GEMS FROM THE
Beach 8: One's Nature vis-à-vis one's Duty
WAVE 4: NOTES FOR THE GITA
DROP 5: YOGA IS SKILL IN ACTION
‘YogaH karmasu kaushalaM’ is the statement
of the Gita (II – 50). It means Yoga is ‘skill in
action’. The verses #s 47-51
of the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita constitute indeed a capsuled version
of the entire Karma Yoga of the Gita. These five verses may be translated
asfollows:
‘Your right is only to do (your
prescribed) work; never for the results or rewards thereof. Nor should you have
them as your motive. Neither should you be interested in not doing the work.
(#47: “karmaNyevAdhikAraste ….”)
‘Do your actions, being yourself
established in yoga, rid of all attachment and being equanimous to success or
failure. Equanimity is said to be yoga. (#48: “yogasthaH kuru karmANi
…”)
‘Such performance of work is what
is known as buddhi-yoga. (Result-motivated and desireful) action is far inferior to
this. Take refuge in the equanimous mode (of doing work). Those who are
motivated by results are, alas, a miserable lot! (#49: “dUreNa
hyavaraM karma …”).
‘One who is harmonised in buddhi-yoga
(through equanimity) transcends both good actions and evil actions. Therefore strive for (such a) yoga. Yoga is skill in
action. (#50: “buddhi-yukto jahAtIha …”)
‘Such wise persons who are
harmonised in buddhi-yoga having renounced all results and rewards are
released from the bondage of birth (and death) and they reach the sorrowless
final state’. (#51: “karmajaM buddhi-yuktA hi …”).
For each of these verses, necessary explanations come in the
later shlokas of this and the later chapters. So, read in isolation, from these
verses alone we may
not be able to get the full intent of the Gita. Among the 31 comments
on these shlokas listed in Karma Yoga for this purpose, the first 25 explain why one has to abide
by #47.
#48 says how one can implement #47. ‘Being
yourself established in Yoga’ (Sanskrit: ‘yogasthaH’). This is the keyword. This keyword is
explained in the rest of the shloka #48 (Equanimity is Yoga) and also later in the second half
of VI – 8 – which says: Being Equanimous among a clod of mud, stone, and gold is said to be the characteristic of one
harmonised in Yoga (‘yuktaH’).
This is the buddhi-yoga of shlokas
49 and 50 and 51. The skill in action mentioned in #50 comes from the fact that
this characterisation of karma-yoga takes the sting out of all action done this
way. Action always sets up a vAsanA, which is bound to start a chain of
vAsanA-thought-(further)-action and therefore becomes the cause of
a never-seem-to-be-ending transmigration cycle of births and deaths. But action done in the buddhi yoga way
where one is equanimous to success and failure, along with the attitude of non-doership
(which, incidentally
HOMEPAGE Back to NOTES FOR THE GITA © Copyright 31 July
2008 V. Krishnamurthy
