LAW OF KARMA IN BHAGAVAT GITA

INTRODUCTION

1.1 KARMA YOGA IN BHAGAVAT GITA

1.2 TYPES OF KARMA DESCRIBED IN GITA

1.3 EVOLUTION OF KARMA THEORY IN GITA

1.4 LAW OF KARMA ACCORDING TO KRISHNA

1.5 AIM OF KARMA THEORY IN GITA

CONCLUSION
 CHAPTER – I

KARMA YOGA IN BHAGAVAT GITA

In the beginning of the Kurukshetra war, we find Arjuna despondent and

declining to fight; but as a result of Sri Krishna’s persuasion, he makes up his
mind to take part in the war. This important point in the conception of the
Bhagavad Gita will be lost altogether if action is not regarded as a prominent
teaching of the poem. In order to understand the implications of the Karma
Yoga, it is necessary to consider separately the two terms constituting it. The
word karma here signifies the duties that, in accordance with custom and
tradition, were found associated with a particular section or class of the people
the varn adharmas as they are described. The word Yoga means ‘harnessing’.
So Karma-Yoga may mean ‘devotion to the discharge of social obligations’. A
specific feature of all voluntary deeds is that, they are preceded by a desire for
something, which is described as their motive or phala. Whenever we
knowingly act, we aim at achieving some end or other. Here, for instance,
Arjuna is moved to act by a desire for the sovereignty over his ancestral
kingdom. Such an undertaking cannot be regarded as devotion to karma; it is
rather devotion to phala, because karma ‘the fighting’ here serves as a means to
bring about a preconceived end. For karma-yoga, the act should be viewed not
as a means but as an end in itself.

In karma yoga the idea of the result must be totally dismissed from the mind of
the doer before as well as during the act. Your right is to work only, but never to
the fruit thereof. Be not instrumental in making your actions bear fruit, nor let
your attachment be to inaction.

The duty enjoined on a person with due regard to barnasrama dharma, and also
his nature and circumstances is referred to by the word karma here. Sinful acts
prohibited by the scriptures do not fall under this category; for man has no
sanction to perform them, he does so only under the impulse of likes and
dislikes, and such actions are unauthorized on his part.

Man has right to action alone, not to the fruits. Success or failure does not
depend on the individual but on other factors as well. There follows, no doubt, a
result from the deed that is done, but in the case of karma-yogin ,it ceases to be
his end for the reason that it is not derived and that there can be no end unless it
is desired for.

A great consequence of pursuing this principle of action is that one can act with
complete equanimity. If self- interest is allowed to have its influence on us, it
may blind us to what is right; and even when we succeed in choosing to do the
right deed, undue eagerness to secure its fruits may induce us to deviate from
the path of rectitude. This teaching that we must do our works as members of a
social order in the usual way and yet expel from our mind all thoughts of
deriving personal benefits there from is the meaning of karma-yoga and
constitutes the specific message of the Gita.1

The intelligence withdrawing from sense and desire and human action
and turning to the highest, to the one, to the actionless Purusha, to the
immobile, to the featureless Brahman, that surely is the eternal seed of
knowledge. There is no room for works, since works belong to the ignorance;
action is the very opposite of knowledge; its seed is desire and its fruit is
bondage. That is the orthodox Philosophical Doctrine, and Krishna seems quite
to admit it when he says that works are far inferior to the Yoga of the
intelligence. And yet works are insisted upon as part of the Yoga; so that there
seems to be in this teaching a radical inconsistency. Not only so; for some kind
of work no doubt may persist for a while, the minimum, the most inoffensive;
but there is a work wholly inconsistent with knowledge, with serenity and with
the motionless peace of the self delighted soul, -a work terrible, even if
monstrous, a bloody strife, a ruthless battle, a giant massacre. Yet it is this that
is enjoyed, this that it is sought to justify by the teaching of inner peace and
desireless equality and status in the Brahman! Here then is an unreconciled
contradiction. Arjuna complains that he has been given a contradictory and
confusing doctrine, not the clear, strenuously single road by which the human
intelligence can move straight and trenchantly to the supreme good. It is in
answer to this objection that the Gita begins at once to develop more clearly its
positive and imperative doctrine of Works.2

Karma yoga- the path of right action:

In the contest of karma yoga the Sanskrit word karma means work or action.
Thinking also may be considered karma. A verse of the Bhagavad Gita says, ‘no
one can ever stay without doing work even for a moment.’ Work which can be
1
J. Thachil, An Initiation to Indian Philosophy(Aluva: Aluva Press, 2000), 62-63
2
Maheshwar, Bhagavad Gita: In the Light of Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1978),
46-47.
both physical and mental is inevitable. Therefore, the impact of work on the life
of the doer can never be overemphasized. Even the attempt not to work turns
out to be work.. (130- The essentials of Hinduism)

An action done with attachment to its fruits puts the doer in bondage. Karma
yoga teaches the secret of how to maintain one’s freedom even though working
all the time.

