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Home , Bhagavad Gita, Impermanence, Jnana, Jnana Yoga (book)

Cultura. International Journal of of Culture and 16(1)/2019: 7-21

Action and Inaction in The

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 . The path of 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 of the dualistic philosophy of yoga theory. I describe the two main paths of yoga that are empha- sized in The Bhagavad Gita, yoga or the path of and Karma yoga or the path of action, and argue that it is necessary to understand Karma yoga in light of 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, Philosophy

I INTRODUCTION

Of the four paths of yoga – Raja, Jnana, Karma, and – 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 of the 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 confused and desolate on the battlefield. He and his four brothers, the , are preparing to go to with their cousins, the , who have been ruling the kingdom for 12 years. The Bhagavad Gita is one book in the larger Hindu epic, The , which includes the story of when the brother, , had been appointed as crown prince and rightfully so; he was noble and righteous, and the masses desired him as ruler. But the 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. 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 cousins are our attachments, which cause 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 and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 the 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 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 , prakriti also includes your thoughts and your “mind”. Your memories, emotions, , 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 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 ’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. Furthermore, to see or identifyan object as my anything (my body, my mind, my signifi- cant other, my , my idea) is to be attached to things that will necessarily cease to be. When we continue to identify and long for those things that were, but are no longer, we suffer. The other part of the dualistic view is purusha. Unlike prakriti, purusha is permanent, never-changing, constant, and eternal. Translators will use the word ‘Self’ (the capital ‘S’ is not a typo) to distinguish it from a “self”, which we commonly identify as our body, our thoughts, or our memories, or a combination of all of those things. Purusha, rather, iswhat is left when you take away the body, bones, flesh, brain, thoughts, memories, and any other aspect you might use to identify the self ordinarily. It is difficult to say what it is but we can say that it is. ‘’, ‘spirit,’ and other similar terms are not quite accurate as translations since a soul or a spirit seems to have the ability to do things – to think, to

10 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 remember, to watch the world, to experience love, etc. Purusha doesn’t do anything. It is not an actor in this world or out of it. Some translators will use the word ‘witness’ or ‘observer’, but for the sake of not losing anything in the translation, I will continue to use the word ‘purusha’ in this paper. Purusha is, essentially, a non-do-er, and prakriti is essentially and by definition, always doing, moving, changing, or acting. Even on the stillest, calmest day, there is still movement in the air. Even in one’sstillest yogapose, there is still some subtle movement in the shaking of the thighs or the rise and fall of the breath. That’s what prakriti is. As that consist of prakriti, we are constantly doing, changing, moving, and evolving. But as beings that are purusha, it is also true that we never act. Krishna tells Arjuna that in every action there is inaction, meaning that all the while that our bodies and minds are moving and doing in this world, purusha remains as a constant, non-changing, eternal Self.

IV RENUNCIATION

Like with and many other Eastern schools of thought, yoga recognizes that to exist in this world is to suffer and that suffering origi- nates with ignorance about the impermanence of the world. In Budd- hism, the main cause of suffering is the false belief that there is some lasting and unified self. In yoga theory, there is a lasting unified self, but we mistakenly identify the temporary aspects of ourselves as that being and this mistake of seeing permanence where there is impermanence causes suffering. Suffering is not limited to wanting a lasting self in a world that is, by definition, impermanent. It extends to wanting or iden- tifying things as mine as if these things belong to us in some permanent way, when they too are impermanent. It extends to desiring things to remain the same when they will cease to be simply because of the es- sence of what these things are. Suffering doesn’t exist in the physical objects of the world, but in our mental attachments to them, which are also a part of prakriti. Falsely seeing permanence where there is impermanence and seeing a lasting, unified self where there is notone leads to the formation of attachments to identities or objects that will change and will cease to exist. Those attachments cause suffering, even when (or perhaps especially when) the

