Subtitles
in 1925 Mahatma Gandhi wrote the 00:00:00
in 1925 Mahatma Gandhi wrote the following words 00:00:03
[Music] 00:00:06
I find a solace in the bhagavad-gita 00:00:09
that I miss even in the Sermon on the 00:00:12
Mount when disappointment stared me in 00:00:16
the face and all alone I see not one ray 00:00:19
of light I go back to the bhagavad-gita 00:00:21
I find a verse here and of Earth there 00:00:25
and I immediately begin to smile in the 00:00:28
midst of overwhelming creditors and my 00:00:32
life has been full of external tragedy 00:00:34
and if they have left no visible no 00:00:38
indelible scar I owe it all to the 00:00:41
teachings of the bhagavad-gita in this 00:00:47
passage that I just wrote 00:00:47
Mahatma Gandhi was referring to what is perhaps the most famous are all the 00:00:54
spiritual classics the bhagavad-gita 00:00:56
or bhagavad the Lord Geeta song the song of the law 00:01:06
it is felled Bhed a the ad bhagavad-gita Gita 00:01:14
the song of the Lord the Lord in this 00:01:19
case being tree Krishna who in Hindu 00:01:24
mythology is regarded as an incarnation 00:01:28
an embodiment in the Sanskrit language 00:01:31
an avatar of Vishnu the Supreme Lord the 00:01:37
personification of the ultimate reality 00:01:40
underlying this universe 00:01:40
the bhagavad-gita was probably compiled about the 5th century BC and it forms a 00:01:48
part of a great epic called the 00:01:54
Mahabharata it's attributed to a sage by 00:01:59
the name of the aza and contains a 00:02:02
complete epitome of the whole central 00:02:05
doctrine of Hinduism now on hell of a 00:02:08
doctor it's a very fascinating into a 00:02:12
puzzling fact that gandhi pre-eminently 00:02:16
the man of non-violence in modern times 00:02:18
was so devoted to this book because the 00:02:23
scene with which the book opens is a 00:02:25
battle field of kuru where a young 00:02:29
prince by the name of Alton on arriving 00:02:33
in his chariot and the Shri Krishna the 00:02:36
incarnation of Vishnu 00:02:38
it is Talia 00:02:38
as the opposing army has faced each other the battle is about to begin and 00:02:44
our demands linked in hark oppressed 00:02:53
with the senselessness of this struggle 00:02:55
and the internecine warfare Gita says in 00:03:01
the first chapter he was overcome with 00:03:05
great compassion and out of this in 00:03:07
sadness when I see my own people arrayed 00:03:12
and eager for fight or Krishna my limbs 00:03:15
quayle my mouth goes dry my body shakes 00:03:19
and my hair down and I see evil omens or 00:03:24
Krishna nor do I foresee any good by 00:03:27
slaying my own people at the fight 00:03:29
I do not long for victory o Krishna nor 00:03:32
Kingdom nor pleasure of what uses 00:03:36
kingdom to us o Krishna or enjoyment or 00:03:39
even matter and having spoken to us on 00:03:43
the field of battle our adieu now sank 00:03:46
down on the seat of his chariot casting 00:03:48
away his bow and arrow his Spirit 00:03:51
overwhelmed by sorrow 00:03:51
and to this complaint is charioteer of the Lord Krishna replies whence has come 00:03:57
to me this day is rejection of spirit in 00:04:03
this hour of crisis it is unknown to men 00:04:07
of noble mind yield not to this on man - 00:04:11
go ROG 00:04:12
for it does not become me cast off this 00:04:16
petty faintheartedness and arrive our 00:04:18
precedent for phones and to give point 00:04:22
to his words Krishna goes on now 00:04:25
Grievous for those for whom thou shalt 00:04:27
not grieve and yet thou speakest words 00:04:30
about wisdom wise men do not grieve for 00:04:34
the dead nor for the living never was 00:04:38
there a time when I was not all thou nor 00:04:41
these Lords of men nor will there ever 00:04:44
be a time hereafter when we shall cease 00:04:46
to be as the soul passes in this body 00:04:50
through childhood youth and age even so 00:04:53
is its taking of another body the sage 00:04:57
is not complex burns ethan code pleasure 00:05:01
and pain come and go and do not last 00:05:04
forever 00:05:06
please learn to impure 00:05:08
the man who is not troubled by the ESO 00:05:11
chief of men who remains the same in 00:05:13
pain and pleasure who is wise makes 00:05:15
himself fit for eternal life of the 00:05:19
non-existent there is no company of the 00:05:23
existence there is no season 00:05:23
the conclusion about these two have been perceived by the seers of you know thou 00:05:30
