WE HAVE used the new term Gītā-Yoga here because it sums up the titles of all the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gītā, each of which is called a yoga, such as "The Yoga of Knowledge," "The Yoga of Action," etc. Gītā means song, and the whole title means the song of Shrī Krishna, who is referred to as the Bhagavān—the most illustrious being. Shrī Krishna is regarded as the most perfect of all Teachers—so much so that he could speak about everything from the divine standpoint and with divine knowledge of the reality beyond mind, so that when saying "I" he spoke as an incarnation of the Divine Being. He is considered to have lived about 5050 years ago, and the Bhagavad Gītā is regarded as a record of what he said or sang to his devoted friend and disciple Arjuna, who was in Shrī Krishna's teaching is more a yoga for the emotions than the mind, although he does explain the necessity for mind-control and uses the same two words—practice (abhyāsa) and uncoloredness (vairāgya) for describing the means to its attainment as Patanjali does when starting his teaching. Shrī Krishna tells Arjuna that though his heart is in the right place his unhappy emotional state is due to ignorance. The first point of the Teacher's instruction is—do not judge right and wrong from the standpoint of bodily appearances, but only from what is of value to the immortal soul, taking into account that actions, emotions, thoughts and decisions all have some effect, some tending downwards or away from self-realization and others tending upwards or toward self-realization. Downwards there is bondage and sorrow; upwards there is joy and freedom or the divine state of being, so let this first point be firmly understood at the beginning. Shrī Krishna said: "You have sorrowed for This point being clear the Teacher goes on to the next. He says in verse ii 39 that what he has given is knowledge, based upon his own supersensuous experience as well as that of ancient Teachers, but now he wants Arjuna to take up something more than mere knowledge-yoga—he wants him to take up buddhi-yoga. Buddhi is wisdom, which comes from doing all things for the benefit of souls, not bodies primarily. It is buddhi or wisdom to revalue everything from that standpoint. It is easy to see that the heart of wisdom is love for the co-souls, which Krishna calls indestructible jīvabhūtas, that is, living beings, as distinguished from
It is in this activity that work and love are brought together. What is called karma-yoga thus comes into being. Mere work or karma is not yoga, but when that work is energized by love for mankind, it becomes a yoga, that is, a method for the realization of the unity of life. So karma-yoga is one branch of Krishna's great teaching of love. The karma-yogī "goes about doing good." And yet that karma-yoga is also devotion to God. Among Krishna's devotees, as among those of Christ, there are two distinct kinds. There are those who admire the teacher because he was the great lover of mankind; and there are those who fall down in admiration and devotion before the greatness and goodness of the teacher, and then learn from his example and precept to spread some of his love around them,
But let no man be discouraged in this work because he himself is small. Let not his vision of great things and devotion to great beings cause him to sink down disconsolate, thinking, "There is nothing that I can do that is big enough to be worth the doing." Let him remember that spiritual things are not measured by quantity but their greatness consists in the purity of their motive. It is the love that counts—not the action. It is one of the greatest glories of this universe that the common and inconspicuous life of ordinary men contains a thousand daily opportunities of spiritual
The words dharma and karma here require explanation. Dharma means where you stand. Each man has to some extent unfolded the flower of his possibility. He stands in a definite position, or holds definite powers of character. It is better that he should recognize his position and be content with it, true to the best he knows, than that he should try to stand in the position of another, or waste his powers in mere envious admiration. To use his powers in the kind of work he can do, upon and with the material that his past karma has provided for him in the present is not only the height of practical wisdom—it is worship of God as well. All life lived in this way is worship; ploughing and reaping, selling and buying—whatever it may be. Conventional forms of kneeling and prostration are not the sole or even the necessary constituents of worship, but every act of the karma-yogī and of the bhakti-yogī is that. The word bhakti does in
As there is community of work between God and man, so is there community of interest, and indeed, community of feeling. "All this is threaded on me," says the Divine, "like a collection of pearls on a
