Gita : Ch-3. Introduction : Part-6.

Srimad Bhagavad-Gita :


Chapter-3. ( Karma-yogam)


Introduction:


Part-6.


So your duty in this world is not actually doing something, but participation in the cosmic scheme of things. Your duty is to participate in the requirement of the whole cosmic setup, and not to independently do whatever you like from the point of view of your own egoistic personality. Svadharma is one’s own duty; svabhava is one’s own character or constitution.


Your duty in this world is dependent on what kind of person you are, and how you are fitted to your own self as well as to society outside. Therefore, the duties that are required on the part of any individual cannot be uniform. It is not that everybody should be a businessman, everybody a driver, everybody a professor, everybody a yogi – nothing of the kind. That is not possible because whatever you are expected to be in this world and in what manner you are expected to participate in the scheme of things will depend upon your constitution.


This svadharma, this duty on your part, which is based on your own nature, actually means the dependence of your call of duty on the structure of your own individuality, which is made up of the three gunas – sattva, rajas and tamas. Prakriti operates in everyone right from heaven to earth, in the plant kingdom, in animals and in stones.


 (Gita 18.40) :

Na tad asti prthivyam va divi deveshu va punah,


sattvam prakrtijair muktam yad ebhih syat tribhir gunaih.

Right from heaven down to the lowermost creation there is nothing which is not constituted of the three gunas, so we are of that character. Sattva is purity, equilibrium, transparency, understanding, intelligence, and capacity to decide things in a right manner. Rajas is distraction, motivation in the external direction for more and more agitation, and restlessness. Tamas is rigidity, fixity and wanting nothing. All these three qualities are operating in us, but they are not operating in an equal proportion. It does not mean thirty-three-and-one-third percent of each quality is present in us always. As there is a larger wave and smaller wave in the ocean, so also there is a wave-like movement of these three gunas, the properties of Prakriti, in everything, including our own selves.

Swami Krishnananda'

To be continued   ....