GITA: THE HUMAN CONDITION AS MISERY AND OPPORTUNITY
Jeremy S. Eliab
How might the person of steady wisdom speak?
How might he walk, how sit?
- Arjuna, Chapter II, 54
He who on earth does not contribute
To the continued movement of the wheel
Thus set in motion, is evil, O Arjuna;
Delighting in the sense, he lives in vain.
- Krishna, Chapter III, 16
In our present time when everything seems to be product of high technology and new scientific discoveries, it is refreshing to read and reflect the ancient classical texts that have plethora of explanations regarding human existence. Bhagavad-Gita, as one of the Indian classics, does not only give us a vivid glimpse of the rich variations of Indian philosophy and culture -- though ancient, the Gita offers a recurrent human experience of longing for the ultimate, the absolute. In contemporary times, where human beings seem to forget the presence of the Supreme Being, where scientific endeavors and inquiry become the standard of human existence, there is an amnesia of the ultimate questions that the ancient Greeks and first human thinkers asked. People tend to overlook the innermost "human longing" for the true happiness and become contented with the materialistic sophistication of the genre.
The "forgetfulness" stems from the illusion and alienation of person from his most intimate being. When calamity and catastrophes come, people blame them to the inept predictability of scientific minds and methods. When AIDS cannot be cured, people blame the failure of discovering the proper vaccine to the "war" between pharmaceutical companies that are after profit. It is rare, if not occasional, that human beings affirm their finitude. If the affirmation is implicit, then human condition becomes an opportunity of reaffirmation its finitude and at the same time affirmation of its continuous transcendent characteristics beyond the vicissitudes of life.
The Gita offers us new a fresher outlook for the human situatedness. It was not only an expression from Ancient Indian sages and religious addressed to their faithful. It poses relevant questions to contemporary religions and people of all walks of life. It addresses new human situations of forgetfulness, yet offers a primordial and basic existential question of person: what is the dharma of human being in his being-in-the-world.
In the light of Gita, the human condition is both a misery and opportunity. The misery is pictured in different descriptions. It can be an alienation from reality, in a state of being unproductive and impotent, a longing for the ultimate bliss with God. These are summarized in the recognition of human limited achievement in the presence of infinite possibilities, a monumental sense of inadequacy in attaining the vision of perfection. One of the most noble truth in Hinduism is the notion that life is suffering. This truth remains as one of the most clairvoyant analyses of human conjuncture, it is, however, only one aspect of that condition.
The soul (Isvara) which vitalizes the body (Ksetra) is immortal. The isvara comes in contact with the material world. It is a sign of the fallenness, the manifestation of the relapse and its descent into the natural world. Each birth into a body has been preceded by an earlier birth of isvara. There is no first birth. This means that its previous deeds affect the future rebirths of the isvara. Thus, the significance of birth-death-rebirth cycle is an indication of human’s torment in its contact with the material world. However, there is a positive weight on this inevitable chain of rebirths (samsara), that is of "a program for self-perfection", a process of cleansing and advancing toward the Ultimate.
Moreover, the human suffering that stems from this seemingly endless cycle of rebirths is caused by the desires of the living entity with the gratification offered by the senses. Thus, is a person continually gratifies and enjoys the honors, praises, recognitions, and pleasures offered for him -- he is after these mundane accolades and indulgence. These sensual gratifications are temporal and transitory -- thus, he sees life as mortal and corporeal, and nothing else is beyond these physical manifestations. The person is absorbed by the senses and its gratifications, that he forgets his innermost longing for the ultimate happiness and perfect bliss with God.
Thus, the Gita is saying that human misery is caused by human deeds. This is the notion of karma, which determines the nature of another rebirth based on the necessary and sufficient foundation that a person has. That foundation accounts for the events of the total life of the human being. Morality then becomes an assessment of one’s total worthiness through and in its execution of virtues.
Misery or suffering here is not that negative connotation. The Gita only offers a realistic view of human finitude -- a condition of being in "exile" as Marcel and Blondel put it. It is a pre-condition where human potentials are harnessed in order to make the most of what life has. Sometimes, suffering implies incapability or futility or capitulation to the pre-set human condition. But such condition enables human to overcome it through first, recognition of that condition. Second, he slowly and patiently discovers that through those determinisms, he is still able to go beyond them, by facing them head on.
