Summary:

Chapter 2, Verse 38: The verse outlines three universal criteria for decision-making: sukha-duhkha (pursuit of happiness/avoiding pain), labha-alabha (seeking highest gain), and jaya-ajaya (desire for victory). However, these alone are insufficient and must be guided by samanya-dharma (consideration of others' wellbeing). This prevents two extremes: excessive self-sacrifice and complete self-interest. 

Chapter 2, Verse 39: BG addresses two sides of a seeker: Sankhya (self-knowledge) and Yoga (practical application of the knowledge, right living and purifying the mind). Sankhya covers understanding of jiva (individual), jagat (world), and Ishvara (cause of universe). Yoga provides preparation for assimilating this knowledge through karma-yoga, which transforms daily duties into spiritual practice through mind purification. 

Chapter 2, Verse 40: Karma-yoga redefines what it means to be “spiritual” and what it means to be “successful”. Being spiritual means being a contributor, an engaged and enthusiastic participant in this world. Being successful means seeing life as a learning-platform, using each challenge as opportunity to help you evolve and recognize Oneness. 

Revision:

In Verse 37, Krishna said to Arjuna, “Get up and do your duty”, because Atma is free of your body-mind.

Whether you’ve actualized the knowledge or it’s a growing clarity:

1. You still have to live with laws of universe of destruction, thereby having composure towards dear things that leave, as everything undergoes 6 stages (exists, born, grows… dies), and…
2. Get clear about your roles and do it responsibly.

However while doing your role, you may get hurt or hurt another in the process. When you feel hurt, how to distinguish between responding factually or from hurt-ego to get them back?

You can respond to others' criticism through Non-Violent Communication Model (by Marshall Rosenberg)

• 4 Step Process of NVC:
  1. Observation (specific behaviour)
  2. Feeling (without blame)
  3. Need (personal, not demanding)
  4. Request (collaborative, not commanding)
• Example: “I notice dishes have been in the sink for three days. I feel overwhelmed. What I need is shared responsibility. Would you be willing to discuss how we can manage household tasks together?”

Ensure you're not responding from one of these most common 13 unhealthy thinking patterns (comes from CBT Psychological model):

1. All-or-nothing thinking: Thinking in absolutes with no middle ground. Either black or white, all good or all bad, best or worst, perfect or a failure. EG: “If I'm not at the top of my class, I'm a failure.”
2. Discounting positives: Claiming the positive things you or others do, don't matter. EG: “My boss complimented me on my presentation today — it must have been a fluke.”
3. Unfair comparisons: Comparing yourself to unrealistic standards and focusing on people that are “better.” EG: “Look at all those posts, her life is so much more exciting than mine.”
4. Mind reading: Assuming that you know what other people are thinking without evidence. EG: “He didn't talk at all today so he must be angry with me.”
5. Should statements: Self-imposed or society-imposed rules you haven't taken time to investigate or question. EG: “I should never make mistakes, I shouldn't be angry, etc”
6. Fortunetelling: Thinking that you can predict the future and that it is bad. EG: “This is never going to work.”
7. Labeling: Assigning negative traits to yourself or others. Extreme overgeneralizing. EG: “I am a loser who can't do anything right.”
8. Catastrophizing: Interpreting or expecting events to be the worst-case scenario. EG: “He's late from his flight. His plane must have crashed.”
9. Negative filtering: Focusing only on the negatives, filtering out the positives. EG: “This entire day has been awful and nothing good happened.
10. Self blame: Taking responsibility for things out of your control. EG: “It was all my fault that my relationship ended.”
11. Blaming others: Transferring responsibility onto external events/situations/people. EG: “My parents cause all my problems.”
12. Overgeneralizing: Drawing conclusions based on past events. EG: “I was betrayed by a friend so I can't trust anyone anymore.”
13. Emotional reasoning: Going by “gut feeling” without further investigation. EG: “I feel like I am a bad friend, therefore I must be a bad friend.”

Other unhealthy responses responses to watch out for:

1. Imagining hurting them: Are you imagining how you’ll walk up to them and prove your worth/power, or
2. Teach them a lesson,
3. Revenge: Telling everyone how unreliable that person is. 
4. Emotions feel urgent and demanding: “You MUST respond to me RIGHT NOW!”