11 Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita attachments are to things we value. One of the goals of the yoga practice, then, is to cultivate a sense of non-attachment. This is much easier to do in practice when one understands these distinctions and has the ability to use or discriminatory wisdom to recognize the differences between the dualistic aspects of the world. When we come to see the impermanent, transient, fluctuating nature of the world, we can let go of our attach- ments to those things in it and experience the of the world with- out suffering. The suffering that accompanies something as tragic as the loss of a loved one is explained by the attachments a person has to that loved individual. We mourn the loss because it is just that: a loss. We that the person could still be here; we desire permanence in a world of impermanence. This happens when we lose parts of our imposed identities too. When a person loses a job, there is, of course, suffering in wanting that job to remain a permanent part of one’s life and in wanting the income, benefits, etc., but often will reportsuffering from no longer knowing “who they are.” “Who am I if not a teacher ?” one might ask. After identifying in that way for so long, it might seem as if this is some essential part of what makes one person the individual person that she is.

V ATTACHMENT, NON-ATTACHMENT,

There is a common question among students new to the yoga theory about whether being non-attached implies not caring or not having any goals. Students will often ask whether they should just not care about their grade in the class or about graduation or about being able to do a yoga pose if they are supposed to be non-attached to the fruits of their labor. It seems the work you put into a class or into college is, after all, in order to receive a grade or to graduate, they might say. In a yoga class too, we do a lot of work to prepare the body for certain peak poses. If we are to take the yoga theory seriously, must we then not care about getting to that pose ? Should we not care about our grades, graduating, and in a more general sense, meeting our goals ? The short answer is one can be non-attached and still have goals. In fact, to be non-attached to the goals you have is the very challenge! It would clearly be strange to put in your best effort for four years of

12 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 undergraduate study to simply shrug your shoulders and walk away if you were told that, at the end of the four years, you weren’t graduating after all. That would be detachment, rather than non-attachment. If you did the work necessary to graduate, you ought to graduate, and you should care about making a correction if a wrong was made. However, in the very acts of being a student, to be non-attached is to be thinking not of the goal of graduation, but of the acts themselves. In simple terms, a non- attached student is studying, reading, and researching, for the sake of learning itself and not for the grade at the end of the semester. When a student is attached to the grade, they care more about the grade itself than about the learning process. On the other hand, to be detached is to not care at all. The idea of non-attachment in yoga is similar to the idea of acceptance or contentment. This does not imply that we must accept things as they are without working for change, however, but it is to recognize how things are and not to cause more suffering by wanting them to be otherwise now. One of the ethical observances in yoga theory is samtosha, which translates, roughly, to contentment. Samtosha is the act of recognizing what is and acceptingwhat is in that moment. It does not imply that we can’t have goals to make changes with the way things are, but rather, it is torecognize things as they are now. Consider, for example, a friend of mine who had a stomach virus run rampant through her household and approached the situation with samtosha. Beth spent a week cleaning up after three sick children: she did multiple loads of laundry in the middle of the night, wiped dirty mouths, made many pots of tea, and scrubbed the bathroom floor repeatedly. At the end of the week, exhausted, Beth came down with the virus herself. In the middle of the night, lying on the bathroom floor, sick again, she found herself thinking, as anyone would in that situation, “I wish this would end. I just want it to bea week from now andI want to be feeling better.” She also caught herself thinking, “If only I had been more careful about washing my hands when caring for my kids. I wouldn’t be sick now.” But Beth was sick. She was suffering with the pains of a nasty stomach bug on top of her own exhaustion and she still had three children to care for. These weresimply the facts of the of her situation. She had no control over those facts or the way things were then. She also had no control over the fact that she hadn’t been more careful about washing her

