Jottings - Slice of life - 379 ( The art and secret of excellence in action - musings on the Bhagavad Gita )
Jottings - Slice of life - 379 ( The art and secret of excellence in action - musings on the Bhagavad Gita )
In 1945, When the atomic bomb was detonated in the arid deserts of New Mexico, Robert Oppenheimer’s immediate thought was “ Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds” — paraphrasing a haunting verse from the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. Oppenheimer was the head of the Manhattan Project, the team of brilliant scientists who worked on creating the atom bomb. Like most scientists, Oppenheimer was drawn towards eastern philosophy for its wisdom and depth of inquiry into the nature of the world. Oppenheimer formally studied Sanskrit in the 1930s and had read the Bhagavad Gita in its original. The Gita touched a deep chord within him. A copy of it lay on his desk all the time, and its verses were a soothing balm to his soul when doubts crept in. The verse he was paraphrasing that fateful day was this:
दिवि सूर्यसहस्रस्य भवेद्युगपदुत्थिता। यदि भाः सदृशी सा स्याद्भासस्तस्य महात्मनः।।११-१२।। If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.
When the bomb was set off on that lovely star-filled evening of July 16th, 1945, it took a few seconds before its tremendous energy was unleashed. Once the process began, the blinding arc of light and fire that issued from the deep microscopic bowels of the atom transformed the darkness of the night into bright daylight. The mushrooming mass of heat - measured in several thousand degrees Fahrenheit - slowly and ominously enveloped the earth, scorching everything in its way. The catastrophic spectacle that was unfolding before his eyes, reminded Oppenheimer of his favorite Indian scripture, and Krishna’s clarification of his cosmic form to Arjuna. At that moment, Oppenheimer and his team realized the enormity of what was let loose. It was a mind-numbing and fearful moment, and it was an odd time for a verse from the Gita to cross the mind of a scientist of Oppenheimer’s caliber. But that is precisely the power and directness of this wonderful book. Its message is for all times and all ages, its metaphors are universal, its analogies are practical, its depth of wisdom is profound and non-partisan, and its dissection of the human condition and man’s relationship to the world outside has no parallel in spiritual literature around the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the finest humanistic minds to emerge out of the American soil, wrote in his Essays about the effect that Gita had on him “ It was as if an empire spoke to me, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us…” Many like Emerson, experienced the Bhagavad Gita's profound effect on their lives, and having once tasted it, became its ardent students and evangelizers.
The appeal of the Bhagavad Gita is not so much in its theological structure or the systemization of different streams of Indian philosophy, but more in its realistic and practical approach to the study of the human psyche. Not many spiritual books, apart from a few mystic texts in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Hasidism speak of the human condition as vividly and incisively as the Gita does. This book of 18 chapters containing 700 verses is as thorough a study of the Human personality as could found in any modern books on psychology. In the Gita, the central subject is Man. Nothing else. The seers who undertook the study placed Man, his actions, his motives, his evolutionary trajectory under the microscope, and looked at his predicament without bias or distortion. The result is a book that appeals to everyone everywhere. There are some verses so casually strewn among the myriad insights in the Gita, that stun contemporary psychiatrists in the scope of its wisdom and depth of understanding. At a historical level, the Gita is a poem, a compendium by the author of the epics. It seems improbable that Krishna could have lectured eighteen structured chapters to Arjuna on the Battlefield. Even an ancient battle without the pressures of instant annihilation, wouldn’t allow the luxury of so much time and leverage to philosophize at length. The whole setting of the Gita is symbolic and mythical. So it should be. But that detail is irrelevant, considering what the author did to consolidate the profound investigations and discoveries made in the Indian subcontinent at a time when Europe was nothing but wilderness. The subtlety of thought, the maturity of the investigation, the audacity of its conclusions are some of the most cherished inheritance of Human civilization. Compiled more than two thousand years ago, even today every verse in the Gita still has the same immediacy and relevance to everyone who studies the text.
One of the seminal themes of the Bhagavad Gita is the reconciliation of action in the world outside with our inner motives. Religions present a vision of moral integrity and unselfish action, but everything about the way society is organized encourages man to be nothing but selfish. Therefore, a basic dichotomy exists in the human psyche between what we actually feel, and how we should be feeling. The whole of modern psychology from the time of William James to Freud to Jung is an attempt to answer and solve this conundrum in a variety of ways. The setting of the Bhagavad Gita reflects this dichotomy. Arjuna stands disillusioned in the middle of the battlefield wondering whether he should act at all, and if he must indeed act, how should he? Arjuna thinks aloud to Krishna on what his choices are, and what does “right” action mean in the context of a bloody war. His morality informs him that fighting his family is abhorrent, but his duty urges him to do so. So what should he do? The atmosphere and dramatization of the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna may be a poetic exaggeration, but the substance of it, and the questions it raises occur to all of us sometime or the other in the course of our lives. The only difference is that, for Arjuna action meant fighting a war on the battlefield, and for us, it is how to live our daily lives beyond the biological imperatives of survival and reproduction. One could be an artist, a software developer, a carpenter, a manager or anything else. These questions are universal, pressing and immediate. And so are the answers found in the Gita.
The other important theme in the Gita is the art of action. That there can be no action in the past and action is always in the present — is a simple fact, yet it is the hardest thing to acknowledge or do. Unlike our biological functions which continuously act in the present, our conscious and willed tasks performed as a pyscho-physical entity often suffer from a paralysis of the mind and body. Focus, attention, commitment, and persistence — the four pillars of any job well done, is an unknown commodity in many. Our energies are dissipated in multiple ways, and therefore our action in the present moment suffers, leading to a vicious circle of failure, disappointment, and more anxiety, and more mediocrity. This is the story of the majority of mankind, especially in modern times. It is easy to advise to act in the present, but what is the inner science behind it. What ails man from acting naturally like the flowering of a rose or the effortless course of a river. Where are the bottlenecks? Are there any bottlenecks at all in the first place? Important questions to investigate? The fifth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is on Karma yoga — or the art of action. It is one of the most celebrated chapters in the book, not only for its scientific rigor but in its dispassionate investigation into the nature of the action. There are no references to any religious faith, no mention of any local god, the analysis in the chapter takes man as he is, and rips through his defenses, layer by layer. Of course, the language is terse, and the meanings are couched in symbolic references as is expected of a book written thousands of years ago, but in the hands of a gifted master who can unravel the poetic phrasing in Sanskrit, the fragrance of the message is powerful and transformative.
I have had the fortune of listening to Swami Chinmayananda's talk on the fifth chapter. In all these years, I am yet to read or listen to a more lucid interpretation of what Karma yoga means, and what it takes to reach excellence in action. Chinmayananda was particularly fond of this chapter, and whenever he spoke on this topic, there was a twinkle in his eyes and passionate force in his language and exposition. I found this 30-minute snippet on youtube on the essence of action.
I realize that my essays are getting longer and longer these days. I apologize. I wrote this piece at one go, after listening to this snippet. There is so much more to say, but let me stop here.
God bless…
yours in mortality,
Bala
Comments