Beware of the mind’s divide and rule strategy

A standard war strategy for defeating a strong enemy is divide and rule. The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) states that the mind can often act as our enemy. Acting inimically, it targets us with this strategy when we practice bhakti-yoga.

The Gita (18.78) indicates that the combination of the omnipotent Lord and the determined devotee, as represented by Arjuna, is a guarantor of victory. Recognizing the formidable nature of this combination, the mind tries to break it with the divide and rule strategy. Of course, it can’t delude Krishna, and it certainly can’t rule him. So the sole target of its divine and rule strategy is us. That is, it strives to disconnect us from Krishna by creating dissension and distance between us and him. A common way it disconnects us is by giving a misleading spin to the phases of tastelessness we sometimes undergo during our bhakti practice as seekers. Such phases come primarily due to the influence of the modes – influence that comes and goes like everything material.

But the mind makes us believe that such tastelessness will be our lifelong fate if we continue practicing bhakti. Being overwhelmed at such a burdensome prospect, we slacken our connection with Krishna, thus depriving ourselves of our vital access to the higher taste of spiritual love. And then we soon fall prey to the lures of lower pleasures that the wily mind promptly dangles before us.

To protect ourselves, we need to recognize that the “tastelessness will be endless” notion is the mind’s smokescreen to undermine our devotional practice. By discerning this strategy, we can strengthen our resolve to not let anything disconnect us from Krishna. When we stay firmly devoted, taste soon returns, often reinforced by the purification resulting from our determined practice, thus making our further march towards him sweeter and easier.

Waking up within a dream is not the same as waking up from the dream –

Sometimes while dreaming, we may see ourselves waking up and becoming more aware of things. Despite this increased awareness, we haven’t woken up.

For us as souls, embodied life is like a dream – just as a dream is temporary, so is our present life of misidentification with our material body. Significantly, within embodied existence, we can be at various levels of awareness. In the lower modes of passion and ignorance, we are often so infatuated with worldly pleasures or so dejected at not getting them that our awareness of even material reality remains fragmental. For example, alcoholics can become so obsessed with the next drink as to be unmindful of how their actions are hurting others or even themselves.

In contrast with the lower modes, the mode of goodness engenders holistic material awareness – we can better perceive our circumstances and the consequences of our actions. Yet, as long as we remain unaware of our spiritual identity, we are still spiritually asleep. So, the higher awareness of the mode of goodness is like waking up within the dream.

Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (14.06) indicates that the mode of goodness can bind us with knowledge – by making us complacent that we are more knowledgeable than others, it can take away our impetus to strive for spiritual awareness.

Nonetheless, the mode of goodness is conducive for realizing our spiritual identity, provided we strive for it. Gita wisdom prompts us towards such realization by enjoining the practice of yoga, especially bhakti-yoga. Practice of bhakti-yoga gives us higher spiritual taste that far supersedes the pleasure of material knowledgeableness. The transcendental lure of this taste inspires us to rise from waking up within the dream to waking up from the dream and relishing ecstatic eternal life of love with Krishna.

Don’t take life so personally

People who take everything personally are usually touchy. If they come up with an idea and someone points out a problem with it, they treat that objection as a personal attack on them. Driven by reactive emotions, they go into a hyper-defensive or hyper-offensive mode. Being unable or unwilling to learn from others’ inputs, they become obstacles for their own growth.
The problem becomes worse when they take life’s events personally. Thus, whenever things go wrong, they let that reversal become a statement about themselves: “I was born with a rotten destiny.” Or whenever they do something wrong, they make that mistake into a judgment of their self-worth: “I am good-for-nothing.”
Gita wisdom explains that misery is an inherent characteristic of the material world. So, the misery that befalls us is a part of the world’s nature – it is not necessarily a statement about us. Even if the misery is because of our past bad karma, still that karma doesn’t determine what we can do – or, more importantly, who we can be. If we let whatever happens in the course of life define us, we undermine our freedom to choose and grow.
Just as those who distance themselves from their ideas can take feedback objectively and improve themselves, similarly, when we learn to distance ourselves from events, we can respond constructively.

The Bhagavad-gita reinforces our capacity to thus distance ourselves by explaining our non-material identity as souls. The Gita (13.33) indicates that just as the sky being subtle is unaffected by the grosser things it contacts, we can stay unaffected amidst worldly dualities by contemplating our transcendental identity. Further, by practicing yoga, we can experience peace and power in our spiritual relationship with Krishna. Being thus spiritually sheltered, we can observe things from a detached non-threatened perspective and respond to problems with growth-promoting solutions.

Don’t lose the purpose of living for the sake of living

The purpose of living refers to the thing that brings meaning and fulfillment to our life. Living refers to the process of earning a livelihood.

Frequently, what starts off as earning a livelihood often morphs into a pursuit of prestige – all the more so in today’s status-driven materialistic culture. The culture makes us believe that if we are not indulging in the activities that it deems trendy, we are not living at all. But indulgence in such activities doesn’t provide fulfillment – it provides at best some titillation for the ego. And even that titillation is short-lived because soon someone usurps the prestige we thought was our own. Or our present level of prestige no longer titillates enough, and we start craving and slaving for more. Thus, we end up doing scores of trendy things that don’t truly matter to us – that, in fact, keep us from doing the things that matter to us. The Bhagavad-gita (16.16) indicates that such consumption of our consciousness in multiple things entraps us in a network of illusion.