How to handle others' Criticism towards your efforts and duty?

Turn anyone’s critical statement into opportunity to relook at yourself and improve. Discard their harsh/unpleasant delivery.

NEXT VERSE: Having addressed some negative patterns we may show during our duty fulfillment, by what criteria do you handle conflicts and make decisions?

BHAGAVAD GITA, CHAPTER 2, VERSE 38:
Three criteria that motivates you into into action…

सुख-दुःखे समे कृत्वा लाभ-अलाभौ जय-अजयौ ।
ततः युद्धाय युज्यस्व न एवम् पापम् अवाप्स्यसि ॥ २-३८॥
sukha-duḥkhe same kṛtvā lābha-alābhau jaya-ajayau ।
tataḥ yuddhāya yujyasva na evam pāpam avāpsyasi ॥ 2-38॥

Taking pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat to be the same, prepare for battle. Thus, you will gain no sin.

What is universal criteria for making decisions?

1. Sukha duhkha: I want to see myself happy, and avoid unhappiness.
2. Labha alabha: What will give me the highest gain.
3. Jaya ajaya: I want to be victorious.

But even if your duty leads to unhappiness, low gains and brings hardship — even then it's coming from the impersonal and unbiased laws, in which case turn to solution-mode rather then complaining. Remember, four outcomes are possible in any situation: Got exactly as you wanted. Got more then expected. Less then expected. Opposite to expected. Even a saint is subject to four types of outcomes despite their saintly actions.

When making decisions – one more criteria is needed: Appropriateness of action (Samanya-Dharma):

Did Duryodhana use the three criteria above to make decisions? Yes. Everyone does to maximize happiness, enjoy maximum gains and be victorious. Thus it’s insufficient as it gives license to sin. Thus they need to be guided by Samanya-Dharma — I don’t want to be hurt, and others don’t want to be hurt.

Samanya-dharma avoids 2 common extremes:

1. Excessively concerned about serving others, while losing sight of your own needs.
2. Being unconcerned about results, doing whatever pleases.

Krishna isn’t asking us to give up happiness, having concern for highest gains, and being victorious in our decision making. He is reminding us to ensure actions don’t cause harm onto yourself and others. Avoid the two extremes mentioned above. Look at the big picture, the long term impact.

NEXT VERSE: Krishna shows us how to turn our duty into a spiritual practice, so it has double-benefits…

Karma-Yoga

BHAGAVAD GITA, CHAPTER 2, VERSE 39:
Bhagavad Gita satisfies two sides of a seeker…

एषा ते अभिहिता साङ्ख्ये बुद्धिः योगे तु इमाम् शृणु ।
बुद्ध्या युक्तः यया पार्थ कर्म-बन्धम् प्रहास्यसि ॥ २-३९॥
eṣā te abhihitā sāṅkhye buddhiḥ yoge tu imām śṛṇu ।
buddhyā yuktaḥ yayā pārtha karma-bandham prahāsyasi ॥ 2-39॥

This wisdom with reference to self-knowledge has so far been told to you. Now, Pārtha (Arjuna)! listen also to the wisdom of yoga, endowed with which you will get rid of the bondage of action.

Bhagavad Gita is divided into 2 topics — satisfying two sides of every seeker:

1. Sāṅkhya (Self-knowledge – Shows the big vision):
   1. Jiva [who are you, what are you supposed to do while living, why have you come].
      • Jiva’s intrinsic nature: V11-30.
      • Jiva’s duty: V31-38 (involves Svadharma guided by Samanya-dharma)
   2. Jagat [what is nature of the world with whom I need to interact, and make it purposeful],
   3. Ishvara [what created this world within which actions take place, Cause of the universe].
2. Yoga:
   1. Gives you the preparation needed to capture the big picture, to assimilate sankhya. Speaks about dealing with life challenges, and how to incorporate the Vedantic vision into modern life.
   2. Through karma-yoga, the world becomes a place to cultivate values, strength, sharpen your intellect. It’s no longer a place of complaining.
   3. Krishna says, if you begin to follow karma-yoga, ultimately it’ll liberate you by dissolving ignorance (ajñāna) and sense of doership (kartṛtva). Because when performing nitya-karmas (daily duties), Karma-Yoga converts each challenge into an opportunity to get your act together, refining up your thinking.
   4. This attitude transforms ordinary actions into yoga (spiritual practice). The bases of karma-yoga is Antaḥ-karaṇa-śuddhi (mind purification).