13 Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita own hands in the previous week. She had no control over how fast time would move and she couldn’t make next week come. My sick friend had to be where she was in that moment and what she realized was that wishing things were different was only making her situation worse. Wishing for it to be next week or wishing she had done something differently was adding to her suffering in a way that was completely unnecessary and within her control. For Beth, to find samtosha or contentment was not to be joyously celebrating her illness. Nor was it to shrug her shoulders and say “ho hum, so I’m sick, but I have no attachments to my health so it doesn’t bother me.” Rather, she found samtosha in recognizing that she was sick and that all she could do was be sick right then and there and make different choices in the future. She had to let go of her attachments to what she wanted to be the case because what she wanted to be the case simply was not the case. In a similar way, when it comes to our own actions, we can recognize where we are and accept how things are now, but that does not imply that we cannot or should not work to make changes in the future. An ethical theory that says you must not care about your goals and accept things as they are should raise all sorts of red flags. If your duty, according to any theory, is to fight for social justice, for example, then if that same theory tells you to accept things as they are and let go of your goals to see any real change in the world, you would be right to think that this theory is flawed. It wouldn’t make any sense to have a duty to fight for social justice but to accept all the social injustices in the world and to let go of your goals of wanting to right those wrongs! Luckily, yoga theory isn’t flawed in that way. Acceptance or content- ment coupled with non-attachment does not imply that we should give up and let things be. Rather, these are principles to adhere to in order to reduce suffering, especially when doing your own duty. Non-attachment and righteous actions are not mutually exclusive. In fact, what the prac- ticing learns in Jnana yoga about impermanence and the Self will lead to better practice when it comes to the path of Karma yoga. Non- attachment is how an action becomes a right action. In Chapter 3, Verse 25 of The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, “As the ignorant perform their du- ties with attachment to results, similarly the learned may also act, but without attachment, for the sake of leading people on the right path” (Prabhupada, transl.).

14 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21

VI KARMA YOGA

Included in the views of Karma yogaare the ideas of and svadharma, in particular. Dharma is a complicated concept, but it comes down to our selfless, righteous duties to a greater good. Svadharma is then one’s individual dharma. Whatever one’s svadharma might temporarily be – be it of doctor, teacher, or house cleaner – for it to count as your svadharma, it must be good and it must be done selflessly. Arjuna’s svadharma was as warrior. His path was to fight this holy and righteous war. But Arjuna did not want to fight the war because he was attached to his enemy in the way he continued to identify them as “my cousins”. Arjuna wanted what once was; he had attachments to the life of his youth where he and his cousins were happily living together in the kingdom. Arjuna did not recognizeor accepthow things wereafter those 12 years had passed and for that reason, he was reluctant to do his duty. In Chapter 2, Verse 7, a distraught Arjuna says, “I am weighed down with weakmindedness; I am confused and cannot understand my duty. I beg of you to say for sure what is right for me to do. I am your disciple. Please teach me, for I have taken in you” (Satchidananda, transl.). Doing the right thing was not only difficult for Arjuna, but it was also unclear to him what the right thing was and this was because of his attachments. This is what made the actions he ended up taking selfless. When one has no desire to perform his svadharma, the performance must be selfless. Arjuna does fight in the end, but he didn’t go to battle because he desired to. He didn’t care about ruling the kingdom or gaining praise for his skills as an archer. He went in to battle because he recognized that it was the right thing to do for the rest of the kingdom. It was a selfless act on his part. While there was still motivation to act, it was not out of self-interest but for a greater good.1 This is the kind of struggle we might have with svadharma, dharma, or even with doing what’s right in a more general sense. Discovering one’s svadharma is not as simple as finding one’s passion or doing what one loves or cares about. For Arjuna it was very much the opposite of that. He had to be told (by God – shouldn’t we all be so lucky ?) that this is what he must do and he had to be shown that it was righteous and good. The path of Karma yoga is similar. It might not be the case that every act we do is as difficult as fighting in a war, but getting rid of our

15 Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita attachments and choosing to do what is right is still very difficult. They key is to find the same mindset as Arjuna eventually did: choose actions not for what they will bring you but for a greater good, something beyond your own self interests.

