Resolving Geeta’s Apparent Contradictions

                                                                                                *Saumitra Mohan

            The Geeta has been one of the most popular religious books of the Hindus and those who have been trying to seek answers to their never-ending queries and doubts about Creation and human life. While the Geeta very cogently and effectively answers most of the questions, there are some apparent contradictions emanating from the dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna, both being two of the most popular characters from the Hindu mythology, which still remain unresolved for the uninitiated.

            While talking about our eternal role-plays through continual births, Krishna elucidates through the Geeta on the purpose behind the same as the ultimate instrument of liberation from the cycle of endless birth and death. But He somewhat confuses us when He tells Arjuna, “Even though it is in touch with the material body, O Arjuna, the soul neither acts nor gets entangled. The soul does not mix with the body though situated in it”. The statement means that our physical body acts and reacts independent of the soul which can’t be true.

            The central theme running through the Geeta and other Hindu scriptures is the spiritual elevation of the soul through multiple births for deriving empirical learnings and lessons. We have known all along that it is the soul which is the creative energy animating the physical body and it is the soul which enriches and enlightens itself through numerous experiences and lessons learnt through different births. But the moment we say that the soul remains untouched and unaffected by corporeal acts, the entire purpose of life vanish. Such statements nothing but confuse an ordinary seeker.

            However, when one delves deep into the same, one does find an answer thereto. Even though seemingly contradicting our knowledge of individual soul being instrumental behind all our thoughts and deeds to learn its lessons, it is our ‘ego’ which mediates through all worldly experiences through the medium of a physical body. It is this ‘ego’ which creates multiple hurdles for itself by creation of multiple layers of ignorance, misconceptions and misunderstandings. But our ‘soul’ as part of the Supreme Soul remains ever effulgent in the blissfulness and glory of the Absolute Truth.

            The sun may get temporarily screened from the human eyes by the rain-clouds, it remains ever self-effulgent behind in its full glory. Similarly, our timeless ‘soul’, as part of the Supreme Soul, may appear to be clouded by the deep layers of ignorance due to our immersion in sensual pleasures, but the ‘soul’ remains untouched as the ever-existing entity. Our eternal consciousness as the repository of the incoming inputs and empirical wisdom gained through bodily role-plays, slowly clears the darkness of ignorance on way to the eternal soul.

            The ‘soul’ remains hidden to the ‘ego’ behind the deep jungles of our puerile desires for transient material objects. As we gradually cut through the jungle through our incremental learning, we get closer to our unadulterated, pure, all-knowing and ever blissful ‘soul’ which is nothing but an extension of the Supreme Soul. Our sundry nescience, superstitions, doubts and all types of misapprehensions remain as multiple hurdles on our way to our own ‘Soul’, the absolute self-effulgent being residing deep within us.

            Our eternal consciousness gains through our each birth by imprinting all our lessons and learnings as we get to know the eternal soul before we get eventual liberation from the cycle of birth and death. This timeless soul, even though situated within our body, remains in the background as the eternal witness of all our thoughts and deeds. The timeless ‘soul’ never gets affected by the continual transformations of body, mind or senses.

            All our thoughts, feelings and experiences are like clouds while the eternal ‘soul’ as the absolute reality remains ever unaffected, witnessing the events as a neutral referee which can never become a party to all the happenings in our life. As we realise the myth and falsehood of our material life and pick up the right lessons, we inch closer to the ever-effulgent and unblemished ‘soul’ of ours. Krishna, thus, helps us differentiate between the ‘soul’ and the ‘ego’ and warns us against mistaking the one for the other.

            Swami Abhedananda in one of his books i.e. ‘Mystery of Death’ says that the ‘soul’ being nothing but space, does not actually move and is one with the cosmos. Giving the example of a moving jar, he says that it is the jar which moves and not the space within which exists as part of the eternal continuum. Similarly, it is the body as ‘ego’ which thinks, acts, moves and experiences but our ‘soul’ remains ever unaffected and unmoved as an eternal witness to our thoughts and deeds even as we struggle to progressively reach and realise its true glory hidden behind our bodily experiences and ignorance.

            All the actions and deeds of a celebrity, a very righteous person or the most crooked person done during his/her human birth get reduced to faint or strong memories of good or bad lessons associated only with the body for all other souls to benefit from. It is the body which is remembered, but not the soul which itself rarely gets to associate with its own actions of its endless previous births as its own because of the memory disconnect. The ego enriches in the process by learning positive and negative experiences through material body’s good or bad deeds by retaining the broader spiritual impressions as imprinted on its eternal consciousness.

