The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 4.1. - Swami Krishnananda

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Friday, April 07, 2023. 08:00.

Chapter 4: Duty – An Empirical Manifestation of True Being -1.

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The study that has been conducted up to this time concerning the teaching of the Bhagavadgita would have revealed to us that we are born with a duty, and we can never be free from some duty or the other. It also implies that we have no rights; we have only duties, contrary to what one would expect from the point of view of common human nature. The fight for rights is out of point in a world of duties, which is inescapable under the set-up of things. The duty that we owe to ourselves, as well as anything that is around us, is a necessary conclusion that follows from the nature of our relationship with things in general. The connection that obtains between us and the world at large is such that there is a mutual obligation, as it were, between ourselves and the world. This obligation is not a compulsion, but a necessary conclusion automatically following from the essential character of Being itself. Thus duty is an empirical manifestation of true being. Here is the sum and substance of the great gospel.

Our organic relationship with things is the reason behind the duty that we owe to things, and this also is the reason why we need not expect any fruit from the duty that we perform in respect of anyone or anything. To expect a fruit is a mistake. Mā phaleṣu kadācana, mā karmaphalahetur bhūr mā te saṅgo'stvakarmaṇi (Gita 2.47): You have a duty, you have an obligation to do, but you have no right to expect a particular consequence or result or fruit to follow from what you do. This is a very difficult, pithy enunciation in the Bhagavadgita – that we have duties but we cannot expect any fruits from the duties that we perform.

This may look very odd and unpleasant to the selfish individual, but as I have tried to mention earlier, the law of the universe is not necessarily a pleasant dish that is served to the ego of man; it is a principle that operates, and it is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Its reactions, under given conditions of personality, appear to be pleasant or otherwise. The duty that we owe to anyone or anything is the homage that we pay to the vastness of the atmosphere in which we are placed, and the grandeur of the relationship that is there between us and the whole of creation. There is a majesty ruling the whole cosmos; and it is this superabundance of magnificence, which is the law of the universe, that inexorably operates and impartially dispenses justice without any favour or disfavour in regard to any person or thing.

It is difficult to understand what all this means if we study this theme merely as an abstract science of logical philosophy. Perhaps I may place before you an analogy or a comparison that is more concrete and visible to our eyes than this pure abstract principle we are discussing in this context. We owe a duty to the body in which we are enshrined, and every part of the body owes a duty to every other part of the body, but no part of the body has a right over another part. This is something very novel that we see in the physiological organism of our own personality. Every limb of our body has a duty which it automatically performs without compulsion or impulsion, without any mandate or governmental enactment; yet, it does not expect anything from that particular limb to which cooperation is extended. If the stomach eats the food, the teeth, which have merely munched it and got nothing out of it, do not complain; and so on, with every other part of the body, there is an excessively friendly cooperation. 'Friendliness' is a poor word we are using to describe this immense unity of purpose that obtains between the limbs of our body. It is oneness in the midst of diversity of the organisational set-up. There is no expectation on the part of a limb of the body in respect of another limb, because the fruit that it might expect automatically follows from the duty that it performs. 

The privilege that you expect in this world, the right that you are craving for after performing a duty, is something which you need not expect – it will follow. When the sun rises, there will be light. Likewise whatever you need, which is called your expectation or the fruit so-called, will follow spontaneously from the very fact of your having performed your duty. You need not ask for the fruits; they shall drop from the skies, even without your asking for them. And we will be told sometime later in the Bhagavadgita that when one is united with the purpose of the whole creation, he shall be taken care of by the very law of the universe, and need not cry, "Let it come." Ananyāś cintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate, teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yogakṣemaṁ vahāmyaham (Gita 9.22) – is a great pendent hanging in the garland of the verses of the Bhagavadgita as a central gospel. God, the universe, the law, whatever you may call it, shall protect you and take care of you more than a mother can do – provided you have that affection which you expect from the world

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To be continued

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