Posts tagged ignorance

Karma Yoga (Bhagavad Gita 2.39,40)

After impressing upon Arjuna about the wisdom concerning the Self-realization and the analytical study of the nature of the self, Sri Krishna now goes on to speak about the Yoga of unattached action (Karma Yoga).

So far, the wisdom of Self-realization has been declared to you. Now listen to the wisdom of Yoga, endowed with which, O Arjuna, you shall break through the bonds of Karma. (Bhagavad Gita 2.39)

We have seen so much about the unreality of pleasure and pain. Actions motivated by pleasure and pain only  lead us to bondage. Unattached action is the only way out of this bondage.

What is pleasure and what is pain?

Let us try to understand this more deeply. What is pleasure? What is pain? Why does the mind run after pleasure and run away from pain? What is unattached action? Let me try to explain as much as I have understood based on my limited experience and study. You don’t have to agree with this explanation, but try to understand, experiment and validate it for yourself. Feel free to disagree, add up, clarify.

Have you ever observed your mind and your thoughts when you are happy? Have you observed that when you are truly happy, the mind is undisturbed and peaceful, there are no thoughts, you are totally aware in the present moment?

And have you observed your mind when you are in pain? When you are in pain, the mind is disturbed and uncontrollable. It is very difficult to focus the mind when it is in pain, it is very difficult to be in the present moment.

So, happiness is when your mind is undisturbed and in a state of awareness in the present moment. Pain is distraction of the mind. When you are in pain, you step out of the present moment. Conversely, when you step out of the present moment, you experience pain.

But does the state of your mind and your ability to be aware in the present moment depend upon some external object you think to be pleasurable (or painful)? This belief that ‘pleasure comes from external object’ just a habitual response we have built up over time, right? It’s just a habitual response, just a conception of mind. It cannot be real because the notions of pleasure and pain vary from person to person, from time to time. When you realize that pleasure and pain are not real, they are just notions of the mind, you break away from your dependence on the external object in order to be happy, you get back to the wisdom that happiness is the true nature of your Self.

Craving is pain

Eckhart Tolle says, “Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there.”’ When the mind is caught up in the ignorance that pleasure (and pain) depends on the object outside, it is ever distracted. An ignorant mind cannot stay in the present moment. It always craves after more pleasure, it always runs after something that it thinks will bring more pleasure. It is here, but wanting to be ‘there’. When there is craving, the mind has stepped out of the present moment and naturally it is painful. All you need to do to be happy again is to get back to your Self, accept the present as it is, get back to the undisturbed state of awareness and presence. But the ignorant mind erroneously thinks that the pain will go away only when the object of craving is attained.

Eventually, the object of craving comes into your life sooner or later. When this happens, you are momentarily happy because having got the object of pleasure, the craving stops, the disturbance of the mind is gone, the mind gets back to the present moment. But the mind is still ignorant and it still attaches pleasure with the object outside. So the happiness lasts only for a limited period of time. All things pass, this too shall pass. When the object of pleasure is gone, the mind due to its ignorance gets disturbed again, feels the pain again, and thinks the pain is because it has lost the object while the reality is that pain has come because the mind has stepped out of the present moment. The craving starts once again. The cycle of pleasure and pain continues.

Lost in the cycle of pleasure and pain and ignorance…

The mind is caught up in this cycle of pleasure and pain as long as there is ignorance of attaching pleasure with an external object. As the cycle repeats itself again and again, the ignorance gets strengthened, it becomes extremely difficult to get out of this vicious cycle. When we are caught up in it for too long, the ignorance permeates so deep, almost to the core of our being that it becomes an addiction, we are at the mercy of the object that we have attached pleasure with.

When we are caught up in this cycle of pleasure and pain and ignorance, all our actions are governed and dictated by the pleasure principle. We have lost control. Actually, what we have been talking so far is very simplistic, in reality it is much more complex. There are many many external objects we depend upon for our happiness in various degrees. So the mind is always distracted, it runs after one object and suddenly it runs after another. It is tossed up and down by hundreds and thousands of different motives. Very miserable state.

In order to get out of this misery, we simply need to shed the ignorance, we need to understand that pleasure does not come from the object outside, happiness is the true nature of the Self. But it’s not that easy for many of us. It’s easy for the mind to understand conceptually, but when the ignorance has penetrated much deeper into the layers of habits, emotions, beliefs, reality and even coded into the DNA of the physical body, it is very very difficult to root out the ignorance.

Karma Yoga, the yoga of unattached action

Fortunately for us, the Bhagavad Gita proposes a method that can help us break out of this bondage. It’s called Karma Yoga, the Yoga of unattached action. Counter attack… simply stated, you don’t allow your actions to be dictated by the pleasure principle. You just do what needs to be done for the good of the world irrespective of whether the action brings pain or pleasure. Pleasure should never be the motive of your work. The motive should always be do good for the world. You should never care about the rewards you may get, perform good actions just for the sake of doing it. Never let the conceptions of pleasure and pain control your actions. As you go on this way you get more and more control over your actions and your life, your mind becomes more and more focused, you become less and less controlled by the pleasure principle.