VII ACTION AND INACTION

When Arjuna says to Krishna, “I beg of you to say for sure what is right for me to do. I am your disciple. Please teach me, for I have taken refuge in you,” Krishna responds to two requests: Krishna tells Arjuna what is right to do, but he also teaches him about the philosophical truths of universe in order to make that clear and to ease his mind and his worries. In other words, Krishna leads him on the paths of Jnana and Karma yoga. An important lesson about purusha that Arjuna learns in his discus- sion with Krishna is that purusha is a non-do-er, a non-actor. Remember that while purusha doesn’t do anything, it is still ever-present in a conscious being. When Arjuna shows his distress about killing his cousins, Krishna promises him that he cannot really kill them in any real sense; the true Self cannot be killed. Still, there is no moment during which prakriti ceases to move, so Arjuna must do something. If he were to believe that he could avoid participating, he’d be mistaken. Choosing not to fight in the war is choosing an action. Krishna tells Arjuna that in killing another, he is merely killing the body – or making changes to prakriti – but he is not killing the Self. He also tells Arjuna that it isn’t really his Self doing the killing. His Self is a non-actor and an observer to what he is doing on the battlefield. This lesson also often raises many objections. Do we have a license to do whatever we want if our true Selves aren’t really doing those acts ? Can we lie, steal, cheat, and kill ? What reason do we have to be moral if we can justify Arjuna’s battle in this way ? These are important concerns that can be answered if remember that both parts of the dualistic world are real. The temporary world of prakriti isn’t an illusion in anyway, but we have illusions about it. We see permanence where there is imperma- nence, but the world itself is still real, while ever changing. Krishna does not come to give Arjuna permission to do whatever he wants. The lesson is not that since our actions are just a matter of changing prakriti, what

16 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 we do doesn’t really matter. Rather, the lesson is that Arjuna is obligated to fight the battle in order to make the lives of others in the kingdom better. While it is true that our actions aren’t affecting the real Self, they are still affecting the temporary self and others so we must choose to do what’s right. Krishna’s lesson is to get him to do what is right, for the sake of making this temporary world better. We have a non-active, constant, non-changing Self – purusha – but there is also a familiar sense of our selves that exists as a constantly changing, impermanent entity. Both are real and both need to be acknowledged when we talk about our actions in the world. It is the temporary self that is an actor or a do-er and even in not doing, a person is doing. The choice to not act or not participate is itself an action. We cannot avoid choices and because our actions have consequences, we have certain obligations about how to act in this world. In Chapter 3, Verses 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna puts it thusly:

Ceasing to do things will not make you “actionless”. Nor will you rise to perfection simply by renouncing actions. No one is free of actions even for a moment, because everyone is moved to do things by the qualities of nature… In order to excel, mentally control the senses, let go all attachments, and engage the body in Karma Yoga, selfless service. Do your duty; such action is better than doing nothing. If you attempt to renounce all actions, it would be impossible to maintain your body. (Satchidananda, transl.)

Ceasing to do things won’t make you action-less. You are doing even in the “non-doing” and this is simply a consequence of being a human being. In every inaction, there is action. In choosing not to get involved, not to be political, not to engage in a conversation, a person makes a choice. The choice to not do is a doing. At the same time, in every action, there is still inaction. In every doing, every choice, every action, there is still the ever-present and constant purusha that is unaffected by these choices and changes. Krishna continues in Chapter 4, Verse 15: “Even the ancients who realized this freedom from all duties, nonetheless continued to work in the world. Like those sages, you too should continue to act” (Satchidananda, transl.). Being on the path of Jnana yoga, the wise yogi realizes that we are not essentially actors at all. The wise ancient yoga scholars continued to do their work in the world because they recognized