            It’s this differentiated learnings which reflect variously on different human beings thereby explaining the inequality and disorder in our society. Whatever very good or very bad deeds may we do, the same is forgotten through time, because the dramatis personae during and after our life also keep changing. Gradually, we keep losing people and characters in and around ourselves till we ourself kick the bucket one day. We live as if we would never die, but most of us die as if we never lived. Depending on the life we lead, some of us are consigned to the recorded history but most of us are simply forgotten. But in the ultimate analysis, nothing gets lost.

            All experiences and lessons learnt by any and every one of us during our life on earth or any other dimension or parallel universe if at all they exist, become part of the cosmic consciousness or what they also call ‘Akashik records’ through incremental learnings by helping all of us learn our lessons through each other, either empirically, mentally, spiritually, educationally or any which way. The vibrations of the good or bad thoughts and deeds help the enlightening of the gradually unfolding creative genius of the Divine Creation to live and learn in a spirit of cooperative enrichment of our divine Self and thereby that of the entire Creation.

            According to many scientific and spiritual studies, life in the cosmos may have created and recreated itself through endless cycles while benefiting from the ever existing pool of advanced knowledge and technology as ‘Akashik records’ or cosmic consciousness which we get to access depending on our evolution as a civilisation. It has also been suggested that this cosmic consciousness or Akashik record of all the cosmic experiences and knowledge actually work like the ‘digital cloud’ used today for storage of vast information and knowledge in the cyber world.

            As the human beings explore their divine consciousness and become capable of accessing the same, we have newer scientific revelations, innovations and inventions. The exploits and achievements of people like Nostradamus, the clairvoyant Bulgarian blind lady Baba Vanga and many scientists are all said to have been made possible because of their being able to tap into the infinite cosmic consciousness as the eternal repository of all the learnings and experiences including very advanced scientific knowledge and technologies.

            But one’s ordinary intelligence again stumbles when Krishna says, “You have never changed; you can never change”. Now, if we are not supposed to change, then why all this drama, plain and simple? At a time when the number of sceptics, atheists, non-believers and agnostics are increasing, what motivation remains there for indulging in virtuous and righteous acts vis a vis the allurements of sybarite and voluptuary actions? If one knows that there is no learning and evolving of our individual ‘Self’ involved, why should we feel encouraged for avoiding sins and becoming righteous?

            How can we control our restless mind to delve into regular practices to reach the deeper recesses of our eternal consciousness if we know that there is no change or advancement involved for the ‘Self’ through our endless role-plays? If we really don’t change or can never change, how come some astral beings seem to feel very blissful or some beings suffer because of their many negative thoughts and deeds as indulged by their material bodies as narrated in the accounts of Swami Abhedananda, Dr. Ian Stevenson and many others?

            The only logical explanation one could think against the same is the fact of we all being interrelated part of the same universal consciousness as delineated above which keeps us tied to the perpetual Divine Drama. Howsoever some of us or most of us may try to evolve and improve, the primordial emotions of love, hate, altruism, envy, peace, empathy, sympathy and rivalry shall be there animating the individual Self. The resulting interplay of actions and reactions shall be experienced by us as Maya (read Divine Drama) through the eternity, more so when we know the humongous size of the cosmos and the fact of its ever expanding nature.

            The universe is said to be so huge that the light and sound from some of the celestial bodies take more than hundreds of thousands of years to reach earth while there are yet billions of other celestial bodies wherefrom the same never reach us because of their unthinkable distance from us. And the universe is said to be continuously expanding. If the universe is still stretching and expanding, if there are uncountable living entities at various levels of spiritual evolution, howsoever may we change, there shall still be uncountable many who will continue learning.

            And as long as we all don’t learn our lessons, change and evolve, the divine drama as Maya would continue unfolding. As suggested above, the Supreme Soul and extended individual soul, because of its quality of remaining unaffected by bodily experiences, remain unchanged as everything is happening through it, by it and because of it. Krishna is trying to tell us here that while some of us may actually learn and evolve spiritually, the Supreme Soul as the ever existing eternal entity remains untouched and unaffected by the thoughts and deeds of the physical body.

            So, while we learn our lessons, enlighten ourself and strive for spiritual evolution, we ought to similarly strive for helping others as hatred, enmity and all sorts of negativity anywhere shall always come back to hurt us back. Thinking only of our own liberation, by keeping us selfishly fallible, keeps us tied to Maya and the material world. We can’t just sit back quietly, thinking that we have understood and provided for our Self.