The secret consist in working without any attachment to the fruits of the work.
Attachment is selfish involvement, and always rooted in selfish expectations.
Therefore, work done without attachment to its fruits is no other than work done
unselfishly.

The art and science of performing unselfish work is karma yoga or the yoga of
right action. It is not easy to work unselfishly. A student of karma yoga is often
instructed to work for the pleasure of God. If work is done for God, and not for
one’s sake, then that work becomes unselfish work.

It may be argued, however, that even when a person works for the sake of God,
the desire for his own spiritual progress actually motivates his action. Therefore,
such action cannot be called truly unselfish action. But according to karma yoga
the desire for one’s own spiritual progress is not considered selfishness; it is
considered ‘enlightened’ selfishness. It is not harmful. (132- The essentials of
Hinduism)

1.2.1 WHAT IS KARMA YOGA

The ideal of the Gita is not negativism, asceticism or escapism. It is not

negation of actions, but performance of actions in a detached spirit. It is not
Naiskarmya, but performance of actions in a detached spirit. It is not
Naiskarmya, but Niskama Karma. The giving up is not of action itself, but of
interest, desire, fruit attachment regarding action. Desire binds a man; he should
therefore act in such a way when action does not bind. The Gita synthesises
both Pravrtti and Nivrtti. As Prof. M. Hiriyanna says: “the Gita teaching stands
not for renunciation of action, but for renunciation in action.” It is emphatically
stated that Samnyasa does not mean the renunciation of action, but of interest,
desire and attachment; it means the giving up of the fruit o fall work. Actions
are our sphere; fruits are not our concern. We should never be attached to the
fruits of actions and at the same time we should never be inactive. And without
knowledge, renunciation of desire and attachment is not possible. So only a true
jnani can perform niskama karma. Therefore the Gita says: Only fools and not
wise people speaksof jnana and karma as different and opposed; really they are
one. (A critical survey of Indian philosophy—37)

Enlightened ones too should work:

There may, however, be some rare individuals who have risen above all
personal wants. They may be able to withdraw themselves from society, and
live a life of self-contentment without depending on the services of others. Even
they should work without attachment or desire for the fruits of work. For, by so
doing, one progresses spiritually and attains the Supreme Being. Just as
socially-oriented work makes man ethical, work done without any thought of
selfish gain, as an act of pure service of God and man, raises him to spiritual
heights. Purely unselfish action without any thought of returns or obligations is
the higher aspect of the law of Yajna. So Janaka and other great Rajarsis
continued to be in the field of action and attained perfection through a life of
disinterested action.

For the Gita, the path of works is a means of liberation quite as that of
knowledge, and these are intended for two classes of people. They are not
exclusive but complementary. The path is one whole including different phases.
Cp. “Such are the two modes of life, both of which are supported by the Vedas-
the one is the activistic path; the other that of renunciation.” The two modes of
life are of equal value. The teacher points out that jnana or wisdom are not
incompatible with karma or action. S. admits that work is compatible with
enlightenment. Work is adopted not as a means to the gaining of wisdom but as
an example to the ordinary people. In the work of the enlightened as in that of
the teacher of the Gita, the self-sense and expectation of reward are absent. (The
Bhagavad Gita s. Radhakrishnan -132)

Our selfish actions in the interests of the lower self produce only bondage and
slavery. The true self, God, is the truth and is the all and comprises the all and
includes the all. There is nothing of selfishness in God. Therefore, all actions
undertaken with the intention of gaining the fruits of action for oneself, a
particular self, i.e. selfish action for the benefit of our own personal false lower
self, is actually inaction for non-action because it brings about no change for
transformation in us, it does not take us from the false to the true, from darkness
to light ,from death to life. Selfish action only perpetuates the illusion of the
non-existent false lower self and is therefore actually inaction. Consider all the
establishments, buildings, institutions and businesses that men set up or create
and attach their own name to in the hope of establishing their name for ever.
They are all meant to establish, or make real, the false identity, the false ‘I’
which Sri Krishna says is a false endeavour because the false ‘I’ cannot be
turned into a reality, as a lie cannot be turned into a truth. Right action, devoid
of any delfish motives, always doing the will of God or following the
instructions given by the lord or living by God’s guidance and commandments,
to please God the true self is true yajna or sacrifice and that is true action,
because such action elevates man from the lower false self to the higher true
self, from death to life, from darkness to light, from the false to the true. That
the way of karma. (the holy bible in the light of the Bhagavad gita.-84)