The task may seem enormous, but we just need to give it a start. Start small, just start helping people without any expectations. You don’t have to go too far, just start by unselfishly helping your friends and people in your family. Just do things that needs to be done and does good to the world, refuse to be controlled by pleasure, but always know that such unattached action will ultimately do good to you by helping you take complete control of your life. When you taste even a little bit of the superior pleasure of breaking away from ignorance and wrong beliefs, no getting back. The momentum builds up slowly and steadily. It’s the beginning of the end of your ignorance. Even a little bit of this Karma Yoga does not go waste. As Lord Krishna says,

In this, there is no loss of effort, nor is there production of contrary results. Even a little of this practice protects one from great fear. (2.40)

Okay, but does this mean we should not enjoy life, should we always remain stone faced? Not at all. Appreciate the beauty of life, smile, laugh, enjoy. Enjoy things as they come along, but gracefully let go when they go away. Accept the present moment for what it is. Enjoy life, but don’t lose yourself.  The trick is to be aware all the time and catch the mind when it’s about to fall into the trap of ignorance.

The dawn of wisdom

“I am the wisdom of the wise.” — Bhagavad Gita (Song of God)


Photo credit: shoebappa

This blog is titled ‘The fire of wisdom’. What is wisdom? Is wisdom something to be gained? Is wisdom something that can be acquired? Is wisdom like a vegetable that you can buy from the market? Or is it like money that you accumulate and deposit into a bank account?

Wisdom, to me, is a state of being, the natural state of being. Wisdom is not something you acquire or accumulate. Buddha was called Buddha (the wise one) not because he acquired wisdom from somewhere else, but he simply removed the veil of ignorance and raised himself to his natural state of pure wisdom. Being in wisdom is your real nature. All you need to do is to uncover yourself and get rid of certain prejudices, misunderstandings, misconceptions, attachments that prevent you from realizing your real nature. The sun has always been shining behind the clouds. The cloud is temporary, but you think that being cloudy is your real nature. Sometimes, without your asking for it, the clouds of ignorance break up a little and you get a glimpse of wisdom, just for a moment, and you call that phenomena as intuition. But it’s not necessary to be at the mercy of the clouds. You can systematically blow away the clouds and let the rays of wisdom totally bathe you!

There are various methods to blow away the clouds of ignorance. Sheer devotion to God can raise you to the level of God who is nothing but wisdom. When you learn to enjoy unselfish work, you can free yourself from attachments that prevent you from being in the state of wisdom. Certain physical postures called yoga asanas, and exercises like pranayama can free you from inflexibilities and free the energies that gets clogged up in parts of your body and in nervous centres and you will be able to freely access the state of wisdom. Meditation and awareness can directly expose the dross in your mind and you can’t help but to rid of the dross, and then wisdom shines. Sparks of wisdom in the form of words coming through wise men and women can burn away a little ignorance in you, that’s what this blog mostly deals with.

There is no best method to disperse the clouds of ignorance. The best way is to use all these methods in varying proportions according to your circumstances. The important thing here to remember is that all these methods don’t deal with wisdom directly, they only help you clean up the impurities and ignorance. No master, no method, no book, no blog can ‘give’ you or ‘bring’ you wisdom. All they can do is make you aware of your ignorance and it’s upto you to choose wisdom or ignorance.

Wisdom is not personal. There is only one wisdom. It’s not my wisdom or your wisdom. There is only one sun whether you look at it from Antarctica or Australia or India or Mars or Jupiter. Wisdom is there for you to behold, but it’s not something you can hold on to. Wisdom flows. It’s like the present moment. When you try to hold on to the present moment, it’s already past! When you say ‘my’ wisdom, it’s no more wisdom, it’s only the residue. And wisdom is not in the future, you cannot anticipate wisdom. Wisdom IS. In fact, present moment awareness is a gateway to the state of wisdom… in fact, living in the present moment is wisdom.

Wisdom is not dependent on you. That you are currently experiencing night time doesn’t mean that that the sun has vanished. It’s always there on the other side. Just that you live in that half of the earth that is temporarily hidden from the rays of the sun, that temporarily goes through the phase of night. When you raise high above earth, when you come out of your comfort zone and float in space, there is no more night and day for you, you have transcended relativity, you are directly exposed to the sun of wisdom. It’s true that life on the dark side of the planet can be beautiful too. Living in the shadow, we have greatly been enjoying the beauty of moon, the twinkling stars, the meteor showers, and what not! But darkness is not eternal, the night has to give way for the day, sooner or later. And don’t you think we have lived in darkness for long enough? So long that we have totally forgotten that there are such things as sun and day. Don’t you think it’s time for dawn? Whether you are ready for it or not, the dawn is coming! Now, you don’t even have to raise high above the earth, you don’t have to renounce the the world. When the dawn comes, when sun of wisdom rises, it lights up everybody and everything right here on earth. Don’t worry that you will miss your stars and the moons. The sun is much more brilliant than the moon and all the stars combined, the day much more beautiful than you can imagine. The thieves that thrive in darkness — the dark forces — are so desperate now because these forces know that their times are coming to an end. The era of ignorance is coming to a close. Better prepare yourself for the dawn! Prepare yourself to bask in the glory of wisdom! ;)

As the rising sun dispels darkness from men’s eyes and discovers what before lay hidden, so the dawn of knowledge removes evil from men’s intellect and reveals the Atman. Then do men know themselves as the Atman, and the Atman as themselves. — Bhagavatam.