that that by which all this is pervaded 00:05:36
is indestructible 00:05:38
of this immutable being no one can bring 00:05:42
about the destruction it is said there 00:05:45
these bodies of the eternal embodied 00:05:47
which is indestructible and 00:05:49
incomprehensible come to an end 00:05:53
therefore fight o Arjuna II who thinks 00:05:57
that this slave then he who thinks that 00:05:59
this is slain both of them failed to 00:06:01
perceive the truth this one neither slay 00:06:05
is not is slain 00:06:06
he is never born nor does he die at any 00:06:10
time now having come to be does he again 00:06:13
cease to be he is unborn eternal 00:06:18
permanent and primeval he is not slain 00:06:21
when the body is slain 00:06:23
[Music] 00:06:23
now it's obvious I think to those of you who have listened to any other of these 00:06:30
programs 00:06:33
what Shri Krishna is talking about here 00:06:33
when I was talking to you about the Upanishads I explained at several points 00:06:40
the fundamental doctrine of the Hindus 00:06:47
and that is that the innermost reality 00:06:50
of man is not crossed right and what we 00:06:54
who have been brought up in a Christian 00:06:56
tradition called the soul we have an 00:07:00
inherited teaching of course of an 00:07:04
immortal and individual soul which is 00:07:06
the root principle of every human being 00:07:10
but in the Hindu doctrines the soul is 00:07:14
not individual the soul is Supra 00:07:18
individual or as they would say in their 00:07:22
technical language the Atman the soul or 00:07:26
self itself is really a better 00:07:28
translation so the Atman is identical 00:07:33
with Brahm and Brahma is the name which 00:07:36
they use for the ultimate reality which 00:07:38
underlies this whole universe 00:07:38
now I don't want you to think of brahman as a sort of vast blob of perfectly 00:07:47
transparent jello which penetrates the 00:07:52
whole world I I think that's what many 00:07:56
people imagine when they hear this kind 00:07:58
of thing the whole point of the bone 00:08:02
idea I dismissed when you form any image 00:08:07
of it in your mind at all 00:08:09
even jello even empty face or boundless 00:08:11
light ramen he is what we ourselves 00:08:17
really are what this whole universe is 00:08:21
fundamentally and actually there is no 00:08:27
way of thinking about of imagining that 00:08:31
for a very simple reason that as water 00:08:36
cannot rise higher than its own level 00:08:39
thought cannot think what is higher than 00:08:42
thinking 00:08:44
it cannot conceive the mind which thinks 00:08:47
I'm still less the power which generates 00:08:51
the mind 00:08:51
our symbols for ideas about the supreme reality ah Vegas and Cordish not at all 00:09:00
because that reality is they employed 00:09:08
but because thought and imagination are 00:09:11
annihilated in trying to grasp it the 00:09:16
essential teaching which the Gita is 00:09:19
trying to convey is that the real center 00:09:24
and soul the basic reality of you and I 00:09:27
is not the superficial consciousness 00:09:31
which we ordinarily call myself what we 00:09:36
are fundamentally is this unthinkable 00:09:38
source of life and existence named 00:09:41
Brahman the expansive nor must we 00:09:48
confused this unthinkable center of our 00:09:50
lives with the thatr inner stuff our 00:09:54
so-called blind force for one doesn't 00:09:59
derive life and consciousness feeling 00:10:01
and reason from mere stuff as if the 00:10:04
dead were able to give birth to the 00:10:06
living you know this notion of blind 00:10:10
force of the ultimate reality which has 00:10:13
been popularized by a facile scientism 00:10:16
is merely the result of the fact that 00:10:18
when the human mind gets out of the 00:10:20
depth it drowns 00:10:22
for vomits up a lot of dead ideas and so 00:10:30
Shri Krishna goes on he who knows that 00:10:35
it is indestructible and eternal 00:10:37
uncreated and unchanging how can such a 00:10:40
person to slay anyone Ohio's owner or 00:10:43
cause anyone to slay just as a person 00:10:47
cast off worn out garments and puts on 00:10:50
others that aren't you even so does the 00:10:53
embodied soul cast off one our bodies 00:10:56
and take on other than you 00:10:59
weapons do not leave this don't fire 00:11:02
does not burn him waters do not make him 00:11:05
wet not as the wind make him dry 00:11:08
he is unclever ball he cannot be burned 00:11:10
