#2 Is the Bhagwat Gita all words and no action?

Implementing the 'Divine Song' in real life.

Anyone who’s reading this, including the one who’s writing this, is intentionally or unintentionally chasing something. We all have that perfect picture in our mind, where our present desires are fulfilled and we truly believe that we can rest in peace once that is done. It could be a job promotion, finding the love of your life, being a billionaire, having infinite power, having a baby or even achieving enlightenment. And then, we look at our past selves, who wanted the things which we have right now, the things we have achieved partially or wholly and yet we stand here, all over again, still innocently believing in our hearts, that the next one will definitely be the one. Some of us, even make the perfect picture so intricate that it would surely take an entire lifetime to realise it, just to validate our present state of constantly chasing something. Interestingly, most of us are also aware of this pattern, of this relentless restlessness which we justify by these achievable mirages, acknowledging that ‘it’s never enough’, repeating the cliche that the journey is more important than the destination and yet never really putting it in practice because honestly, we do not know any other way. We’ve also had a long list of aphorisms to remind us of the reality:

Live in the moment.
Desire is the cause of suffering.
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

We read them, we accept them as a logical fact and then forget about them while losing ourselves in the labyrinth of life. Why did the sages and seers leave us with these cryptic words, to be deciphered theoretically, without any prevalent practical roadmap? But do we even understand it theoretically? It’s the proverbial flip side of a coin. If you enjoy being happy, then you’ll detest being sad. In any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, every human being experiences almost all emotions available on the human spectrum of sentiments. We also actively try to do things that make us happy and avoid things that make us sad. You got what you wanted, you’re happy. You didn’t get it, you’re sad and you either blame yourself or the world for this burden. It just goes on, over and over again, in each one of our lives. You completed your daily exercise target, you’re happy. The next day, you won’t, you’re sad. You get compliments, you’re happy. You get criticism, you’re sad. Over and over again. Where does it all end? This jungle of transient joy and sorrow. I read the Bhagwad Gita, the holy book of Hinduism, to look for answers, it’s the acclaimed guide to life, to realising eternal joy without the input of external factors. It talked about Karma yoga, one of the four paths to eternal happiness and the following quote from it describes it aptly,

‘You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either.’

This is again something, we have been told over and over again by our parents and teachers alike. But these words never leave the holy books and manifest themselves in our reality. The schools and colleges, on the other hand, teach us to set goals, short-term, long-term, make them public and whatnot, so that we achieve them. And how do you work without thinking of the fruits of work? The moment I started this Substack newsletter, I had an instant thought, not even a conscious, effortful thought, but an effortless, auto-pilot thought, to make it big, to have a huge mass of curious subscribers, earning thousands of dollars, doing what I love full time and then life will be good, peaceful, happy, that will be a true joy. And then, I publish a few newsletters, I realise how hard it is, I subconsciously even hate people for being stupid and not understanding my point, going through other newsletters which are publishing far worse content and doing much better. Of course, the approach could be to learn from them, improvise on the marketing, hustle, hustle, hustle, work forty-eight hours a day, hustle, hustle, hustle, until bam! I reach where I wanted to reach. Say, it takes two years for that to happen, then for two years, I’m chasing a goal (fruit of my work), oscillating between joy and sorrow when things go my way and when they don’t until I reach it and by the time I do, I have already subconsciously created another effortless thought where probably I’m the bestselling author of these newsletters compiled into a revolutionary book. Again, the cycle continues, over and over again, until I die.

There it is, the Geeta smugly suggesting that the fruits of action shouldn’t be your motive for working. Ok, I thought maybe because we live in Kali Yuga, the fourth and worst of the four Yugas in the Yuga cycle of Hinduism filled with conflict and sin, we weren’t taught this thought process in our schools or it wasn’t practised in our vicinity, so we never cared to learn it because everyone around us was equally miserable. But there have been times, as historians report that these principles and the interior experiments for realising them were taught systematically in “forest academies” or ashrams - a tradition which continued unbroken for three thousand years from the date of inception (3000 BC) until disappearing like all good things. And today, people are mostly lost, from being atheists to agnostics to using meditative apps to following the new Guru to following age-old religious ceremonies blindly to joining a cult to God knows what’s next. Human beings are essentially compulsive comparison creatures, I remember talking to my driver about how Covid must be hard on his economic circumstance and he just smiled said, ‘Yes, it is but everyone is unemployed. It is hard for everyone.’

So as far as equality exists, even in suffering, we’re at peace with it. But somehow, I wasn’t. I went ahead to practice Karma-yoga, just the way I could interpret it from Gita. I played badminton every day and decided to play for the sake of playing and not to win. But it was impossible, everyone around me played to win, every time I shuttle fell down, the winning party smiled or acted cool and the losing party winced or acted cool. I was stunned to realise that this was happening in every single court, every single moment. Players holding angst against other players, strategising to win, some even shivered due to anxiety just to win. But I was determined, there has to be some way. Every time, I hit a winning shot, the other players watching the game cheered, my doubles partner patted my pack, it felt good, it felt amazing, I wanted more of it, it motivated me to do better. How do I not feel happy about it? Since I knew, the happier the winning hits make me, the sadder the losing hits will make me. So I didn’t smile, I didn’t let the external stimulus change my emotional state and just focused on the game with a straight face. The losings hits came, lots of them and I kept my straight face as it was. Then, we won the game but since I was trying to practice karma-yoga, I wasn’t even allowed to be happy, right because it’s just one side of the endless cycle. Later, in hindsight, I saw that I was just suppressing the pleasant and unpleasant emotions alike just like an ascetic. I had attained a temporary state of indifference but was there any joy? None. Just a heaviness and a sense of being bottled up. How do you uproot the transient feelings of joy and sorrow and implant eternal bliss within? 

I re-read some quotes from Gita to figure out what had gone wrong. To work for work’s sake only: to play Badminton for the sheer joy of playing badminton, for the sound the shuttle makes when it hits the tight chords of the racquet, for the delicate play of near the net drops, for the technique of that third-line to third-line shot, for the counted steps of the footwork, for the zeal to not let the shuttle fall. In practice, I realised that to appreciate the beauty of the game is a curse because the beauty remains constant even when you don’t push yourself, even when you’re okay with letting that shuttle drop because winning and losing are equally rewarded in your brain. I was disappointed. Is the Bhagvad Gita, all words and no action? How did King Janaka enjoy eternal bliss while serving the responsibilities of the emperor, bathing in power and pleasure every day? 

And then, I found out how.

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Next one: #3 Believing vs. Blindly Following
Stay tuned for the next newsletter to discover the truth with me. Would love your comments on this one. Have you ever practised detachment in your life? What was it like?