The love of man for God is more than reciprocated; "He who has no dislike for any being, but is friendly and kind, without greed or egotism, the same in pleasure and pain, forgiving, always content, harmonious, self-controlled and resolute, with thought and affection intent upon me, he, my devotee, is dear to me. He from whom people are not repelled, and who does not avoid the world, free from the agitations of delight, impatience and fear, is dear to me. Those devotees who are intent upon this deathless way of life, thus declared, full of faith, with me as (their) supreme—they are above all dear to me." 8 Some of the devotional verses suggest a great absence of self-reliance if they are taken out of their general context, as, for instance: "Giving up all dharmas come only to me as your refuge. Do not sorrow;
The objective side of this is by no means ignored in this teaching of the importance of the soul, indeed, of all souls. While the souls bring themselves more and more into harmony through the power of love or wisdom or buddhi, certain material standards are recognized. The material side, consisting of all the bhāvas or conditions, must be brought into a state of orderliness and appropriateness called sattwa. In the teaching of this part of the subject Shrī Krishna says that everything in Nature can be classed under one of three heads—it is tāmasic, that is, material and sluggish, or rājasic, that is, active and restless, or sāttwic, orderly and harmonious. This is in agreement with both ancient and modern thought. Modern science recognizes three properties in Nature, or three essential constituents in the objectivity
The same adjectives are applied very fully in the Gītā to the personalities of men. 10 In the early stages of human awakening we have the very material or tāmasic man, who is sluggish and scarcely cares to move, unless he is stirred by a strong stimulus from the outside. Next comes the man in whom rajas has developed, who is now eager for excitement and full of energy. Perhaps the bulk of people in the modern world are in this condition, or beginning to come into
These laws work out in a multitude of ways in life, but there are three main principles behind them all—principles of the evolution of consciousness. They express themselves in the powers of will, love and thought, creative in the world, and self-creative in the man. There are only three things that the man must now not do. He must never cease to use his will in work. In that work he must never break the law of love. And in that work of love he must never act; without using his intelligence. These are principles—greater than all rules and regulations, because they are the living law of the true self; and not much consideration is required to see that he who follows this law must necessarily show in his practical life all the virtues that are admired by good men of every
This passage introduces us to a portion of the definite path of training—the equivalent of Patanjali's practical yoga. It was not sufficient for Arjuna to have great love. If he would tread the path, he must express it in work in the form of service, and must also have an enquiring mind, so as to gain some understanding. The unbalanced character is unfit for the higher path, no matter how great the progress it may have made along one line. Three practices are prescribed; reverence, enquiry and service—in the original, pranipāta, pariprashna and sevā. 13 The first means bowing, or respect for the Divine in all beings and events, which is the same thing as Patanjali's īshwara-pranidhāna. The second is enquiry or questioning, resembling Patanjali's swādhyāya. The third is service, another form of practical effort, the equivalent
It is always unsatisfactory to try to translate these technical Sanskrit words into one-word equivalents in English. Sacrifice (yajna) does not mean the mere surrender of things, but it really means to make all things holy. This occurs when they are offerings. Any action done with an unselfish motive is thus holy. The sannyāsī does not, however, need to make any ceremonial offerings, because he sees the one life everywhere, and all his actions are direct service of that life. In the West it is significant that "holy" is connected with "whole," and so what is done not for selfish gain but in the interests of all is holy. Sacrifice is thus a law by which living beings are related into one great brotherhood. A very important part of the teaching of the Gītā is that one should recognize, accept and like the great fact of the mutual support of
43:1 Verses ii 11, 12, 13, 22, 23. 45:2 iii 19, 20. 46:3 iii 22-24. 47:4 xviii 45-47, and iii 35. 48:5 ix 26-31. 49:6 vii 7. 49:7 vii 19 and xviii 55, 56. 49:8 xii 13-15, 20. 50:9 xiii 27, 28. 51:10 xviii 7-9, 26-28. 53:11 ii 45. 55:12 iv 33-39. 55:13 iv 34. 58:14 xviii 5, 6.SHRI KRISHNA'S GITA-YOGA