he can neither be weapon nor Drive he is 00:11:15
eternal all-pervading unchanging and 00:11:18
immovable he is the same forever 00:11:22
he is said to be manifest unmanifest 00:11:25
unthinkable and unchanging therefore 00:11:29
knowing him as such now it's not green 00:11:32
even if thou thinkest that the self is 00:11:35
perpetually born and perpetually died 00:11:37
even then o mighty-armed the mouth 00:11:39
should not grieve for to the one that is 00:11:42
born dare to say and certain is birth 00:11:46
for the one that will die therefore for 00:11:50
what is unavoidable - it's not grieve 00:11:50
perhaps that last passage needs a little bit of interpretation 00:11:58
for the one that is born death is 00:12:02
certain 00:12:03
either statement of course which is 00:12:04
obvious enough and not so obvious to our 00:12:07
kid and threatened his birth for the one 00:12:10
that has died I should try to explain 00:12:13
this a little bit because it's a passive 00:12:16
expressive of what is called in in the 00:12:17
other doctrine of rebirth or 00:12:19
reincarnation if you will seek for him 00:12:23
up of what you were before you were born 00:12:27
your countries are rather puzzling 00:12:29
conclusion 00:12:31
that year before you were born are 00:12:33
impossible to think about before you 00:12:37
were conceived by your father and mother 00:12:39
in the womb 00:12:40
you can't remember him you don't even 00:12:44
remember darkness but even the plant 00:12:48
your background your past history right 00:12:52
at its beginning seems to be a state of 00:12:56
complete annihilation of your ego of 00:12:59
your personality and yet oddly enough 00:13:04
here you are 00:13:04
how do you die you may presumably go again into a state which we can imagine 00:13:13
only as complete annihilation of 00:13:18
complete nothingness and if so you will 00:13:24
won't you be in the same sort of 00:13:25
condition as you were before you were 00:13:27
gone you came out of that state though 00:13:33
should you be afraid to return to it 00:13:33
this is perhaps a Robin elementary way of expressing the Hindu doctrine of 00:13:42
rebirth but I don't want to give the 00:13:47
impression that the Hindu doctrine is as 00:13:51
it is imagined to be by many people in 00:13:53
the West a doctrine of the reappearance 00:13:57
again and again in this life of an 00:13:59
individual soul I think it is true to 00:14:03
say that according to the strict 00:14:04
doctrine of the Vedanta there is not an 00:14:07
individual soul which passes from life 00:14:09
to life the one called transmigrates is 00:14:13
precisely this Atman or Brahman and this 00:14:17
is why we have to imagine the state 00:14:20
before birth and after death as blank 00:14:22
and isolation because thought is 00:14:27
annihilated in trying to grasp the 00:14:29
reality which lies deeper than thinking 00:14:33
the finger that struggles the touch its 00:14:35
own tip finds only the empty air 00:14:35
and so krishna goes on 00:14:41
the dweller in the body of everyone or Arjuna is eternal and can never be slain 00:14:47
therefore the our ships not grieve for 00:14:54
any creature further having regard for 00:14:58
thine own duty thou should not falter 00:15:01
there exists no greater good 00:15:03
for exit Rhea than a war enjoined by 00:15:07
duty 00:15:08
[Music] 00:15:10
I think it is just at this point that we 00:15:13
puzzle about this book in relation to 00:15:16
Mahatma Gandhi 00:15:18
let me explain the passage that I've 00:15:21
just read 00:15:23
[Music] 00:15:25
Acharya is a member of one of the three 00:15:29
great castes of Hindu society those 00:15:32
casts being respectively brahmana which 00:15:37
is the priestly caste the sack adobea 00:15:41
chat reah the cast of warriors and 00:15:44
rulers of Asia the cast of merchants and 00:15:49
their roughly equivalent to the Lord 00:15:51
spiritual the Lord's temporal and the 00:15:54
Commons of medieval European society and 00:15:59
each caste has it proper duty in life 00:16:02
which in Sanskrit is spawned alma and 00:16:08
this is the phrase which krishna uses 00:16:11
here when he says having regard for 00:16:13
thine own duty for vinyl swadharma Lavar 00:16:17
self dharma function ausma dharma is 00:16:23
probably best translated into English as 00:16:25
vocation 00:16:25
the crateria is one who has a vocation to fight that's his job 00:16:32
whereas a Bronner or more particularly one who has gone beyond caste altogether 00:16:40