17 Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita that as human beings, acting is unavoidable and that they had duties to fulfill while in this world. The yogi acts but acts without attachments to the outcomes and not for the sake of fulfilling personal . We will of course have personal desires or goals, but actions taken with that motivation are not actions consistent with Karma yoga. Rather, an action ought to be done for the sake of the action itself, for another, or for a greater good. In chapter 4, verse 15, Krishna counsels Arjuna to “The intricacies of action are very hard to understand. Therefore one should know properly what action is, what forbidden action is, and what inaction is” (Satchidananda, transl.). Inaction is still an action and so we must choose between right action and wrong action. Right action is action without attachments. In other words, when there is a right thing to do, there is either doing that right thing or not doing that right thing. In choosing not to get involved for example, you are not really staying on some middle path, but you are not doing the right thing. An example of inaction versus right action is that of being a bystander when someone else is being mistreated. There is a fifth grade boy in my school district, who is regularly picked on after school by a group of his peers. There are many families who pass by this group of children every day on their walks home from school and no one stops to say anything. You can imagine the thoughts they might be having and they are ones I’ve also had: it’s none of my business; I don’t really know what’s going on; they might all be friends and this is how they play; it’s not my job to discipline someone else’s child; etc. There are obvious wrong actions in this situation: it would be wrong, e.g. to join in on the bullying and throw acorns in this child’s face. But many people feel that saying nothing and walking by is not included in the category of wrong actions. For the sake of the point being made, let’s say that the right thing to do in this situation is to step in and make the other children stop throwing acorns at this little boy. Every parent or care-giver who walks by has a choice to make: do I do the right thing or do I not do the right thing ? In doing nothing at all, a passerby is not doing the right thing. There is no inaction here. Walking away is an action. Recognizing that you might have misread the situation, that others might judge you, or that the boys might complain to their parents makes doing the right thing difficult, but choosing to get involved despite all that, knowing that you aren’t getting anything in return, is an act of Karma yoga – it is selfless and without any personal attachments. On the other hand, doing it with personal

18 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 attachments – to be a hero, or for some similar reason – would also be inconsistent with Karma yoga. In Chapter 8, Verse 23, Krishna says “if you do what is right to do, and you do it without attachment to the fruits, without thought of reward for yourself and without judging if it is pleasant or unpleasant, that is pure, sattvic action” (Satchidananda, transl.).2 is the quality of being in harmony and balanced. This is the quality strive for in their Karma yoga practice.

VIII DHARMA AND SVADHARMA

Arjuna wants to choose the path of inaction, but in choosing to not fight he’s still acting. He’s choosing the wrong action because of his attachments to these people as cousins. Krishna goes on to explain that being a warrior is Arjuna’s svadharma, his own righteous, selfless duty. This might be the most challenging concept of all. How can we be non-attached and yet still be motivated to act in a righteous way that is our own personal duty ? If it is my own duty, how can I avoid having attachments to performing that action ? The essence of non-attachment is that it is self- less and yet svadharma is mine. But, Krishna explains that righteous action is done with knowledge and for the right reasons. While Arjuna’s duty, for example, is to fight the war, it is righteous because he has to find the motivation to fight and not because he has chosen this duty out of passion. If he were eager to go in to battle in order to be praised for his skill and courage, it wouldn’t be his svadharma after all. If he loved fighting and that’s why he chose to go to war, it also wouldn’t be Karma Yoga. He’d be performing the same actions that are his duties but because they came from a place of selfish motivation, they wouldn’t be righteous. When Arjuna can recognize his duty as a warrior and fight the battle without attachments to his desired ends, but for the sake of doing what’s right, he is performing svadharma: his personal, selfless duty. What stands out about this notion of a purpose as compared to some senses of purpose in the western philosophical world is that svadharma is not necessarily what we’d choose for ourselves. We cannot find our svadharma by seeking within or “listening to our hearts”. We cannot know what it is by reflecting on our own values. Rather, svadharma might be something very difficult to accept as one’s own duty, as it was with the case of Arjuna. While this opens the door to a flood of