            The Almighty desires all the connected but enlightened Self, as part of the Supreme Self, to come out of their own egotistic isolation of individualised blissfulness, to understand their responsibilities as more evolved and enlightened beings to reach out to those not so enlightened in the upliftment and enrichment of the creative genius which shall continue unfolding forever as Maya, zeitgeist or divine drama. The concept of Creation coming to an end, as enshrined in the Semitic religions, does not figure in various Vedantic paths to the Supreme Consciousness including Hinduism.

            The disunited and unrestrained mind, being far from wise, keeps following the call of senses and they sweep away our better judgement as cyclones drive away a boat from its designated course in the ocean. Renouncing all ‘selfish’ desires and breaking away from the ego-cage of I, Me and Mine, the wise are forever free from the multiple charms of sensual experiences and united with the Lord. Attaining the supreme state beyond the maze of transitory psychosomatic pleasures and ignorance, one graduates from death to immortality.

            It is with a view to point to our folly that Krishna says, “The real Self (read soul) of all beings, living within the body, is eternal and can’t be harmed”. So, when we curse and try to hurt others by our speech or deeds, the real Self, as an eternal and immortal being, remains untouched and unaffected. It is the material body which we see and try to hurt, but can never touch or reach the eternal Self within. It is the ‘ego’ as reflection or shadow, as opposed to the real Self, which seems affected or variable due to atmospheric or circumstantial variances, not the real Self. The murderer may think that he has killed someone or the killed may think that he has been killed, but the fact remains that it is the body which gets killed and not the eternal ‘soul’.

            The eternal Self remains unharmed and unaffected. If we can fathom this basic fact and element behind the Divine Drama, we shall cease to be inhuman or act in the mindless ways we do. There shall be no need or cause for discord or strife amongst us as seen all around, all the time. Realising the infinite nature of the cosmos and our own Self, we can all try through cooperative living to indulge in productive and enlightening deeds for further exploring and improving the creative genius of our humongous cosmos.

            Krishna always exhorts us to seek him all the time and not anyone else. At one place in the Geeta, He says, “Worship Me and not lesser Gods”. At another place, Krishna says that whatever occupies our mind at the time of our death determines the destination of the soul after death. He says, “Those who remember Me at the time of death will come to Me”. He again says, “Those who worship Me and meditate on Me constantly without any other thought, I will provide for all their needs...No one who is devoted to Me, will ever come to any harm”.

            But, does it mean that an altruistic and virtuous atheist has no chance of salvation and reaching Him? Is Krishna as Almighty trying to induce devotees into worshipping Him in exchange of spiritual temptations? Does it mean that Krishna (read Almighty) is egotistic and megalomaniac, desiring single-pointed devotion of all living beings to Himself only and no other God. But import of the same becomes clearer once we go behind the statement and explore it deeper. Krishna is actually telling us that we should all recognise the formless, eternal, omnipotent and omniscient Supreme Being of whom we are all an inalienable part including the lesser Gods.

            He clearly declaims in the Geeta that wherever we find strength, beauty or spiritual power, we may be sure that these have sprung from a spark of His essence. So, all the righteous and virtuous people, whether they believe in the Supreme Lord or not, are sure to receive his benedictions because the beauty of their real ‘Self’ is nothing but a reflection of the glory of the Supreme Soul. The Supreme Soul can never be tainted or prejudiced as it dwells in every creature, enters into the entire cosmos and support the same from within. As such all of them have assured care and blessings of the Supreme Consciousness.

            By recognising the Supreme Consciousness within and without in every expression of the Creation, we can understand the basic unity in the cosmos which would take away a lot of abnormality and negativity from our midst, thereby bringing eternal peace and happiness in our life. The lesser Gods are nothing but representations of our endless material desires, representing one or the other aspect of our various sensual wishes and weaknesses. E.g. Indra is associated with water and material pleasures, Lakshmi with wealth, Saraswati with wisdom and so on. That’s why, He says, “Those who worship Gods go to the Gods. But my devotees come to Me”.

            It means that worshipping lesser Gods associated with particular material pleasure, we remain stuck in Maya for realising the same. As long as we have a desire belonging to lower plane, we shall remain pulled and tied to the same thereby inhibiting our upward rise spiritually. For reaching the higher plane of higher souls ruled by the Supreme Soul, we need to shed the load of our material desires. If we wish to go farther and higher, we need to travel light, with least of desires as may weigh us down.

