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Action and Inaction in <I>The Bhagavad Gita</I>

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Action and Inaction in <I>The Bhagavad Gita</I> Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita Leigh DUFFY PhD, Philosophy, SUNY Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Avenue, BUCK B227 Buffalo, NY 14222 [email protected] Abstract: In this paper, I address the seeming tension found in The Bhagavad Gita in our duties as described in the practice of Karma yoga. The path of Karma yoga in- volves renunciation and yet we also have an obligation to act righteously. How are we to simultaneously choose a path of duty and let go of what our actions along that path produce? I will argue that the seeming tension is a result of a misunderstanding of renunciation or non-attachment as well as an incomplete view of the dualistic philosophy of yoga theory. I describe the two main paths of yoga that are empha- sized in The Bhagavad Gita, Jnana yoga or the path of knowledge and Karma yoga or the path of action, and argue that it is necessary to understand Karma yoga in light of Jnana yoga and to apply Jnana yoga so that it’s not an abstract school of thought, but a philosophy that can be applied to best live our lives. Keywords: Yoga, Bhagavad Gita, Duty, Action, Samkhya Philosophy I INTRODUCTION Of the four paths of yoga – Raja, Jnana, Karma, and Bhakti – The Bhagavad Gita emphasizes two. Jnana Yoga or the path of knowledge and wisdom is the path of inquiry into the philosophical truths about the nature of the universe and the nature of the self. Karma Yoga or the path of action is the path that describes how we ought to live our lives, which includes svadharma – or selfless, righteous duty – and renunciation in order to make actions a dedication to something greater than oneself. On the surface, there might seem to be a tension in the practice of Karma yoga. One main point of the yoga philosophy is to let go of attachments to the outcomes of our actions. The path of Karma yoga involves renunciation and yet we also have an obligation to act righteously. How are we to simultaneously choose a path of duty and let go of what our actions along that path produce ? In this paper, I will argue that the seeming tension of these two main points of the yoga © 2019 Leigh DUFFY - https://doi.org/10.3726/CUL012019.0001 - The online edition of this publication is available open access. Except where otherwise noted, content can be used under the terms 7 of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). For details go to http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita philosophy stems from a misunderstanding of renunciation or non- attachment as well as an incomplete view of the dualistic philosophy of yoga theory. It is necessary then to understand Karma yoga in light of Jnana yoga and to apply Jnana yoga so that it’s not an abstract school of thought, but a philosophy that can be applied to best live our lives. II THE STORY OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA At the beginning of The Bhagavad Gita, we find Arjuna confused and desolate on the battlefield. He and his four brothers, the Pandavas, are preparing to go to war with their cousins, the Kauravas, who have been ruling the kingdom for 12 years. The Bhagavad Gita is one book in the larger Hindu epic, The Mahabharata, which includes the story of when the Pandava brother, Yudhishthira, had been appointed as crown prince and rightfully so; he was noble and righteous, and the masses desired him as ruler. But the Kaurava cousins were extremely jealous of this appointment and of the good, wise, and noble Pandava brother. In the earlier books, the Kauravas proved themselves to be selfish, jealous, manipulative, and cruel. After the appointment of Yudhishthira as prince, the two families had made a bet, the terms of which stated that the losers would spend 12 years in exile. Because the Kaurava brothers cheated and used magic and trickery, the Pandavas lost the bet. They spent those 12 yearspreparing for war so they could return and take back the kingdom that was rightfully theirs and so they could rule fairly and justly. We are introduced to Arjuna not as a skilled warrior and archer that he was, but as a troubled young man, reluctant to fight in the war, and confused about how this is the right thing to do. Krishna appears as his chariot driver to show him that this is a righteous war and in explaining why this is Arjuna’s duty, Krishna spends the rest of The Gita teaching Arjuna the essential philosophical truths about the world, about the Self, about God, and about how to live. Arjuna represents any one of us and the battlefield represents the internal battle we must fight at any point in our lives. The 100 evil cousins are our attachments, which cause pain and suffering. We must sever our attachments so that the righteous, wise, and good parts of us can rule, just as the righteous, good, and wise Pandavas must rule. The Bhagavad Gita is a guide on how to live, but it also includes lessons about 8 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 the impermanence of the physical world, the nature of the eternal Self, the connection between the Divine and the Self, as well as the con- nection between the Divine and the universe. Krishna does not come to teach Arjuna so he can simply be wise; he comes in order to get him to fight and to live righteously and selflessly. These are the two paths of yoga. Arjuna is taught – and so the reader is taught – to sever attachments. Actions are good and on the yogic path when they are done with renun- ciation. But, Arjuna also must fight a war. How can he find the motiva- tion to fight the war if he is also letting go to any attachments to the outcome of the war ? It might seem that he would have an obligation to walk away from the battle and live a life of non-harm and non-attach- ment, in line with the moral principles of the yoga philosophy. These two lessons of Karma yoga seem to be in tension at the very least until we introduce the teachings of Jnana yoga. I’ll begin with some important principles in the yoga philosophy and then come back to the ideas of non-attachment, selfless duty, and righteous action so that they will be seen in light of these other philosophical views. III DUALISM Yoga’s philosophical view of the universe is a dualistic one, stemming from the Samkhya philosophy, and itincludes purusha and prakriti. Prakriti is all the stuff you’re familiar with in an ordinary sense: the physical stuff in the world, including the natural world and the man-made world. It includes mountains, grass, the sun, and stardust, as well asbones, blood, and flesh. It also includes tables, chairs, computer chips, vaccines, and stained glass windows. Unlike dualism in traditional Western philosophies, prakriti also includes your thoughts and your “mind”. Your memories, emotions, hopes, and dreams are all in the realm of prakriti. In other dualistic views, those things are not like tables and chairs and flesh and your brain. And obviously stained glass windows and flesh are different from your admiration of a stained glass window or your pain when a knife slices your flesh. In Western Dualistic views, mental events are said to be non-material and non-spatial. In the particular kind of Dualism of yoga, the distinction between the two aspects of the universe is not one of being material or 9 Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita being non-material, but rather between things in the natural world that are ever-changing, impermanent, and temporary (prakriti) and what is permanent, eternal, and without change. Each object in prakriti, whether it is a stained glass window, a chair, or a thought, is whatever it isright now, but each of those objects will one day cease to exist asthatparticular object. Prakriti is constantlymoving, sometimes just subtly but always changing, moment by moment. The stained glass window might one day shatter in a hurricane, but even in this moment when it appears to not change, the particles that make up the glass are moving. Your thought right now might be momentarily about coffee, but in the next moment, it’s gone and there’s a thought about taking a nap. An individual’sbody is in one shape now and it is very different from what it looked like at birth and it will be different again when that individual dies and the bodydecomposes into the earth. All of prakriti is like this. Stained glass windows and thoughts about them are very different in their qualities, but what makes them both prakriti is that they are both impermanent and in constant flux. As is the case with many Eastern philosophies, this is the root of our attachments and our suffering. We identify a thing in the world as one particular thing and, without con- sciously deciding to do so, we speak of it and conceptualize it as if that’s what it is in some eternal or essential sense. By speaking of things in prakriti with these labels and identifications, we subtly start to conceptualize them as permanent parts of the world, eventhough we might rationally know that they are not.
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