Yoga: The Bhagavad Gita

[Explor­ing Life] The Bha­gavad Gita, or Song of God, is a clas­sic reli­gious text of India that cel­e­brates the expe­ri­ence of God in the con­text of every­day life. Schol­ars esti­mate that it was writ­ten between 500BCE — 200BCE, how­ever, Vedic (ancient India) tra­di­tion indi­cates that the Gita was spo­ken by Krishna 5000 years ago. In another sense the exact date of ori­gin of the Bha­gavad Gita mat­ters lit­tle since the inspi­ra­tion con­tained within in it remains time­less. The Bha­gavad Gita is both phi­los­o­phy of God and a com­pre­hen­sive trea­tise on Yoga that is designed to cre­ate a foun­da­tion for the lib­er­a­tion of body, mind and spirit.

When doubts haunt me and I see not one ray of hope on the hori­zon, I turn to the Gita and find a verse to com­fort me. Mahatma Gandhi (Prime 2003)

Many peo­ple believe that the story of the bat­tle in the Gita is sym­bolic rather than lit­eral his­tor­i­cal fact. In the midst of an epic bat­tle we wit­ness the inter­ac­tion that takes place between Krishna (the Supreme God­head) and Arjuna (a pow­er­ful war­rior). The bat­tle­ground is is the soul and in a space between two oppos­ing armies Arjuna turns to Krishna for spir­i­tual guid­ance. In the oppos­ing army, and the cause of Arjuna’s despair, are his own fam­ily mem­bers and friends. Thus the bat­tle that Arjuna faced is one in which he would be forced to kill parts of him­self. The con­ver­sa­tion that takes place reveals the inter­ac­tion between an indi­vid­ual soul tor­mented by thoughts of good and evil, and God.

The Gita is a com­pre­hen­sive Yoga-sastra (trea­tise on yoga)… The dif­fer­ent forms of yoga are spe­cial appli­ca­tions of the inner dis­ci­pline which leads to the lib­er­a­tion of the self and a new under­stand­ing of the unity and mean­ing of mankind. (Rad­hakr­ish­nan and Moore 1973)

My inter­est in this arti­cle is to explore the nature of Yoga in The Bha­gavad Gita. At the same time I also rec­og­nize that Yoga per­me­ates the entire text. How­ever, I believe it is worth­while to extract key insights into Yoga that exist in the Gita know­ing that the Gita must be stud­ied and reflected upon in its entirety.

Yoga in the Bha­gavad Gita

Chap­ter 3: The Yoga of Works or Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga is the method Krishna (divine hero, incar­na­tion of God) teaches that is the means to lib­er­ate the soul from the bondage of karma (action). The word karma is derived from the San­skrit kr mean­ing to do or to make. Karma lit­er­ally means action, work or deed, and sec­on­dar­ily refers to the nat­ural and uni­ver­sal law of cause and effect. In our present life, karma means that all of our actions, work and deeds have an effect on our past, present and future expe­ri­ences. In other words, we are all indi­vid­u­ally respon­si­ble and per­son­ally account­able for the joy or pain we have caused in our life or the lives of oth­ers. In reli­gions that incor­po­rate rein­car­na­tion (sam­sara) as a belief sys­tem, the karma we cre­ate in life effects our past, present and future lives as well.

A belief in rein­car­na­tion may be a pre­sup­po­si­tion many peo­ple find dif­fi­cult to accept. In the Bha­gavad Gita the ori­gin of karma is God. Whether or not we believe in rein­car­na­tion, karma, our actions in life, can eas­ily be under­stood as a con­tin­uum of cause and effect. My own per­sonal pref­er­ence is to imag­ine karma to be a kind of energy sys­tem that trav­els out into the world and is col­ored and influ­enced by my own actions. In an unpre­dictable way and at an unde­ter­mined point in time that energy may return to me in the form of experience.

Fixed in yoga, do thy work… aban­don­ing attach­ment, with an even mind in suc­cess and fail­ure, for even­ness of mind is called yoga… yoga is skill in action. (Rad­hakr­ish­nan and Moore 1973) … Your mind will be secure in self-knowledge and undis­turbed by voices of doc­trine and rit­ual. Then you will have achieved true yoga. (Prime 2003)

The pur­pose of karma yoga is to free the soul from the bondage of karma by uni­fy­ing our actions work and deeds with self­less ser­vice to human­ity. Karma yoga is the method to pro­duce skill in action, or skilled action, so that we place our­selves in the ser­vice of work with­out desire, expec­ta­tions of gain or reward. No other kind of action, work or deed mat­ters. Karma yoga means that we embrace a life of skilled action regard­less of our circumstances.

