The Lockdown Studies: The Yoga of Knowledge

The lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus has meant that I've had some time to study some of the foundational texts of Indian philosophy. I started with the Bhagavad Gita, the text which was buried in the depths of the Mahabharata, until Sankaracharya, in the 8th century CE, extracted it and wrote a commentary on it in the light of the non-dualism of Advaita Vedanta.

Chapter 2, the Yoga of Knowledge, starts with a rousing call: O Partha! Yield not to unmanliness! It does not befit you. Shake off this petty weakness of the heart and rise up, O dreaded hero!
This was one of Swami Vivekananda's favorite verses in the Gita. He says:
If one reads this one Shloka —क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत्त्वय्युपपद्यते । क्षुद्रं हृदयदौर्बल्यं त्यक्त्वोत्तिष्ठ परंतप॥ — one gets all the merits of reading the entire Gita; for in this one Shloka lies imbedded the whole Message of the Gita.
If you, my sons, can proclaim this message to the world — क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत्त्वय्युपपद्यते — then all this disease, grief, sin, and sorrow will vanish from off the face of the earth in three days. All these ideas of weakness will be nowhere. Now it is everywhere — this current of the vibration of fear. Reverse the current: bring in the opposite vibration, and behold the magic transformation! Thou art omnipotent — go, go to the mouth of the cannon, fear not.
Hate not the most abject sinner, fool; not to his exterior. Turn thy gaze inward, where resides the Paramâtman. Proclaim to the whole world with trumpet voice, "There is no sin in thee, there is no misery in thee; thou art the reservoir of omnipotent power. Arise, awake, and manifest the Divinity within!"
A wordcloud of the second chapter shows what Sri Krishna's focus is on:

What's more interesting is what Sri Krishna does not talk about. The second chapter of the Gita is the summary of the entire Gita, but nowhere in it does Sri Krishna mention the words God or prayer. He pooh-poohs the idea of walking away from one's duty and ridicules those who claim that the Vedas -  the holiest books of Hinduism which all sects must accept as true - have nothing in it but rites that promise heaven and riches.

His key message is that the ideal life can be led by constant awareness of one's true nature or by the path of work where the wheel of death and rebirth can be broken by working without attachment. We are the makers of our own destiny, not pawns in a game we do not understand. The concept of the inherent divinity of man is at the heart of Sri Krishna's teaching throughout the Gita.

The chapter can be divided into four sections.

The first section where Sri Krishna expounds on the true nature of the Self - know this Self to be eternal, undecaying, birthless and indestructible (Him the weapons cleave not; Him the fire burns not; Him the waters wet not; Him the wind dries not - the Self is unmanifest, inconceivable, and unmodifiable) Just as a man gives up old garments and puts on new ones, so the embodied self abandons decrepit bodies and assumes new ones. Sankara says that the six transformations that affect all material objects - birth, subsistence, growth, maturity, decline and death - are not applicable to the Self, as it is both ancient and yet very fresh.

What is required is not a mere intellectual understanding, but an intuitive conviction which is expressed in life as the capacity for detachment.

The second section is from a worldly point of view where Krishna talks about death and the need for doing one's duty. Death is certain for the born. Rebirth is certain for the dead. You should not grieve for what is unavoidable. Before birth, beings are not manifest to our human senses. In the interim between birth and death, they are manifest. At death they return to the unmanifest again. What is there in this to grieve over? Die, and you win heaven. Conquer, and you enjoy the earth. Stand up now, Arjuna, and resolve to fight. Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same: then go into battle. Do this and you cannot commit any sin.

In the third section Sri Krishna talks about Karma Yoga where expounds on how to work. If you can understand and follow it, you will be able to break the chains of desire which bind you to your actions. Even a little practice of this yoga will save you from the terrible wheel of rebirth and death.

In this yoga, the will is directed singly toward one ideal. When a man lacks this discrimination, his will wanders in all directions, after innumerable aims. Those who lack discrimination may quote the letter of the scripture, but they are really denying its inner truth. Those whose discrimination is stolen away grow deeply attached to pleasure and power. And so they are unable to develop that concentration of the will which leads a man to absorption in God. 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. Perform every action with your heart fixed on the Supreme Lord. Be even-tempered in success and failure; for this equanimity is yoga.

Finally in the fourth section he describes how an enlightened being behaves so that we have a role model:

He knows bliss in the Atman

And wants nothing else.

Not shaken by adversity,

Not hankering after happiness

Free from fear, free from anger,

Free from the things of desire.

But he controls the senses

And recollects the mind

And fixes it on Me.

Even at the moment of death he is alive in that enlightenment: Brahman and he are one.

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These notes are taken from a few sources:

• Srimad Bhagavad Gita: The Scripture of Mankind. Translation by Swami Tapasyananda. This book with word by word translation, a summary for each chapter and detailed end notes with explanation of key verses is the best book to start the study.
• Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God. By Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood is a  translation partly in prose and partly in verse.
• Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracharya. Translated by Dr. A.G. Krishna Warrier. Sankara's commentary is sublime, subtle and nuanced and complements the literal translations which do not bring out the depth of the message.
• Universal Message of the Bhagavad Gita: An Exposition of the Gita in the Light of Modern Thought and Needs: based on Swami Ranganathananda's lectures, this book which shows how contemporary and applicable the message of the Gita is and how it resonates with modern ideas.