The End of Sorrow

by Eknath Easwaran

  44. Those whose minds are swept away by the pursuit of pleasure and power are incapable of following the supreme goal and will not attain samadhi.

  One of the beauties of the Bhagavad Gita is that it does not say “You should do this” or “You should not do that.” Sri Krishna simply says that if you want joy, security, wisdom, then this is the path. If you want sorrow, insecurity, and despair, then that is the path. He gives both the maps in graphic detail, and tells you that it is for you to decide where you want to go.

  In these strong verses Sri Krishna describes those who will not see samadhi. Those who say there is nothing other than this world, who say there is no God, no other life than eating, drinking, making merry, and dying – such people will not attain samadhi. When people say they are atheists, I usually feel a little amused, because even to say that one is an atheist requires a definite experience. In order to say that there is no one in our deeper consciousness, we have to go there, knock on the door, and find that no one is at home. Of those who tell me they are atheists, I ask, “Don’t you believe in yourself?” Their answer is, “Of course.” “Then,” I say, “you believe in God.” When the Gita uses the terms “God” or “Lord,” ishvara or Bhagavan, it is not referring to someone “out there.” It is referring to someone who is inside us all the time, who is nearer to us than our body, dearer to us than our life.

  When our heart is full of selfish desires and sense cravings, we cannot see the underlying principle of existence which is divine. This is the significance of the word kamatmanah, ‘one whose soul is clouded over by selfish desires.’ Ramakrishna was fond of saying that Rama, the principle of abiding joy, and Kama, selfish desire, cannot live together. This is difficult for most of us to understand because we usually feel that even if Rama has to be brought in, Kama can be given a little closet, or some little corner with a drapery so that he isn’t visible. Every mystic worth the name says it must be Rama or Kama; we cannot have both together. Here, too, we have to be prepared for a long period of development before Kama finally packs up his belongings and leaves without any forwarding address. Let us not get agitated if, after a long time on the spiritual path, we still feel some of our old cravings. As our spiritual awareness deepens, we will come not to identify ourselves with those desires. Then a big desire may come and crawl like a rat across the stage of our consciousness, but we will just calmly sit and watch. It is when we identify with the desire that there is trouble. For a long period, I would suggest that when old desires and urges come, when the old samskaras come into play, the very best way to deal with them is to go for a long, brisk walk repeating the mantram.

  45. The scriptures describe the three gunas. But you should be free from the action of the gunas, established in eternal truth, self-controlled, without any sense of duality or the desire to acquire and keep.

  It is difficult to translate the word guna; the English word “quality” is only a rough equivalent. According to the cosmological theory presented in the Gita, everything in the universe is a combination of the three gunas – sattva, rajas, and tamas – in varying proportions. We human beings, also, are considered to be varying combinations of sattva, ‘law’; rajas, ‘energy’; and tamas, ‘inertia.’ Evolution is from tamas to rajas to sattva. This far-reaching concept not only accounts for the way in which human beings conduct themselves in daily life, but also gives guidelines as to how we can proceed on the path of evolution by transforming tamas into rajas and rajas into sattva.

  Let us first take our good old companion tamas, inertia. Tamas shows itself in not wanting to move, not wanting to act – in other words, in wanting to be a stone just lying on the road. It is all right for a stone to be inert; that is its dharma. But it is not all right for you and me to be inert, to try to avoid problems, to say, “What does it matter?” When I hear the phrase “well adjusted,” I do not always take it as a favorable comment. Mahatma Gandhi has said that to be well adjusted in a wrong situation is very bad; in a wrong situation we should keep on acting to set it right. When Gandhi, at the peak of his political activity, was asked in a British court what his profession was, he said, “Resister.” If he was put in a wrong situation, he just could not keep quiet; he had to resist, nonviolently but very effectively, until the situation was set right.

  In order to transform tamas into rajas there is a series of simple steps we can all take in our daily life. Postponement is one of the valuable allies of tamas. One of the ways to tackle inertia and expedite its transformation into rajas is never to delay anything. “Immediately” is one of the favorite words of the mystics, who live completely in the present. Jesus often used the word “forthwith.”

  Concentration is perhaps the most effective way of transforming tamas into rajas. Those who have a tangible element of tamas can work only for a little while. Even if they are enthusiastic, they will begin work with gusto, but at the end of thirty minutes their morale collapses. They often complain they are bored. The answer to boredom is to give a little more attention to what we are doing; any job, the moment we attend to it completely, becomes interesting. If a job bores us, we should not yield to tamas, but should give more attention to our work and try to increase our span of concentration. This not only helps us get over tamas, but helps our meditation as well.

