A Study of the Bhagavadgita :12.5 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, July 05, 2022. 06:00. 

Chapter 12: Communing with the Absolute through the Cosmic Tree - 5.

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So the duty that you perform is a kind of participation in the welfare of the world as a whole, and not some work that you do for personal gain or profit. If this kind of unselfish action is performed, and your life is devoted to this kind of unselfish work, and the fruit is dedicated to God only, that is also a great Yoga, and God is satisfied with it. How a devotee behaves in this world – how gentle and good, how compassionate, how satisfied, how non-complaining – is described towards the end of the Twelfth Chapter.

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It is in the Thirteenth Chapter that we have some philosophical considerations once again brought out which were perfunctorily touched upon in the earlier chapters of the Gita. The cosmological doctrine of the creation of the universe was covered in our earlier considerations – how the world evolved from God – and you know it through the Sankhya doctrine of evolution. Briefly the Thirteenth Chapter also mentions the creation of the five elements, the tanmatras, and the individualities of a person.

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maha-bhutany ahankaro buddhir avyaktam eva cha

indriyani dashaikam cha pancha chendriya-gocharah -  (Gita 13.6), 

BG 13.6: The field of activities is composed of the five great elements, the ego, the intellect, the unmanifest primordial matter, the eleven senses (five knowledge senses, five working senses, and mind), and the five objects of the senses.

Commentary -

The twenty-four elements that constitute the field of activities are: pañcha-mahābhūta (the five gross elements—earth, water, fire, air, and space), the pañch-tanmātrās (five sense objects—taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound), the five working senses (voice, hands, legs, genitals, and anus), the five knowledge senses (ears, eyes, tongue, skin, and nose), mind, intellect, ego, and prakṛiti (the primordial form of the material energy).   Shree Krishna uses the word daśhaikaṁ (ten plus one) to indicate the eleven senses.  In these, He includes the mind along with the five knowledge senses and the five working senses.  Previously, in verse 10.22, He had mentioned that amongst the senses He is the mind.

One may wonder why the five sense objects have been included in the field of activities, when they exist outside the body.  The reason is that the mind contemplates upon the sense objects, and these five sense objects reside in a subtle form in the mind.  That is why, while sleeping, when we dream with our mind, in our dream state we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell, even though our gross senses are resting on the bed.  This illustrates that the gross objects of the senses also exist mentally in the subtle form.  Shree Krishna has included them here because He is referring to the entire field of activity for the soul.  Some other scriptures exclude the five sense objects while describing the body.  Instead, they include the five prāṇas (life-airs).  This is merely a matter of classification and not a philosophical difference.

The same knowledge is also explained in terms of sheaths.  The field of the body has five kośhas (sheaths) that cover the soul that is ensconced within: 

Annamaya kośh.  It is the gross sheath, consisting of the five gross elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space).

Prāṇamaya kośh.  It is the life-airs sheath, consisting of the five life airs (prāṇ, apān, vyān, samān, and udān).

Manomaya kośh.  It is the mental sheath, consisting of the mind and the five working senses (voice, hands, legs, genitals, and anus).

Vijñānamaya kośh.  It is the intellectual sheath, consisting of the intellect and the five knowledge senses (ears, eyes, tongue, skin, and nose).

Ānandmaya kośh.  It is the bliss sheath, which consists of the ego that makes us identify with the tiny bliss of the body-mind-intellect mechanism.

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and the next slokam, 

ichchha dveshah sukham duhkham sanghatash chetana dhritih

etat kshetram samasena sa-vikaram udahritam. Gita 13.7) 

BG 13.7: Desire and aversion, happiness and misery, the body, consciousness, and the will—all these comprise the field and its modifications.

Commentary :

Shree Krishna now elucidates the attributes of the kṣhetra (field), and its modifications thereof:

Body.  The field of activities includes the body, but is much more than that.  The body undergoes six transformations until death—asti (coming into existence), jāyate (birth), vardhate (growth), viparinamate (reproduction), apakṣhīyate (withering with age), vinaśhyati (death).  The body supports the soul in its quest for happiness in the world or in God, as the soul guides it.

Consciousness.  It is the life force that exists in the soul, and which it also imparts to the body while it is present in it.  This is just as fire has the ability to heat, and if we put an iron rod into it, the rod too becomes red hot with the heat it receives from the fire.  Similarly, the soul makes the body seem lifelike by imparting the quality of consciousness in it.  Shree Krishna thus includes consciousness as a trait of the field of activities.  

Will.  This is the determination that keeps the constituent elements of the body active and focused in a particular direction.  It is the will that enables the soul to achieve goals through the field of activities.  The will is a quality of the intellect, which is energized by the soul.  Variations in the will due to the influence of sattva guṇa, rajo guṇa, and tamo guṇa are described in verses 18.33 to 18.35.

Desire.  This is a function of the mind and the intellect, which creates a longing for the acquisition of an object, a situation, a person, etc.  In discussing the body, we would probably take desire for granted, but imagine how different the nature of life would have been if there were no desires.  So the Supreme Lord, who designed the field of activities and included desire as a part of it, naturally makes special mention of it.  The intellect analyses the desirability of an object, and the mind harbors its desire.  When one becomes self-realized, all material desires are extinguished, and now the purified mind harbors the desire for God.  While material desires are the cause of bondage, spiritual desires lead to liberation.

Aversion.  It is a state of the mind and intellect that creates revulsion for objects, persons, and situations that are disagreeable to it, and seeks to avoid them.

Happiness.  This is a feeling of pleasure that is experienced in the mind through agreeable circumstances and fulfillment of desires.  The mind perceives the sensations of happiness, and the soul does so along with it because it identifies with the mind.  However, material happiness never satiates the hunger of the soul, which remains discontented until it experiences the infinite divine bliss of God.

Misery.  It is the pain experienced in the mind through disagreeable circumstances. 

Now Shree Krishna goes on to describe the virtues and attributes that will enable one to cultivate knowledge, and thereby fulfill the purpose of the field of activities, which is human form.

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both tell us briefly that the universe is constituted of the five elements, the mind, intellect or reason, Avyakta Prakriti, and the Supreme Being. 

It was in the Second and Third Chapters that we had occasion to know something about this evolutionary process, during our consideration of the Sankhya doctrine. 

In the Thirteenth we have, in addition to a brief description of the same cosmological process, the life of an individual that is to be lived as a spiritual seeker by the gradual adjustment of oneself to the realities of life, which is described in slokas  

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commencing from 

amānitvam adambhitvam ahinsā kṣhāntir ārjavam

āchāryopāsanaṁ śhauchaṁ sthairyam ātma-vinigrahaḥ (Gita 13.8), etc., 

BG 13.8-12: Humbleness; freedom from hypocrisy; non-violence; forgiveness; simplicity; service of the Guru; cleanliness of body and mind; steadfastness; and self-control; dispassion toward the objects of the senses; absence of egotism; keeping in mind the evils of birth, disease, old age, and death; non-attachment; absence of clinging to spouse, children, home, and so on; even-mindedness amidst desired and undesired events in life; constant and exclusive devotion toward Me; an inclination for solitary places and an aversion for mundane society; constancy in spiritual knowledge; and philosophical pursuit of the Absolute Truth—all these I declare to be knowledge, and what is contrary to it, I call ignorance.

all which you must read very carefully from a good commentary.

To be continued .....

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