one who in India is called a sannyasi 00:16:47
corresponding in the medieval West to 00:16:49
the monks and Hermits those who have 00:16:52
gone outside society they do not have 00:16:55
the vocation or the duty of fighting I 00:16:55
think the clue to the problem of the Gita especially in relation to that 00:17:02
great nonviolent man Gandhi is this 00:17:05
primarily Arjuna's objection to taking part in war is a sentimental one 00:17:12
he is unwilling to fight in the battle because of his depressed emotions in 00:17:21
regard to slaying his kinsmen or we 00:17:25
would say in regard to slaying one's 00:17:28
fellow gram if one would be a pacifist 00:17:33
because one is merely squeamish and if 00:17:38
the kind of person who come one would 00:17:39
say well he couldn't even hurt a fly 00:17:42
then surely there is something funny 00:17:45
about such pacifism because it is 00:17:47
sentimental this doesn't seem to be part 00:17:51
honours objection 00:17:53
and this is why krishna says in effect 00:17:57
your objection to slaying is a fear of 00:18:00
snake a squeamishness to slay and 00:18:03
because of this you do not have a 00:18:05
genuine objection to slay if you refrain 00:18:09
from taking past battle because even a 00:18:11
fragment of silver or because you are 00:18:14
sentimental you are not the kind of 00:18:16
person who really has a right to abstain 00:18:19
from that 00:18:21
now why does 00:18:24
the reason is that to the Hindu mind 00:18:26
[Music] 00:18:29
one who abstained was from what might be 00:18:32
an evil action who fear has not really 00:18:36
liberated himself 00:18:39
[Music] 00:18:40
the krishna would say that so long as 00:18:44
our conduct is motivated by the earth on 00:18:47
one all by desire on the other we are 00:18:51
incapable of performing in truly moral 00:18:54
action 00:18:54
only those actions are truly model which are unmotivated because if you are 00:19:01
motivated to do good by fear your good 00:19:07
may under other circumstances be evil 00:19:12
this is the case with Raja he wants to 00:19:18
refrain from war for the same reason for 00:19:21
which many other people would engage in 00:19:23
war many people engage in war because 00:19:28
they're afraid and not at all because 00:19:30
they hate the world situation at the 00:19:34
present time might be said to be a 00:19:37
situation of mutual fear 00:19:37
we're the only reason why someone might start a war would be for fear on the 00:19:43
other side starting at first after all 00:19:50
we all know now that mom water is 00:19:56
something in which neither side wins 00:19:56
then fear father anything else fear that the other fellowships in the bomb never 00:20:05
thought it was start the war and as you 00:20:11
see fear is no deterrent the war at all 00:20:14
[Music] 00:20:14
a person whose reluctance to fight is based on fear or squeamishness does not 00:20:23
learn in Krishna's view have the right 00:20:28
to renounce it 00:20:28
and you see here the view is one which would probably lend itself to a man like 00:20:35
Gandhi because you could turn it round 00:20:42
in the other way and say that a person 00:20:46
who has to take the step of being a non 00:20:48
violent man 00:20:49
now that piece of passages he would have 00:20:53
his vocation and his duty to do in 00:20:56
exactly the same way as the Kshatriya of 00:20:58
the warrior us not be nonviolent on 00:21:02
sentimental roads the rather because he 00:21:06
sees it as his farmer that is to say his 00:21:11
vocation in life and so a moment later 00:21:17
krishna formulates the principle of AK 00:21:19
he says therefore arise o son of Kunti 00:21:24
Arjuna resolved on battle treating a 00:21:28
light pleasure and pain gain and loss 00:21:30
victory and defeat 00:21:33
to action alone hostile right never at 00:21:37
all to its roots let not the fruits of 00:21:40
action feel emotion neither let there be 00:21:43
in the any attachment to inaction fix in 00:21:48
yoga that is to say in union with the 00:21:52
principal with the self do thy work a 00:21:56
winner of wealth abandoning attachment 00:21:58
with an even 9 in success and failure 00:22:01
for evenness of mind is called yoga one 00:22:06
who has yoked his intelligence with the 00:22:09
divine castaway even here both good and 00:22:12
evil therefore strive for Yoga Yoga is 00:22:17
skill in action 00:22:19
[Music] 00:22:19
