Bhagavagd Gita - Session 36- Track 3603

There is a further understanding needed as to how we perceive the Divine in action, and this is perhaps one of the most important justifications of these last 6 chapters. We have been told in the second, third and fourth chapters that Karmayoga consists of giving up the fruits of action; secondly to give up the ownership of action, origination of action by offering of action to the supreme Lord; and thirdly when all actions proceeds from the Divine Himself, all this is given to us in the second, third and fourth chapters: divyam karma, what is the divyam Karma: that is expounded in the fourth chapter.

But why is it that this individual is where he is now? That is to say: why is the individual experiencing himself as the ego? Why does he seek after fruits of action? What is it that impels him to seek after fruits of action? Why does he feel bondage to the extent to which Arjuna feels in this great moment of crisis, from which he wants to escape, or to be delivered, or to be rescued, or to have the salvation from it? Why is it that such a situation arises in life at all? So, this has not been explained so far in the Bhagavad Gita. In other words, we do not have as yet the clue to the bondage of man, and the release from the bondage: what is called the bondage and salvation, bondage and liberation.

And then going farther: the Bhagavad Gita does not teach merely that you have to be released from the world; there is still a farther point in the Bhagavad Gita: that you have to be in the world and act in the world, but act supremely; not as a slave or subject to various kinds of circumstances. How to be free from circumstances, to go above the circumstances and to act as a master of circumstances?

What is the psychology of this mastery over nature which requires the understanding of the difference between Apara Prakriti and Para Prakriti of which Sri Krishna speaks in the 7th chapter? When Sri Krishna says ‘I have two natures, the higher and the lower’, what is the relationship between the two? And how does the soul feel when he is in the lower nature, how does he feel when he is in the higher nature and how does he rise from the lower nature to the higher nature? All this needs to be explained. It is still not answered in the Gita, so far.

And when you rise into the higher nature: what will be the status of your being? What will be the consciousness at that time? It is there that the concept of amṛtam dharma will be explained: amṛtam dharma is basically the law of being when he enters into the higher nature. When he is in the lower nature, there are all kinds of Dharmas: the Tamasic Dharma, Rajasic Dharma, Sattwic Dharma, but not amṛtam dharma. amṛtam dharma comes when you rise into the higher nature Para Prakriti, so, ascending from the lower nature to the higher nature and experience of that higher nature and action through the higher nature. It is action through the higher nature that gives you the mastery over circumstances and what is the consequence of it, when you act from that level of consciousness with that mastery, and how you rise from lower to higher unless and until we know what is the lower nature in the fullness.

It is because Sri Krishna wants to explain the fullness of the lower nature that sometime we feel such common place ideas like Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas repeated several times, but no repetition is without significance. There is a great exposition of different elements of our lower nature, particularly ‘mind’: what is mind which is a part of the lower nature. Sri Krishna explains very clearly what is mind. Sri Krishna explains a very important concept in the Bhagavad Gita, namely what is work.

You remember in the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita there is a profound statement of Sri Krishna: what is Karma, what is Akarma, what is Vikarma. This is very profound, and very secret movement of Karma, even sages do not know. Therefore, Sri Krishna will explain now in these chapters what is that Karma, what is work.

In all work and in all the movements of our mentality, there is one very important factor which is not sufficiently recognised by us and that is ‘Shraddha’: faith. There is a great revelation in the Bhagavad Gita that all human beings, even the most sceptical of them are ruled by ‘Shraddha’. They may oppose the idea of Shraddha, they may say ‘we don’t have faith in faith itself, but if you look into the depth of it, everybody.