Bhagavadgita – 2nd Chapter – Need of activity ( Karma ) in life

• Arjuna – why should I have kingdom, enjoyment – when I am not interested in life at all – 32 of 1

Comment: This is the question which most of the people get confronted within the life in most of the occasions. The reason for this is either you are not interested to put yourself to work or failed at some point of time or fear of failure in the future or fearing death.

Krishna – this drudgery feeling is not good either for your name or for taking you to heaven. – 2.2

Comment: Every individual is bound to conduct his life as per his own choice and position in the life. If he escapes from the work, he will suffer in the life and his family will suffer after his death. Everyone has an image of his own choice. Hence build a better image for your life.

Krishna: You should not let the weakness of your heart to dominate your life – 3.2

Comment:  Those who are weak in heart feel helpless without putting any effort towards arriving solutions to their problems. One has to fight against his own weakness every moment in life to seek the better purpose of life. Better purpose is to grow individually, the family, the network and finally leaving a legacy through the message of one’s life. In this how much one should reach depends on ones competencies and interests. For the soul sky is the limit. Reach as much height as possible.

Krishna: Intelligent people will not feel for the people who have died or who are going to die. Because no one is going to live or die forever. Don’t brood on waste thinking. 11.2, 3

Comment: It is very clear in real life that those who are born have to die and no one can stop or escape this. Further, to understand it is the matter (body) that perishes and not the energy (life) within it. It is a form of energy which is and will be in the pool of cosmic energy. This energy within the living body is different in terms of its force compared to the static energy embedded in matter. Hence, it is waste to think of life and death of this body when you are fighting your survival.

• Krishna: As you are through childhood, youth so do you get another body. One who knows this will not feel for life or death 13.2

• Krishna: All the cold, heat, happiness and pain are temporary to the life. So don’t feel for them and try to bear them. 14.2

Comment: It is the mind which either feels or detaches itself from the system of stimulus and response which is always under the control of mind. When one understands that he is not limited to the body, he will not be affected by any difference between pain and happiness and lives in a state of eternal equilibrium. This is the equilibrium in the ultimate state of cosmic energy. In this state of equilibrium one doesn’t feel the body and its influences.

Krishna: There is no end for soul or spirit that is permanent and those who know this will not get affected.

Comment: As the life is a form of dynamic form of energy in the expression of force beyond the limited matter of body, it is permanent in the pool of cosmic energy. One who knows this does not get affected during life in this body or after its destruction.

• Krishna: The truth is that the dynamic and aware energy is permeated throughout the universe and it is the soul or center of the Universe. It cannot be destroyed. 17.2

Comment: One should know that this absolute truth in human life and live with vigor and excitement to be with body or without body. When you get the purpose you get the vigor. The purpose is to live happily in this life and end this body at your will.

• Krishna: There is no birth or death to the soul. It has no growth or destruction. It is ancient. 20.2

Comment: As the soul or spirit or Inner Being or life within the body is continuous and a part of the energy across the Universe,  it has no death or destruction. It is permanent and it is with the beginning of the visible Universe and will be as long till the end of it. It does not mean that every soul or spirit will be in the most aware strata of dynamic energy. The degree of awareness in life of this truth lives in higher states of existence in the cosmic pool and less aware live in different layers of admixture through matter and energy.

• Krishna; As you are wearing the new clothes leaving the old one so is the soul taking new body after leaving the existing body. 22. 2

Comment: Life or the soul or spirit or Inner Being takes different bodies due to its attachment or will as we wear the new clothes leaving old clothes. Feeling, Being and doing with the Inner self will make one invincible.

• Krishna; Soul or the Spirit cannot be destroyed by weapons, water, fire or air. 24.2

Comment: As it joins the sum total of matter and energy in the universe, there is no end for it. As per law of conservation, energy in the universe in the form of matter or force cannot be destroyed but only gets transformed into another form.

• Krishna: This is immovable, omnipresent and the ancient.24.2

Comment: The soul is ancient and in its original state is everywhere. It combines with connected particles of Universe to be everywhere.

• Krishna: It cannot be seen, cannot be felt by heart, it has no negative feelings. 25.2

Comment: As the soul Inner Being lives beyond the body and as it is the beginning of the sensation and repulsion, the physical eyes cannot see the soul and it has no feelings and passions.

• Krishna: Even if you feel that there is end for this body you should not feel for it, 26.2

Comment: As there is nothing a mortal can do in the death of another mortal body except a possible treatment to a limited extension.

• Krishna: Every life has to end and start the journey again. 27.2

Comment: Depending on the state of awareness every life or soul will have its own cycle of birth and death. Some take the forms as per their attachment and elevated few will take the forms as per their will or stay in the pool of cosmic energy.

• Krishna: What we see as living body does not appear before or after their destruction. They appear and express only between birth and death. 28.2

Comment: The life of a person was not expressed before the birth and will not continue to express after the death. It is only intermediary expression between life and death.

• Krishna: Every living thing is born to fight for life.  So there is no other duty for you. 31.2

Comment: It is the primary duty of life to live and for living it needs to fight with the body, nature and other surroundings. If you don’t fight and survive you die. So everyone needs to fight for survival till he can before he is tired and retired to death.

