Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Bhagavad Gita Verse 29, Chapter 13

prakityaiva cha karmaani kriyamaanaani sarvashaha |
yaha pashyati tathaatmaanamakartaaram sa pashyati || 29 ||

 
One who sees all actions as performed by Prakriti alone, and the self as actionless, he sees (clearly).
 
prakityaa : by Prakriti
eva : alone
cha : and
karmaani : actions
kriyamaanaani : performed
sarvashaha : all
yaha : one who
pashyati : sees
tathaa : and
aatmaanam : self
akartaaram : actionless
saha : he
pashyati : sees
 
Imagine that a toddler sees a phone for the first time. He is fascinated each time it rings, and mistakenly thinks that by raising his hand, he makes the phone ring. But, if an adult has a never-ending fascination with a phone ringing, or has a mistaken notion about why it rings, we will think that there is something wrong with him. If an adult is overly fascinated by machines, it is because he lets the three gunaas of Prakriti still entice him, attract him. In general, once we know how a machine works, we are not overly fascinated or concerned with it.
 
Shri Krishna says that one who has truly assimilated the teaching of the Gita knows that actions, reactions, emotions, thought, logic, all these happen in the realm of Prakriti. Just like we lose fascination for machines once we know how they work, we should gradually stop being fascinated by Prakriti which is nothing but a machine that belongs to Ishvara. If this understanding seeps in, the shocks of world that we face daily will slowly lose their ability to shake us. We will perform our duties with our full attention and dedication so that we can exhaust our selfish desires, but leave the reactions and results to Ishvara because it is all happening in his Prakriti, his machine.
 
How do we go about doing this? The path to reduce our fascination with Prakriti is to increase our fascination with Ishvara. We do this by hearing stories of Ishvara, by attending satsanga, by associating with people who are devotees of Ishvara. The Gita itself contains chapters on the glory of Ishvara’s vibhootis, which can be read as daily meditations. Eventually, we begin to see the entire universe as part of Ishvara’s vishvaroopa, his universal form.
 
Now, even if we develop detachment towards the actions of Prakriti, our senses still get fascinated by variety, colour, form, diversity created by it. How do we deal with this aspect of Prakriti? Shri Krishna covers this next.

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