            Krishna wants us to remain focused in the Supreme Consciousness of his infinite genius to contribute to the same by desiring the really desirable through Nishkam Karma rather than getting moved and affected by the material pleasures which bring in its wake all the deformities and ugliness in our lives. Krishna further says, “You have the right to work, but never to the fruits of work”. But Nishkam Karma itself is something problematic, expecting us to indulge in various activities without any expectations. This appears as something impossible in the self-centred and egotistic world that we inhabit.

            If all become selfless, there shall be no motivation and inspiration left for any progress and development in the material world. The Divine Drama, as visualised by the Supreme Being, itself would come to an end. But given the size of the cosmos and given the differentiated levels of spiritual evolution, there shall always be only finite number of souls capable of indulging in Nishkam Karma to evolve spiritually to join the privileged ranks of higher souls to help and guide those no so enlightened.

            The lesser our desires and needs, the more liberated and independent we are. Dissatisfaction though is the source of all progress, but it is attachment to the fruits of action which is the cause of all our pain. The Geeta says that ‘anyone who enjoys things given by the Gods without offering selfless acts in return is a thief’. If people around us are unhappy, we shall be unhappy too because we are all interconnected. Sorrow anywhere outside us shall come back to haunt us. Happiness is a basic human nature.

            As long as we derive happiness from external objects, we shall remain unhappy because the objects deriving pleasure and derived from – both are temporary. Once we learn to be unattached to the fruits of action, through self-realisation, we shall learn to enjoy the eternal bliss and happiness as may not be conditional upon our sensual experiences. Such realised souls, therefore, play a higher role in the Divine Drama while also moving up the ladder of spiritual enlightenment to eventually merge with the Divine Consciousness.

            But reading the Geeta and Krishna’s exhortations therein, sometime it appears that He is urging us to become invalid and worthless when he says that those who are always focused on Him, those who are beyond envy, hatred, enmity, greed, lust and other vices, those who are bereft of any material desire and always desire Him shall attain Him and be merged with Him. Isn’t He telling us that those who become practically useless in the physical world for carrying out any of the productive and useful exercise would come and merge with Him and enjoy the eternal bliss and benediction?

            Isn’t He rewarding the invalids and unsuccessful by promising them eternal bliss, while not recognising the labours of those motivated to actively further His glory and grandeur through their myriad successes in this world? It is with this in view that Protestant Christianity suggests that Almighty’s blessing is always supposed to be with those ‘chosen few’ who have proven their worth through their creative spirits and hard work by becoming successful in the chosen field. This has been beautifully portrayed by the famous social scientist Max Weber in his book, ‘Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ where he credits the success of Western capitalism to the religious ideas of groups like Calvinists.

            It may appear to us that Krishna is suggesting us to become invalid by becoming focus on Him all the time. But actually He is suggesting that by indulging in Nishkam Karma and by remaining unattached to the fruits of our action, we are freed from the cycle of infinite births and deaths. Thus, we get eventually liberated from the dichotomy of pain and pleasure, cold and heat, love and hatred and all such human emotions which bring us cyclical pain and suffering and keep us mired in Maya.

            According to Krishna, the higher souls can get liberated from the cycle of birth and death to bask in the eternal blissfulness of His creative genius. Such people, according to Krishna, are wise enough to see ‘themselves in all and all in themselves’. Renouncing every selfish desire, they are neither agitated by grief nor hanker after pleasure. They are free from lust, fear and anger. They are neither elated by good fortune nor depressed by the bad ones. Seeing the highest goal, they live in wisdom subduing their sense cravings and keep their mind ever absorbed in Him.

            According to Krishna, when one keeps thinking about sense objects, the ensuing desires breed attachment and further desires. The resulting lust for possessions leads one to passion and anger, thereby clouding our judgement. Reaching this state, one becomes incapable of learning from one’s experiences and mistakes. Losing the discretion to choose between wise and unwise, our life becomes an utter waste. But when we learn to move amidst the world of senses, free from attachment and aversion, we soon experience the eternal peace which ends all sorrows and sufferings.

            Our will is the only friend and enemy of the Self. Selfish desires lead us to unquenchable fire for self-gratification as our enemy. Selfish desire is found in the senses, mind and intellect, misleading them and burying the judgement and wisdom in delusion. Controlling our senses, we can control this enemy, the perpetual destroyer of knowledge and self-realisation. Krishna is merely saying that whatever we do, we should make the same as an offering to Him rather than being stuck in the quagmire of Maya and its sundry allurements. Thus, we will be emancipated from the bondage of Karma and from its results, both painful and pleasurable.