The problem is not seeking a respectable living. The problem is becoming so obsessed with the culture’s fickle notion of prestige as to neglect our purpose of living.

What is our purpose of living? At a material level, our purpose will naturally vary according to our specific God-given talents and resources. But we are not just our talents and resources – we are at our core souls, parts of Krishna. And e can find the deepest fulfillment in loving and serving him. So, our ultimate purpose is to nourish our love for him firstly by engaging in direct devotional activities, and secondly by using our talents and resources in a mood of service to him. Such devotional utilization of our assets will grant us life’s supreme fulfillment

The modes are not monochrome, but are multi-level

The Bhagavad-gita (17.04) analyzes different kinds of worship according to the modes: people in sattva-guna (mode of goodness) worship the gods; people in rajo-guna (mode of passion), demoniac beings; and people in tamo-guna (mode of ignorance), ghostly beings.

How can this analysis be reconciled with the well-known Puranic classification given in the Matsya and other Puranas: sattvika Puranas delineate the worship of Vishnu; rajasika Puranas, the worship of Brahma; and tamasika Puranas, the worship of Shiva?

Following scripture and worshiping a scripturally-described higher being requires a basic level of goodness, which is what the Gita verse stresses. Simultaneously, Vedic scriptures strive to accommodate as many people as possible within the broad house of dharma. So, they delineate various objects of worship to attract people at varying levels of consciousness, which is what the Puranic hierarchy refers to.

Thus, all worshipers of the gods are in goodness; but Vishnu-worshipers are in goodness goodness; Brahma-worshipers, in passion goodness; and Shiva-worshipers in ignorance goodness. Overall, each mode is not monochrome, but has shades corresponding to different levels of consciousness within that mode. So, to deride all worshipers of the gods as belonging to the lower modes is simplistic and inaccurate.

By appreciating the modes’ multi-level nature, we can reconcile other seemingly contradictory scriptural assertions. For example, all animals are said to be in tamo-guna, yet they are also classified according to the modes: cows are said to be in goodness; tigers, in passion; and monkeys, in ignorance. Or consider the two kinds of scriptural references to cows. Many references cherish them as special among animals, but some references treat them as symbols of ignorance – for example, the Srimad Bhagavatam (10.84.13) compares ignorant people to cows and donkeys.

By appreciating the mode’s multi-level nature, we can both avoid passing blanket value judgments and reconcile apparent contradictions.

Being saintly is not a substitute for being sensible

Some people think that being saintly is impractical in the real world. But the Bhagavad-gita reveals a pragmatic standard of saintliness. At the Gita’s start (01.45), Arjuna wanted to adopt what he thought was the saintly standard: nonviolence even in the face of murderous aggression.

Given that we live amidst increasing inundation by news of global violence, we may find Arjuna’s stand appealing. In fact, Arjuna’s side had, before the war, explored and exhausted all avenues for a reasonable nonviolent resolution. But their opponents had remained unremittingly malevolent.

For protectors of an invaded state, staying nonviolent with such ruthless aggressors is worse that suicidal. Why? Because the aggressors would destroy not just the protectors but also the general population. For example, if the world had been nonviolent with the Nazis, their concentration camps wouldn’t have remained concentrated around Germany alone, but would have been replicated globally.

Reflecting such hard-eyed realism, the Gita rejectsunconditional pacifism as the standard of saintliness. Its standard is harmonization of the human will with the divine will (18.73). Since God is everyone’s benefactor and is the wisest of all, doing his will is the best course of action. While his will is not always clear, the first step towards knowing it is clear enough: striving to connect ourselves with him, as Arjuna did by turning to Krishna for guidance and as we can do by turning to Krishna’s words.

How we do his will will vary according to our social position, as the Gita indicates in its class-based character analysis (18.42-44). While nonviolence is a laudable quality, it befits the educator class more than the warrior class, who need to fearlessly counter violence with violence.By equipping ourselves with Gita wisdom, we all can learn how in our specific situations to be both saintly and sensible.

All noes are not created equal By Chaitanya Charan Das

We often instinctively resent whenever we are told no to something that we wish to do. Such resentment is understandable because we equate the no with a deprivation and we naturally don’t want to be deprived.

But such instinctive emotions often blind us to the reality that all noes are not created equal. That is, all noes are not the noes of deprivation – some may well be the noes of protection. When a patient is told not to eat certain food that no is different from, say, racist discrimination that doesn’t let people of certain races to enter some hotels. The noes of deprivation are usually born of discrimination and misconception, whereas the noes of protection are born of a long-term vision that stems from education, a vision that is not always available to everyone.

Children who throw a tantrum when told not to eat too many chocolates don’t understand that they will suffer the consequence of spoilt teeth – a consequence that the no protects them from. They need to grow up to see the no to be a no of protection, not of deprivation.

Similarly, when Gita wisdom offers some regulations that discourage us from certain indulgences, that’s because it wants to protect us from the entanglement and affliction that results due to ensuing attachments. The Gita (02.61) points to the positive focus of the Gita: fixing the mind on Krishna. Gita wisdom explains that the highest happiness is found in the remembrance of Krishna, remembrance that is made difficult by obsession with worldly gratification and is made easier by regulation of such gratification and the redirection of our desires from the world to Krishna.

So, rather than extrapolating on the Gita the noes of deprivation we may have encountered in our lives, if we can open-mindedly approach it, we will realize that its noes of protection and spiritual redirection are dramatically different.