Therefore, suffering can be an opportunity to eliminate it. It is the very condition of samsara or the cycle of rebirth that also enables the person or the living entity entrapped in the conditioned body to realize his condition. The birth or rebirth of a person is always an opportunity to be a "more" person. He can be liberated from the samsara if he focuses devotedly his whole self to God. This is what Krishna is telling Arjuna in whole discourse of the Gita: the path to liberation is difficult and entails suffering, yet it is a joyful liberation -- it is union with Brahman.
One of the unique characteristics that the Gita is saying about liberation is the yoga of renunciation. The person should abandon the worldly pleasures and happiness from the fruits of action. He is at peace and contented with his devotion to Krishna, whatever impediments or obstacles to realizing Krishna should always be fought. The state of being detached from sentimental entanglements gives peace and tranquillity to the restless human spirit -- and it rests its whole duties and services to Krishna. So, Arjuna has even to fight his relatives for the sake of Krishna. For not to fight means the self is still entangled with the emotional affinity with his family and friends. This is a painful yet liberating renunciation. Arjuna has to kill his relatives, that is his cousins, his uncles, grandfathers, brothers-in-law, grandsons, sons-in-law, teachers, friends, etc.
The Gita opens with this challenge to Arjuna as chief warrior of the Pandavas: a call to battle. Arjuna undergoes a dilemma whether to fight or not. If he has to fight, it means slaughtering his own relatives, if he does not, it means he is disgraced because he disregards the call and duty for him to fight. Here Krishna, as the personification of God is giving counsel and enlightenment to Arjuna. Sri Krishna tells him that life should be viewed as comprehensive and integral. That even the particular considerations such as affinity with family, friendships, loyalty to clans, and cultural or traditional bond should be viewed in a wider perspective of life.
This broader view of life means seeing one’s role in the cycle of life, as the animation movie Lion King puts it. One’s role or duty to life should be always exercised -- it should relate and penetrate the whole of his life. This faithfulness to his duty is his enduring devotion to Krishna, for the do one’s dharma is a service and consecration of one’s life to God. It is emphasized how significant is one’s dharma to his liberation. "Doing one’s duty is more important than doing the duty of someone else, even the latter is done in a superior way" (Gita 3, 35).
Thus the "obligation to fight" is a "solemn religious duty." In Chapters I and II, this battle is described. But to see this in a more personal manner, Kurukshetra (the sacred battlefield) stands for the internal discord faced all human persons everywhere in the realm of spirit. It is a conflict of the different wills within us -- to follow one’s duty as a human being or not, to follow the call of God to be human or not. Chapters III to XVIII account for the manner and approaches that this "war" should be fought.
We can see here the clearer meaning of life as misery. It is misery in the context of human condition as having this discord, an internal conflict. It is a sign of man’s finitude. Yet that finitude which is viewed as misery can be an opportunity of overcoming. The fight should be fought no matter what, for it is the duty of every person to struggle over and against the temptation of the worldly sense and gratification.
To have a materialistic concept of life means to view life as "body" , as Ksetra, as PRAKRTI. It is also an outright disregard to the sense of transcendence of the spirit within the "body." Then life is reduced to physical and biological meaning -- as a plethora of chemical reactions and glandular emissions. Death of the body becomes a distress because life ends with the body. Krishna shows Arjuna that the PURUSA is not tied with body which it is entrapped. The body is born, it grows, develops, weakens, and dies. PURUSA is the witness of all those changes. To be able to discriminate these mutable things from the changeless PURUSA is an indication of having the knowledge of the divine.
The Gita, therefore, is a call to all human beings to their universal duty everywhere. And this duty is the faithfulness in the discharge of his obligations, whatever they may be. There are obstacles in doing one’s duty, but the Gita calls for a patient determination and devotion with a selfless action. The duty done with a self-forgetting service rather that self-seeking practice, with a spirit of disinterest on the fruitful outcome of the discharge of one’s duty is a manifestation of a sincere conviction from within. It is a service to God and neighbor dispassionately by casting of all selfish motives (Gita 2, 55). "The enemy is hard but has to be destroyed" (Gita 3, 43). The enemy is our own selfish desire which clouds our self in attaining the Light. It is an enemy that is hard to defeat yet can be overcome through devotion to Him. Thus, the misery is an opportunity to realize the true presence of God in doing dharma. It is the path towards liberation from Samsara, towards Krishna
