Summarized by: Sridhar.V
The class started off with our Omkar routine followed by prayers and Pranayama & meditation.
We did a recap from our last class where in verses 13,14 and 15 from Chapter 4 were discussed.
The verses 16,17 and 18 were chanted and the summary of the 3 shlokas are as below -
Verse 16: Lord Krishna says “What is action and what is inaction” and even the most learned person is confused in understanding the same. He further states that he will explain the secret of action post which a human being can get himself free from the bondage of material world.
Verse 17: Lord Krishna says that one needs to understand the meaning and nature of all three types of Action viz recommended action, forbidden action and Inaction. It is very hard to understand the truth about these 3 and difficult to comprehend.
Verse 18: Lord Krishna says that those who see action in inaction and inaction in action are truly wise amongst human beings. Although they perform actions all the time,,such people are yogis and master of all their actions.
Excerpts of verses 16,17 and 18:
Analysis:
Vasanas are the root cause for Desires which in turn triggers a Thought and ultimately resulting in an Action.
Actions can be classified further under 3 categories and we need to understand it:
1. Nithya Karma-Daily routines
2. Naimitya Karma- Obligatory Karma e.g software professional, pharma research guy doing his job; ,performing last rites for elders etc.
3. Vikarma means wrong action or forbidden action.
The result of performing an ACTION brings either a positive or negative KARMA baggage i.e either Paapa or Punya and a human being accumulates the same in his entire lifetime.
The result of INACTION is not accumulating any Karma baggage(neither positive or negative) and AKARMA(Inaction) cannot be equated with INERTNESS.
It is imperative that we know these three as only the human being has been blessed with a choice of action. Since we have the choice we must know how to choose wisely. The choice is between actions that take us to the highest state of Perfection and those that take us down to decline and moral decadence.
The secret to free ourselves from this material bondage is to accumulate only Punya and not Paapa and surrender the fruits to the LORD. This is the only way to nullify all KARMAS.
A person needs to experience action in inaction and inaction in action which is very difficult to comprehend even for a wise man since inaction cannot be equated with inertness(lack of action).
If we are objective, we cultivate saakshi bhava. On Realisation we become totally objective. Until then there are grades of objectivity. An actor on stage is a witness of all the happenings on stage, himself remaining untouched and unaffected. He plays his role brilliantly. He never forgets that he is the actor playing the role.ever
Transfer of credits or punya to another person is allowed- For e.g Gandhari; but to transfer Paapa or Sins to someone else, the receiver has to volunteer and then only it can happen.
As an analogy, we discussed the example of a Bank account closure where in a person needs to clear all his debts/payables before he can close the account but where as if a person has credit balance and doesn’t owe anything he can close his account irrespective.
We also discussed an example where in a thief keeps chanting “Rama Rama”(his sons name) at his deathbed and that prevented him from going to hell as this action helped moderate his sins as a thief.
The truth is that he didn’t go to heaven and had to take birth again in order to exhaust his paapa or debits.
We will continue with verses 19,20 and 21 from Chapter 4 in our next class.
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