The F1 Key.
A note to readers: The last two blogs onward, we have been exploring Chapter 13 of Bhagavad Gita. This is the 3rd blog and the reference will be there in the title, hereafter.
Recall the mobile phone discussion. I use the mobile phone. I did not create it. The outer structure is made by some company. The sim card is made by some other company. The batteries are made by yet another company. I have not made this phone yet I call it mine and I use it. Similarly, I, i.e. the jiva, has not created this body, I have not created the senses, not created the mana, buddhi, chitta ahamkāra. Nothing. Yet the jiva says My Body, My mind, My intelligence...when he uses it.
Jiva has not created this world. Then who did? I, says Bhagavān who told us that He has given us the Bhagavad Gītā. That Bhagavān says, ‘I have created this world by my prakriti.’
भूमिर- पोनलो वायुः खं मनो बुद्धिरेव च|
अहंकार इतीयं मे भिन्ना प्रकृतिरष्- टधा || B.G.7.4
That answers ‘how’. But our question is ‘why?’ I created the world for the jivas, Bhagavān says. But now you live according to dharma, He adds. If you want to leave this world forever then follow this path of dharma and gain liberation. So what is this dharma He wants from us? “Live and let live. I have made this world for all jivas – insects, animals, birds, plants and humans. You have to live peacefully. You have no choice. Even if you don’t like, you have to follow rules.”
Who says? Īshvara. Why does He say this? He is the one Who created this world. He is the boss.
And this world is there to fulfil our desires. Now this desire is our driver. There are four types of desires : artha, kāma, dharma and moksha. Artha means desire for survival, preservation of the body. Desire to protect the physical body. I think I am the body so I want to protect the body. This desire is there in all the beings. Even a mosquito tries to run away if you try to kill it. Some are helpless so they die. But they will protest. If a creature is in danger, it will protest. We call it survival instinct. All creatures have it. This is also a desire – a desire to protect the body.
The second type of desire is to gain pleasure through the body – Kāma. Why do I want to protect the body? Because the body gives me pleasure. Body helps me gain joy through the senses. Fulfilling the wants of the senses is pleasing. Seeing, eating, touching I get joy. The senses function through the body. So when we please the senses, we please the body too. Thus, we want to protect ourselves and we want to gain pleasure.
But sometimes, in a bid to gain pleasure, I don’t think of other beings. I destroy other beings. I hurt them, kill them, ‘consume’ them even eat them because it gives me pleasure. I cheat some beings for money or convenience. This is a bid at Self-preservation; and a drive for self-preservation and pleasure is the lowest form of living.
Thus we come to the third of our needs, Dharma. Dharma is also a desire that the human has – the desire to not suffer, the desire for an auspicious existence. Dharma is to live life in the righteous way. Moksha, the fourth, is the desire to leave this body-based living and move back to Perfection
It is ok to seek self-preservation and pleasure – but if in so doing we bring discomfort to others, that is not allowed. We cannot be in others’ way. We have a responsibility to take care of other creatures also. We should do our duties so that others get their rights and thus everyone can coexist peacefully in this world.
This ‘liveand let live’ is boxed in five fundamental principles or diktats. If we ensure these, most rules are taken care of: ahimsā, satyam, asteya, brahmacharya, aparigraha.
Our body is made up of different parts. Every part has a different function, so if all the parts perform their respective functions properly then the body will remain healthy and good. [If my gastric juices delay in digesting the food in the stomach, then in a derived way the head starts hurting, then the eyes are strained, I cannot work... and so on.] Similarly, this whole world and all the beings in it are like one organism. If every being performs its actions properly, all is well and orderly. All beings mostly, perform their duties and live according to their dharma. Except humans. Amazing, because the human being is the only being with an intellect that enables discrimination. Yet only the human makes a choice to breach dharma. This is why this Knowledge, the Gītā, is given only to the human beings. Not to animals and birds.
Animals, birds, plants don’t break the rules. They live according to the laws of nature. Īshvara says, ‘If you live following the dharma then you will not only live here peacefully but also your future life will become better!
That knowledge, wherein we are made to live and let live, is dharma.
Let us look at Arjuna in the Mahābhārata. He was a kshatriya and he had his own duties. A kshatriya is enjoined by his status to protect dharma, protect the people, the country. As a young boy in gurukul he had learnt all this. He had watched kshatriyahood being exemplified at home, among his clan. It was his dharma that propelled him to pick up weapons in war against adharma. But in the Kurukshetra battlefield he lost courage, lost learning and his mind got clouded. He was confused and laying down his weapons he said he will not perform. ‘I will not fight’. It was at that point that Bhagavān spoke the Gītā – the operating manual for a human being.
Sometimes we find we are unable to access a part of a website, we are obstructed. We get confused. At that time we hit the F1 key. It tells us our precise condition and how to navigate from there out of our trap. For example it might say, ‘empty cache and try again’. Or ‘enable cookies’. We have to do this to be able to get ahead on the site. The Gītā too is the operating manual for human life which once we are familiar with, we can use as the F1 key from time to time.
Bhagavān also says whether you like it or don’t, you have to fulfil your responsibilities (Dharma). You cannot move on without doing your duties – not just for your sake but for the sake of everyone. Following the path of harmony, togetherness, living in harmony with all, is being on the path of dharma. Dharma is meant to protect the society, jagat and then all the beings can prosper. When we follow the ‘rule book’ – recall the Inner equipment we talked of earlier? This ‘Antahkarana’- gets cleansed.
What will happen when the antahkarana becomes pure? What happens when a dusty mirror is cleaned? The cleaning of the antahkarana is the removal of dust-like wrong notions like fear, anxiety, false values and as a result you start seeing clearly what your real identity is. Thus we come to Moksha, the fourth in the hierarchy of man’s needs. With the cleansing of the inner equipment, we will be able to transcend our hurdles, attain the identity with our own supreme Self – what is called finding our true Self.
As long as the inner equipment are fraught with impurities, we remain tied down to samsāra which means experience of joys and sorrows in many more life times. We have to follow the path of dharma in order to become free. At present because of avidyā we are caught up in this false notion of who we are – which is: I am the body, I am the mind....
We cannot become free, only dharma can set us free.
Suppose I say I want to become free of this mobile, disconnect it; but the bill will come anyway. We may say that we don’t want to use this phone; that we don’t want the bill. But no, the bill will come. Only when we pay the bill, can we expect to be disconnected from the phone.
Similarly, until the give and take with the world is complete, we will keep coming to the samsāra. We have had these transactions with samsāra since time immemorial. We have to settle all that first. The accounts are settled in full and final if we follow the path of dharma.
If we chase only artha and kāma then we definitely do adharma. And we have to take the results of that. We cannot decline these. It is not an available option. We have to go to different lokas (worlds) and experience that. This is choiceless. Therefore, if we want moksha then we have to enter the door of dharma.
Īshvara Himself is giving this knowledge through Bhagavad Gītā to the jiva. Using this Operating Manual, let us live in Dharma.
The author is Head of Chinmaya Mission Delhi and NCR. Swamiji will give discourses on Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 1 from 1st to 7th February, 2014, from 6.30 to 8.00 pm at Chinmaya Mission, 89, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003. All are cordially invited.
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