19 Leigh DUFFY / Action and Inaction in The Bhagavad Gita epistemological problems with how we know our duty, I will not go into those issues in this paper.3 But this distinguishing feature of svadharma – that it is not necessarily what we’d choose or what we’re passionate about – is key to understanding how svadharma can be both your duty and done without attachments. One example is that of a surgeon. If Dr. X goes into surgery with personal attachments, her motivation might be for the money that comes along with the job or the praise for performing a successful surgery. Dr. X might want to be recognized as the best in her field. On the other hand, Dr. Y, who has mistakenly cultivated a sense of detachment, instead of non-attachment, wouldn’t care about the outcome or the surgery at all. If Dr. Y were to make a mistake, he might be able to shrug his shoulders and walk out of the operating room without another thought. I wouldn’t want either as my doctor if I needed surgery. Right action in this case is caring about the surgery itself while performing the acts of the surgery. The motivation might be to help the little boy on the operating table. Dr. Z, who goes in to the surgery with the motivation to do this for the little boy on the operating table, is treating the surgery not only as her job but as her svadharma. Of course it is her job and of course she will get paid, but the motivation must be to help another for it to be righteous action. To be non-attached is to be able to accept the mistakes or failures if they occur without dwelling on them, but to learn from those mistakes for future surgeries. Dr. X is attached to perfection, and so any mistake is going to be present in her mind as a nagging distraction in any future work,4 while Dr. Y doesn’t care at all.

VIII CONCLUSION

Yoga is an eight-limbed philosophical system that has rich views on the nature of the universe and of things in it. Much of that philosophy has been forgotten in the typical yoga studio in the Western world as the practice has evolved into something more of a physical exercise, but the ancient roots of the practice are philosophical in nature. The main texts used in studying yoga, The Yoga and The Bhagavad Gita, both describe philosophically deep ways of understanding the world and the place of a human being in it. Even the practice – that more commonly known physical component – has a role in aiding Jnana and Karma yoga. We practice the asana part of yoga in order to prepare the

20 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(1)/2019: 7-21 body to sit in stillness and meditate. The fewer distractions we have from tight hips or hamstrings or a sore and aching back, the more likely we are to be able to quiet the mind and realize purusha. That discriminatory wisdom is valuable not only for its own sake but also because it aids in understanding how to live. By grasping the nature of the temporary prakriti world as opposed to the permanent Self or purusha, we can cultivate a sense of non-attachment and thus avoid future suffering and we can also understand our duties to act selflessly in this world.

Notes

1 There is of course the Hegelian concern that perhaps no action is done without some self-interest. In this case, the self-interest might be that Arjuna cared to do the right thing because he wanted to be a person who did good. But, the more general point remains that the intention to fight a war for fame or fortune is most certainly more selfish than the intention to fight in order to regain a ruling class that serves the common good. 2 In the other text cited, Prabhupada translates the original text as: “As for actions, that in accordance with duty, which is performed without attachment, without love or hate, by one who has renounced fruitive results, is called action in the mode of goodness.” 3 Bina Gupta notes that this conception of duty is similar to that of Kant except that it does not give any criterion for knowing one’s duty. Rather “(i)t is assumed that every person knows his duty. The Gita focuses on how one should do one’s duty…The source of duty in the Gita is tradition, whereas in Kant it is reason.” (p. 284) 4 Your dharma might not be your job, but a person can work toward non-attach- ment and selfless service in his or her volunteer work, friendships, or relationships with family.

References

Dasgupta, Surendranath. Yoga as Philosophy and . Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002 Gupta, Bina. An Introduction to : Perspectives on Reality, Knowledge, and Freedom. New York and London: Routledge, 2012. Murty, M. Ram. Indian Philosophy: An Introduction. Ontario, CA: Broadview Press, 2013. Prabhupada, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Bhagvad-gita As it Is. New York and London: The Macmillan Company, 1972. Satchidananda, Sri Swami. The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavad Gita. Buchingham, VA: Publications, 1988.

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