Dear friends,
I was so struck by the practical wisdom of verse 47, chapter 18 of the Bhagavad Geeta this past weekend, I had to share; it’s really a handy tool to tidy up your thoughts and sort out your life. I am of course, eternally indebted to Swami Dheerananadaji for simplifying the Geeta for a bunch of us every weekend at the Chinmaya Mission Washington Regional Center.
Of Intellect, tossing and turning, and pillows
The discourse had me at hello when Swamiji talked about the agony of tossing and turning on the pillow at night, sleepless. Yes, I mentally exclaimed, I have had a fair share of that recently as we all do invariably ever so often in life. What’s up with that?
It's your dharma calling, silly, I learned.
In the Bhagavad Geeta world, the pillow tossing is reflective of your Intellect (the I from the BMI chart) having a field day criticizing you. Swamiji called it SIN or self-insulting actions of the Intellect. Sounds a tad strange, I know, but not when you understand that at the core of the Bhagavad Geeta is the concept of dharma, and not doing your dharma invariably agitates your Mind, and the Intellect goes all out to point that out to you. The Intellect in this instance reminded me of a mom chiding her teen to tidy up their room when they “gotcha” the child sitting in the messiest of rooms there could ever be.
Note that the word dharma itself is somewhat elusive in English, and translates as something like the law of your being.
So, when the Mind and Intellect are agitated and keep you awake at night, it’s because you have been indulging in selfish desires or vasanas and not following your innate law of being. Hence the SIN, also the word “sin” in the verse 47.
Do your dharma, stop the tossing
So, the way to stop the Intellect’s scolding and get back into the swing of things is to renew the focus on your law of being or your dharma.
The flip side is, if we fulfill our responsibilities daily—selflessly and without selfish desires—our mind will be peaceful, and the intellect has no opportunity to scold you.
After coming home from the discourse, I made a concerted effort to be more in the dharma zone and less in the zone of entertaining mental agonies. These mental dramas take you away from the practicalities of daily life and the core of who you are—the Divine Self. Part of my dharma is being a mom, wife, as well as a writer. I cleaned up the fridge, cooked, yes, folded laundry (yikes!), and ran some errands, and then sat down with my preferred zone of reading and writing work. It did help take the mind off the troubles and zeroed me into a more neutral space and gave me the added bonus of a feeling a sense of accomplishment addressing things that had gone ignored. I’d say the strategy created distance between me and the mental noise, re-aligned and re-engineered my inner self, and made me feel good.
As a result, I felt much like how a wobbly tire might feel after being inflated at last, at the gas pump.
Finding your dharma and swadharma
As you continue to do your dharma, says the verse, it is also important to note that you have to act in accordance with your own inborn taste or skills, the only thing guaranteed to keep you happy or feeling yourself in life. This is your swadharma, your own personal journey of feeling comfortable in your own skin doing what it is you like to and are meant to do. I have discussed this concept in a previous blog in detail (again, eternally grateful for the eloquence of Swami Chinmayandaji’s writings that helped my understanding and insights). A scientific researcher is not going to be happy doing the job of a factory manager—this would be paradharma or the wrong law of being. Similarly, a creative artist will wilt on the job of an event logistics coordinator, for the most part anyway.
In the epic Mahabharata, warrior Arjuna faced a similar dilemma when he, born to be a kshatriya or a warrior, found himself not wanting to fight in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Lord Krishna’s discourse with him convincing him to do his dharma while staying true to his swadharma and fighting the battle of good versus evil forms the essence of 18 chapters of the Bhagavad Geeta. Finding your swadharma is not easy, but an essential endeavor in life, best started early on, and blessed are the ones who figure out what it is they are meant for and meant to do in this universe.
The sought-after perch: A quiet and an alert mind, a vigilant intellect
So what’s the point of all this—doing your dharma, finding your swadharma? Yes, it lets you harbor better sleep, arguably, but what’s the higher purpose? Back to the verse 47, the Geeta explains that if you fulfill your duties in your chosen field of action, then you exhaust all your vasanas or desires, and the mind becomes less noisy and more contemplative.
This space of a quiet and an alert mind, coupled with a vigilant intellect, is the Vedanta’s highest vocation.
That’s because it’s only with a contemplative mind that that we can discover our true nature.
This is 100% true. Imagine trying to find yourself with a monkey mind screaming a million things at you and ignored duties around your home and in your life. That’s escapism. The true brilliance per the Geeta is in fulfilling your responsibilities in your chosen field of action and journeying closer to your Self and your innate nature while doing your dharma.
So, let’s do our dharma, get ourselves into a contemplative state, and discover the beauty of our own nature in the quietness that comes with it.
And as an added bonus, we will be SIN free.
Yours meaningfully,
Anu Prabhala
PS: Here’s verse 47, chapter 18 from the Bhagavad Geeta:
श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुण: परधर्मात्स्वनुष्ठितात् |
स्वभावनियतं कर्म कुर्वन्नाप्नोति किल्बिषम् || 47||
śhreyān swa-dharmo viguṇaḥ para-dharmāt sv-anuṣhṭhitāt
svabhāva-niyataṁ karma kurvan nāpnoti kilbiṣham
Here’s the translation:
It is better to do one’s own dharma, even though imperfectly, than to do another’s dharma, even though perfectly. By doing one’s innate duties, a person does not incur sin.
PPS: The Mananam series from the Chinmaya Mission are a wonderful start to exploring the teachings of the Geeta.
Very interesting, Anu. My version of this, I think, is this: I spent years looking for ways I could make some extra money, and the only one that made me feel happy and fulfilled was writing. At one point I was doing 7 jobs to keep a roof over my head. My wife told me to ditch all the other stuff apart from the main day job, and just write. She was absolutely right. I wanted to be a writer even when I was 8 years old.