. But it exists. And that is the point.

What we can be sure of is that dehi cannot be an entity, as by definition it cannot be measured. It has to be a concept. It can at best be experienced, hence it is a subjective truth, indifferent to the rules of science.

When there is conceptual clarity, we experience tranquillity (ananda), no matter what the sensory experience is. Atma then becomes an idea that offers conceptual clarity, that establishes connection (yoga) with the world as it really is, not what we imagine it to be.

When Hindus say that everything around us has atma, and bow to rocks and rivers, plants, animals, and humans, it is an acknowledgement that everyone and everything is meaningful and valid.

Like animals that seek food for their survival, humans yearn for meaning for their sanity: what is our value, our purpose and our identity in this world? As long as we seek validation from the world around us, we are entrapped by aham. As soon as we realize that all meaning comes from within, that it is we who make the world meaningful, we are liberated by atma.

When we say that everything around us has atma, and we bow to rocks and rivers, plants and animals, to people around us, living and dead, we essentially mean that everything around is meaningful and valid. Who decides this? The dehi within, as well as the purusha without. We give meaning to others. We get meaning from others. We give meaning to each other. We may die but things continue to be meaningful, for atma never dies. There is always someone to give meaning.

Arjuna, fair or unfair, the results of any action depend on five things: the body, the mind, the instruments, the method and divine grace (luck? fate?). Only the ignorant think they alone are responsible for any outcome.

Arjuna, you have control over your action alone, not the fruits of your action. So do not be drawn to expectation, or inaction.

Those who believe in karma do not blame. They do not judge. They accept that humans live in a sea of consequences, over which there is limited control. So they accept every moment as it is supposed to be. They act without expectation. This is nishkama karma.

Arjuna, you can choose actions, not reactions. Do not choose action because of the reactions. Do not choose inaction either.

To act is karma. Karma yoga is when we act without seeking control over the outcome.

Dharma is the first word uttered in The Gita. It is often confused as righteousness. The conflict between dharma and adharma is a point raised by Arjuna in Chapter 1. Empathy is not about controlling others through rules. This is why Krishna continuously distinguishes between sva-dharma and para-dharma, appropriate conduct of the self and the other.

In Hinduism, dharma means realizing our potential: changing ourselves into the best we theoretically can be. What is that? Humans are the only living creatures who can expand their mind and see the world from another’s point of view. This ability enables humans to empathize, to care for the other. To empathize is dharma. Failure to empathize is adharma.