Practicing restraint in Life and Bhagavad Gita

Restraint is an activity that distinguishes human beings from other creatures and objects.  Biologically, each living being is endowed with enormous freedom to act in order to survive and prosper.  Domination, occupation, manipulation and deceit are all acceptable modes to create strategy in operating one’s life.  While these are done rationally with internal justification, our inner heart can rebel against our selfish moves.  “self” is a peculiar human attribute that labels “right” and “wrong” through our individual perspective.

When do we know that our action could be “wrong”?  How quickly do we know?  How do we rationalize?  These are not easy questions to answer.  In the struggle for survival, an action takes place before discrimination.  We have a right to survive, and so, we feel that we have a right to eliminate anyone who we determine might block our survival.  The question is how far these rights go and where do they cease.  Can I draw water from another person’s well while I claim to be driven by my thirst?  What happens if I simply draw water when I see a well? 

While we say that the answers are difficult, they also might appear cultural.  Ethics in life are cultivated. They are not biological.  Ethics in Indian culture are enunciated as “restraint”, a basic foundation on which a society can develop.  As we see, the declaration of ethics is empirical and is a product of the social fabric such that we may live with mutual respect in harmonious relationship.  Empiricism comes in through long observations, where we notice that disrespectful and disharmonious attitude cause more pain that the local quenching of thirst by dipping into an arbitrary well.

The important difference between the cultural fundamentals of India compared to others in the world is the declaration that all actions are accountable to the entire universe and that nothing is done in isolation.  We are small objects thrown in the universe and we are constrained by the will of the universe than our individual will.  Our existence is a “belonging” to the universe than our own selfish motive to exert our will.  Restraint happens when we compromise to the universe on our will and acknowledge our existence more as a “blessing” than as a “right.”

In our normal life, it is not easy to see that we belong in the universe than to assume that the universe belongs to us.  Since we do not know the cause of our life or the cause of the universe, it is only necessary that we follow the rules of the universe than make up our own rules.  This could appear as a revelation first enunciated by Sri Krishna in a dialog with his friend and student Arjuna.  A revelation is not understood unless it is experienced.  Arjuna rightly says that the idea is too dense to comprehend. Sri Krishna helps explain the logic with analysis and instructions.  

Sri Krishna might be easily considered the greatest philosopher of whom we have some historical evidence.  It is not clear to project how he might have spread his ideas on the exploration of the human identity through meditation.  It is the declaration of the power of human mind and the enormous spiritual energy gained by orienting the mind inward.  In his language such empowerment is called “yoga”, where the individual blends out with the rest of the universe with equanimity to all. There is no “friend” nor there is any “enemy”, the “yogi” is even to all.

Sri Krishna would declare “Be a yogi to destroy your misery!”  The misery is the bondage of the human thought that our actions could be erratic.  We must unshackle ourselves from such bondage by taking the entire universe into consideration in every action we do. Can we succeed?  Sri Krishna would answer: “You won’t fail.  It may take time.”  So develops the Indian theory of reincarnation from Sri Krishna’s point of view.

We analyze these and more through the text of the Bhagavadgita in a Gitajayanti event scheduled for Sunday, December 11, 2016, at 5 PM in Sri Dwarkamai Vidyapeeth in Billerica, MA.    On behalf of the Gita readers and practitioners, I invite you to join us in the event.  You may carry your Bhagavadgita text to participate in the community chanting.

Let Sri Krishna bless all.

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