THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER THREE, KARMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OR ACTION OR THE METHOD OF WORK, VERSE NUMBER 37

THE HOLY YOGA

CHAPTER THREE

KARMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF ACTION OR THE METHOD OF WORK:

VERSE NUMBER 37:

Text in transcription:

                   Sri bhagavaan uvaacha:

kaama esha krodha esha rajoguna samudbhvah

mahaasano mahaapaapmaa vidhy enam iha inam

Text in English:

                     The Blessed Lord said:

It is desire, it is wrath begotten by the Rajo-guna: all-consuming, all-sinful, know this as the foe here on earth.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Desire is the most destructive foe of man. When this desire is obstructed it transforms itself into wrath. The Lord, therefore, treats both as one. It takes its origin in Rajas and aggravates it further. As fire cannot be satiated by feeding it with fuel, desire cannot be appeased by supplying it with sense-objects. The more it gluts, the more it craves. Sin increases in direct proportion to desire. It is, therefore, Satan, the arch-enemy of man.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Time and again man gets humiliated because of his being victim to lust and greed. Still, he is unable to recoil from them and give his thought to God.              

 COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Bhagavan: Bhaga means the six attributes, viz., Jnana (knowledge), Vairagya (dispassion), Kirty (fame), Aishvarya (divine manifestations and excellences), Sri (wealth) and Bala (might). He who possesses these six attributes and who has a perfect knowledge of the origin and the end of the universe is Bhagavan or the Lord.

The cause of all sin and wrong action in this world is desire. Anger is desire itself. When a desire is not gratified, the man becomes angry against those who stand as obstacles on the path of fulfillment. The desire is born of the quality of Rajas. When desire arises, it generates Rajas and urges the man to work in order to possess the object. Therefore, know that this desire is man’s foe on this earth.(Cf. XVI. 21)

Comments by the blogger:

Bhagavat Gita is not for those who are spineless. It takes a lot of intellectual and spiritual spine to understand the Lord’s words.

Even Gautama, the Buddha attained salvation when he intuited that it is the desire which is at the root of all sorrow of human beings.

Here the Lord of the Gita says desire is the enemy of Man; that it is the desire which gives rise to Rajo Guna or tendency of the mind; that desire begets wrath. Or wrath is nothing but the unfulfilled desire.

Surely, when a man desires something and another man creates a stumbling block then the desire gives birth to wrath only. But this is not to mean Man shall not have any desire. For, desire is at the root of creation.

There is a spiritual lore about how in the very beginning the Lord Shiva created nine Rishies or Ascetics known as Sabtha Rishies and thought they would propagate and create the world. But, when after many years, when the Lord came to see them, all the nine Ascetics were in ecstatic condition having individually immersed in deep tapas or meditation on the Lord! It was then the Lord understood the need for the worldly men and women to propagate and create the world!

Thus, if everyone becomes devoid of desire, the very purpose of creation would be set at naught. Still, the Lord says desire is the enemy of the human beings! This is because He has abundant faith in the discrimination of His student, Arjuna. And another thing is that He wants us to not become overly addicted to desires. There should be moderation in everything.

Part of samsara, as we have already seen, is the  desire which leads to karma or work. Man will cease to work if he becomes bereft of desire.

For getting over this dichotomy the ancient Hindus had divided human life into Brahmacharya, studentship, householder and then at last sanyasa. Thus the childhood is spent in the house of Acharya or Guru or Teacher and when, after a man attains marital stage, he can either renounce the world or marry a girl, and then will start life as a householder. This obviously involves earning money and wealth and begetting children. And at last, when their children become old enough to be married, they shall see their children are properly married and settled in life, then the old couple would retire into the forest and spend their lives there eating fruits and uncooked roots only. This fourth state is called Vanaprastha or life in the forest.

Thus even Great Rajas took to Vanaprastha once the crown prince was crowned as the Raja or king and went into the forests to indulge in meditation.

This was how Man conquered desire. Moderate desire is a must for the continuity of the world.

Since He has full confidence in His student’s ability to understand with discrimination, He is afford to indulge in superlative utterances. Some slokas or stanzas in the Gita can stand alone as all-comprising, while some need to be understood in consonance with the general Plan and Scheme of the Lord for the Universe.  

The trick is not to check unholy desires violently, but to create the healthy desire on the Lord's Holy Feet. This will erase all the tendency to entertain bad and unholy desires throughout our lives. And sticking to once spouse without desiring for variety, lust may me got over.