the principal you see which he announced dates is to act without attachment to 00:22:24
the truths of action to do what you have 00:22:30
to do without seeking either evil or 00:22:32
good from now this is simply another way 00:22:36
of saying to act without fruitive 00:22:36
things of course from our point of view impossible that a human being should act 00:22:44
without motive in our Western Way of 00:22:50
thinking about ethics we judge the 00:22:53
quality of an action by the quality of 00:22:55
the motive and the whole notion of an 00:22:58
action without a motive at all seems to 00:23:00
be extraordinarily foreign to us but 00:23:04
ever natural fact 00:23:06
if there is no such thing as an action 00:23:09
without motive there is no such thing as 00:23:12
a free or moral action because so long 00:23:17
as we have a motive our actions are not 00:23:19
action or they're simply reactions sure 00:23:24
it's obvious that our motives are 00:23:26
determined by our conditioning by our 00:23:28
environment our editing our social 00:23:30
structure they give us motives and these 00:23:34
motives of the past determine the way in 00:23:36
which we act now if I motive for doing 00:23:40
good is for the sake of some sort of a 00:23:43
reward but it's in the ancient sense of 00:23:46
going to heaven or the modern sense of 00:23:47
being a real person or a regular guy or 00:23:51
whether it's for in the ancient sense of 00:23:53
going to hell or in the modern sense of 00:23:55
being a CAD I act motivated ly and 00:23:59
therefore the things which I do by way 00:24:01
of moral action are not actually free 00:24:01
as we in the West have rather inconsistently but nevertheless rightly 00:24:10
insisted the immoral man must be a free 00:24:16
man a free man must be an unmotivated 00:24:19
man in western Christianity it has 00:24:24
always been thought that there is only 00:24:26
one unmotivated being and this would be 00:24:28
God in the words of the ancient him in 00:24:32
the Catholic brethren God is creation 00:24:35
secret force thyself unmoved all motions 00:24:39
sauce God then would be the one who 00:24:43
would act without motive who would act 00:24:46
spontaneously from himself without 00:24:48
having to be pushed around the point you 00:24:50
see of the Hindu teaching is that in 00:24:53
reality each one of us is that unmoved 00:24:56
one that unmotivated one the Routan 00:25:00
ground of our soul and mind is the same 00:25:03
as the Routan ground of this whole 00:25:05
universe therefore one in whom this is 00:25:11
fully realized can act in an unmotivated 00:25:14
way in studying the philosophy of the 00:25:19
Hindus we have to get used 00:25:22
to the idea that it's really an illusion 00:25:26
to suppose that every event is motivated 00:25:29
determined or called by the past what 00:25:33
they call karma or causation by the path 00:25:36
is in fact Maya or unreality for in the 00:25:42
Hindu philosophy the crescent of the 00:25:45
universe or the eternal now of the 00:25:48
universe is not the consequence of its 00:25:51
past but rather the past is always the 00:25:55
consequence of the present of the 00:25:57
eternal now it tails behind it like the 00:26:01
wake of a ship it does not stand before 00:26:04
it and push it and thus it is through 00:26:09
the realization that he is that eternal 00:26:14
now not his son that Arjuna is able to 00:26:18
act in a free ways in an unmotivated way 00:26:20
and thus go into battle not because he 00:26:24
is moved to fight by hate by 00:26:25
squeamishness or fear but because he 00:26:28
carries out his appointed place in a 00:26:31
society in which is his vocation to be a 00:26:33
wire 00:26:34
we may think it regrettable that society 00:26:37
exists in which there is a vocation to 00:26:40
be a warrior but let's not be 00:26:42
sentimental in this respect also because 00:26:45
everyone of us is unable to live at all 00:26:48
without killing something some of us 00:26:51
would like to rule out altogether the 00:26:53
killing of our fellow men but you see in 00:26:56
the Hindu view of life distinction 00:27:00
between man on the one hand and animals 00:27:03
and plants on the other which exist for 00:27:05
us in the West there there are times in 00:27:09
the Hindu views when killing is an 00:27:11
unavoidable condition of being alive and 00:27:14
this is one of the problems which big 00:27:17
intercepted stop the song 00:27:17
[Music] 00:27:21
[Music] 00:27:30