Chap­ter Four: The Yoga of Divine Knowl­edge or Jnana Yoga: Jnana yoga is the yoga of divine knowl­edge. The foun­da­tion of all knowl­edge is the knowl­edge of the Cre­ator. Krishna explains that he is the incar­na­tion of God on earth and any­one who has knowl­edge of His true nature will come into union with Him and be lib­er­ated from cycles of rebirth.

For the pro­tec­tion of the good, for the destruc­tion of the wicked, and for the estab­lish­ment of right­eous­ness, I come into being from age to age.

He who knows thus in its true nature My divine birth and works is not born again, when he leaves his body but come to Me. (Rad­hakr­ish­nan and Moore 1973)

Krishna goes on to state that under­stand­ing what skilled action as well as wrong action and inac­tion are is essen­tial to attain­ing the yoga of knowl­edge. Skilled action is work and deeds that are not bound by any attach­ment to worldly desire. In other words, the moti­va­tion for action is a direct exten­sion of the knowl­edge of God. Knowl­edge that binds us to worldly desire results in wrong action. The path of jnana yoga is to sac­ri­fice all knowl­edge that binds us to attach­ment so that the only desire remain­ing in the knowl­edge the Creator’s true nature.

He who has faith, who is absorbed in wis­dom, and who has sub­dued his senses, gains wis­dom, and hav­ing gained wis­dom he attains quickly the supreme peace.

But the man who is igno­rant, who has no faith, who is of a doubt­ing nature, per­ishes. For the doubt­ing soul there is nei­ther this world nor the world beyond, nor any happiness.

Works do not bind him who has renounced all works by yoga, who has destroyed all doubt by wis­dom, and who ever posses his soul, O win­ner of wealth. (Rad­hakr­ish­nan and Moore 1973)

Chap­ter 12: The Yoga of Devo­tion or Bhakti Yoga: Bhakti Yoga is the yoga of pure spir­i­tual devo­tion. The word Bhakti comes from the root Bhaj, which means to be attached to God.

Those who fix­ing their minds on Me wor­ship Me, ever har­mo­nized and pos­sessed of supreme faith — them do I con­sider per­fect in Yoga. (Rad­hakr­ish­nan and Moore 1973)

If we are not able to fix our thought on God con­stantly, Krishna advises us to seek Him through con­cen­tra­tion. If our power of con­cen­tra­tion is lack­ing, Krishna advises us to seek Him by set­ting our aim to be in His ser­vice. Fail­ing this, Krishna advises us to seek refuge in dis­ci­plined activ­i­ties and skilled action.

The true devo­tee will pos­sess a num­ber of essen­tial qualities:

• no ill will, friendly, com­pas­sion­ate, free from ego­ism, even minded in any circumstance;
• con­tent, self-controlled, deter­mined, with mind and under­stand­ing focus on devotion;
• in har­mony with the world, free from joy and anger, fear and agitation;
• no expec­ta­tions, pure, skill­ful in action, uncon­cerned, untroubled;
• nei­ther rejoices nor hates, nei­ther grieves nor desires, renounced good and evil;
• behaves alike to friend and foe — good and evil, alike in heat and cold — plea­sure and pain, free from attachment;
• holds equal blame and praise, is silent and con­tent, has no fixed abode, firm in mind

Sum­mary

The dif­fer­ent types of Yoga pre­sented in The Bha­gavad Gita are vari­a­tions of inner dis­ci­pline that lead to a lib­er­a­tion of the soul and insight into the unity of all life and God. The Yoga of Action, The Yoga of Knowl­edge, and The Yoga of Pure Devo­tion are three impor­tant forms of Yoga described by Krishna. There are other forms of Yoga included as well. The com­mon fac­tors in all forms of Yoga described here are the abil­ity to over­come worldly desire and attach­ment, the devel­op­ment of con­cen­tra­tion, and an empha­sis on the Cre­ator as a per­sonal God who is respon­si­ble for the cre­ation, preser­va­tion and destruc­tion of the uni­verse. Yoga is a means to bring our being into unity with the pres­ence of the Divine that is already and always has been within us.