NEXT VERSE: Krishna praises Karma-yoga…

BHAGAVAD GITA, CHAPTER 2, VERSE 40:
Krishna praises Karma-Yoga (calls it Buddhi-yoga in this verse)

न इह अभिक्रम-नाशः अस्ति प्रत्यवायः न विद्यते ।
स्वल्पम् अपि अस्य धर्मस्य त्रायते महतः भयात् ॥ २-४०॥
na iha abhikrama-nāśaḥ asti pratyavāyaḥ na vidyate ।
svalpam api asya dharmasya trāyate mahataḥ bhayāt ॥ 2-40॥

In this, there is no waste of effort, nor are the opposite results produced. Even very little of this karma-yoga protects one from great fear.

Benefits of Karma-Yoga:

Krishna says there’s no failure possible once you take to karma-yoga (buddhi-yoga). Fear/sadness/temperament will disappear through time. You’ll become active, enthusiastic, engaging human being because Karma-Yoga makes it impossible to fail in life, because definition of “success” is redefined…

Karma-yoga redefines 2 things…

What a “spiritual person” means:

• One goes from disinterested, disenchanted, desireless, passive state — to an engaged and curious contributor who recognizes life-purpose is to evolve and ultimately recognize oneness with Ishvara.

What “success” means:

Firstly, what is distorted definition of success?

• I get what I want most of the time. Spiritual experiences. People/world should behave as I want it. My agenda is satisfied most of the time. Etc. It's even prevalent in pop-culture such as in Beetles song “Imagine” — while optimistic, it’s unrealistic and utopian dream where we’re all living in a world of peace, no wars, and everyone is getting along. Thus kind of “success” is unattainable.
• If these are definitions of “success”, then no one is truly successful, as agenda hardly gets satisfied, and tomorrow is a surprise. 

Meaning you have to change definition of success…

Instead of trying to get things your way, no matter what comes to me, let me learn something from it so I continue to evolve. That way nothing is a waste of effort. In karma-yoga, life is seen as a learning platform for one goal, recognizing your unity with Ishvara. 

So Karma-Yoga redefines meaning and purpose of life. This way your actions and duties remain the same, but they're seen as a means to an end.

Redefining meaning or purpose of life is wonderfully illustrated in book called “Man’s search for meaning”:

 Viktor Frankl's experience in Nazi concentration camps illustrates what is means to redefine success. As a prisoner, he was a psychiatrist in Auschwitz. He observed that survival or will to live wasn't determined by physical strength or better circumstances, but by one's mental attitude and ability to find meaning in suffering (or duty).

He noticed that prisoners who maintained a sense of purpose (whether reuniting with loved ones, completing unfinished work, or helping others) – had higher survival rates than those who couldn't find meaning in their circumstances.

Frankl himself survived by transforming his horrific circumstances into a laboratory for understanding human resilience. Shows “success” isn't about controlling external circumstances (because they’re hardly in your favour), but about finding growth opportunities in whatever situation life presents.

Even a little (svalpa) of Karma-Yoga protects you from disappointment:

Even if you decide to learn from every situation from now on, you’ll go back to old responses. Because repairing a bruised self-image and learning to relook at the world through Krishna's eyes, takes time.

When you derail, bring your mind back in whatever capacity possible. No matter how little your efforts are, they have a compounding effect.  

Story illustrates how even a little is useful…

Father asked son to fetch bucket of water from well. Bucket had hole. Leaked upon returned. Went again. Leaked again. Son got discouraged. Father said, it’s fine, at least we have half a bucket and you’ve cleaned the bucket in the process. Meaning there’s always some benefit you’re not aware of.

NEXT VERSE: Krishna specifies what turns you from ordinary person doing actions, into a Karma-Yogi is having vyavasāyātmikā buddhi…

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Course was based on Swami Dayananda (Arsha Vidya) home study course.

Recorded 8 Dec, 2024