• Krishna: Some speak about it, some listen about it with wonder. But only one in millions see it but no one understands it. 29.2
• It lives in the body and lives in every body but it is everything. 30.2

Comment: Though everyone has it, some speak, some listen to it and one in millions see it but no one can understand it. It is very subtle and innate being. Those who can feel it, live in it can experience it.

• Krishna: When you get an opportunity to fight you should not lose it because it is the door for heaven. 32.2
• If you don’t fight you are running away from life and Your personal image. 33.2
• Losing your image in life is equal to death. 34.2
• If you die fighting you reach heaven, if you win your fight you get the riches and enjoyment. Either way you are benefited. Hence fight. 37.2
• Treat profit and loss. Pain and happiness as equals and get ready to fight. 38.2
• If you practice the action even a bit you reach your destiny one day or other. 40.2

Comment: Life is to live and for living one has to struggle through the body, society and nature. Everyone has to follow the principle of struggle for existence. Without struggle people die of inordinate death or infamous death. The struggle could be anything which he is capable of to survive as per one’s competencies.

• Krishna: The person in action will have only one direction in mind. Those who are interested in body will become directionless as they are pulled in several directions. 41.2
• Those who seek happiness in work and action will always be with it. They either continue in life or try for heaven but cannot reach the real destiny. 45.2

• Vedas speak of the body, its happiness through its characters. Concentrate on the mind without being affected by the body influences. Concentrate on non dual, eternally happy State in your soul. 45.2
• The person who lives in the soul has no Interest in the action of body as a person with huge water body cannot be interested in small water bodies. 46.2
• Keep concentration on doing the work and not on its result. You should be the cause for action and not attached to the work. 47.2
• Keep equal feeling in life and yoga, release yourself from attachment to body and be in yoga always. 48.2
• Do every action without any interest in the result. 51.2
• Maintain equal interest in good and bad. This is called equinterest in every thing – samatwa buddhi. 50.2
• Person with equinterest will leave everything with the body and body experiences do not follow him after this life. 50.2
• They are liberated from the attachment and live in permanent state. 51.2
• If you are liberated from passion you are free from all its attachment. 52.2

Comment: This speaks about the way one has to do the work without attachment to it. The reason is simple if you are attached to the result, the desire increases for further result and so on and make you more primitive in living than elevation. Further, if you concentrate on result than process of work your strength gets diminished pushing you into the day dreaming.

The State of Sthitapragna or Stable Mind:

• Krishna: If you stop the vibrating mind you reach the highest and stable state. 53.2
• Mind in its attachment to itself live in itself and the person with its state is called sthita pragna. Stable mind. 54. 2
• He will not enjoy happiness, feel pain in unhappiness. He will not be affected by love, fear or anger. 56. 2

• He who is in this state will have no passion, does not express any feeling n favorable or unfavorable conditions, he doesn’t have interest in friendship or enmity.  57.2
• He will keep the senses for their own purpose and withdraw from all of their influences like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs into its shell. 58.2
• Withdrawing from every feeling, his body needs no food unlike others who withdraw from passion but still have interest in urges. 59.2
• unless one withdraws from the urges, its of no use withdrawing from senses physically. 60.2
• Pragna will be stable when when you achieve equilibrium state with the Highest state of mind along with withdrawal of senses.   61.2

Comment: The stable mind will have more power for thinking; get more patience and will power to execute. Further, it withdraws from body and its urges. Urges create momentary excitement. But the Stable mind lives in absolute bliss.

Why detachment:

• Krishna: The more you think of urges, the more you get attached to them. The more you are attached to them the desire increases and leads to frustration and anger. 62.2
• The anger creates more passion leading to imbalance and destruction of logical mind. 63.2
• The soul that lives in its original state though receiving stimulus does not interact or get affected by the senses and its subjects. 64.2
• The withdrawn soul will be relieved from all the pains of life and stay in absolute sync with the ultimate. 65.2
• Those who cannot control the senses, urges and passion cannot get the right feeling and peace and happiness. 66.2
• As the boat is shaken with slightest wind, a slight interest in any of the senses destroys the balance of mind. 67.2
• Hence the senses have to be withdrawn from the influence of their result and put them in absolute control to reach the state of equilibrium. 68.2

Comment: The primary objective of the mind is to live in eternal happiness and live in its pure state. The nature binds it to the body or forces it to think more of the stimulus and response.

When you are detached what happens:

• When one reaches such a state of equilibrium, he will be awake when everyone is sleeping and he sleeps when everyone is awake in their life with senses it is a sleeping state for him. 69.2
• He lives unaffected with all the enjoyment in life as the ocean is not disturbed by the incoming river waters and reaches the state of absolute happiness. 70.2
• Without urges, desire, passion and ego, the person reaches the highest state of happiness which is eternal and permanent. 71.2
• This state is called Eternal State and those who live and end their life with this state, they remain forever in the eternity. 72.2

Comment: In detachment of the mind you reach the state of absolute bliss and happiness in mind. But you need to hold the control of the body impulses. The only difference is henceforth you do every activity as per your will. The world moves as per your will as you direct it.