  The transformation of rajas into sattva is not extraordinary either, for all of us have an element of sattva in us. We all have this capacity for some degree of forgiveness and friendship in our relationships. It is already there; we just have to extend it slowly to include a wider and wider circle. There is no human being who does not have an element of tamas, and there is none who does not have an element of sattva. As tamas becomes transformed into rajas, particularly as our meditation deepens, there is more and more energy available to us; there is more capacity for productivity, for action, and for service. We must harness this newly released energy in order to transform it into sattva. One reason why I emphasize that we should have plenty of physical exercise, and should work at our job or studies with concentration, is that this enables us to harness all this energy. If we meditate regularly but do not take regular exercise, do not work at a suitable job, and do not give at least some of our time to selfless service without thought of return, there is a possibility that this energy may become too much for us.

  Though there is a vital need for hard work, we should take care in our fast-paced modern world to see that we do not get caught in work. This is one of the real dangers against which we should be on guard. There are people who become victims of work, who carry their work from their office or campus into their living room, then into the dining room while they eat, and then into the bedroom to dream about in their sleep. We should do our work with concentration and yet be able to drop it with complete detachment at a minute’s notice. This frees us from tension and enables us to give our very best.

  The characteristics of the man established in sattva are calmness, compassion, and complete fearlessness. When the mind is agitated, judgment is likely to be clouded; therefore the Gita says we should never undertake any action when angry or afraid. Such action is not likely to be correct or effective. Any time our mind is agitated, the repetition of the mantram is a great help in calming our agitation, and when the mind is calm, judgment is clear. Another characteristic of sattva is the capacity to forgive. Most of us perhaps are not even dimly aware of how, under the surface level of consciousness, old resentments keep burning, old hostilities keep flaming up. A sudden agitation, or a sudden depression, is often caused by old resentments which we still harbor in the depths of our consciousness. We cannot learn to forgive by reading books about forgiveness. I once saw a big book entitled The Dynamics of Forgiveness, and I could not help wondering what the author would have done to me if I had written a strong review against it. He probably would have come to the Center and given me a piece of his mind. Writing books about forgiveness, reading about forgiveness, and talking about forgiveness do not enable us to forgive. When we rely upon our ow
n capacities, I do not think it is easy for us to forgive, but when we repeat the mantram, the Holy Name, we are calling upon the Lord to help us transform all our resentments into love. Finally Sri Krishna concludes that it is not enough if we transform tamas into rajas and rajas into sattva; we must go beyond sattva also. Going beyond the three gunas means going beyond time, space, and causality – going beyond death into eternity, immortality, and infinity, here and now.

  46. Just as a reservoir is of little use to people when the country is flooded all around, so the scriptures are of little use to the illumined man or woman, who sees the Lord everywhere.

  When the whole countryside is flooded, as it is during the monsoon in my native state of Kerala, where is the need for a little reservoir to get water from? In the villages of India, during the heavy monsoon period, all the tanks, pools, rivers, and wells are filled up with water. But as the summer sets in, wells begin to dry up; tanks and pools dry up, and people in the village have to walk long distances to the river to have their baths and fetch water. In the dry season not even a bucketful of water is wasted.

  As long as the living waters of spiritual awareness are not flowing all the time within, you have to get little pots of water from outside. This evening you bring a little pot here to meditation class, and take it home full. By tomorrow the pot is empty, and you have to come again in the evening to see that it is filled up once more. Now all this is necessary, but when the living fountain from within bursts forth, when the love of the Lord who is ever present within wells up, why would you want pots? Why would a person want pools who is in the midst of the limitless sea of love? At that time, you do not need to meditate; you do not need the scriptures. You do not need to repeat the mantram, because it will go on in your consciousness ceaselessly. This is the great ideal to be attained; but for the present we must be regular about our meditation, repeat the mantram regularly, restrain our senses discriminatingly, and be careful to put the welfare of others first.

  47. You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of rewards, nor should you long for inaction.

  “You have only the right to act; you have no right to the fruit thereof.” This line is often quoted by people who do not want to act, who get overpowered by circumstances and say, “What is the use? Everything is going to the dogs.” But Sri Krishna is really trying to tell us here, “If you throw yourself heart and soul into a selfless undertaking, using the right means, the purest means that are available to you, I’ll be responsible for the outcome.” We all have to use our judgment, weighing the pros and cons before we select a selfless goal, assessing our capacity thoughtfully, and then selecting the right means. According to the great mystics, wrong means can never bring about a right end and right means can never fail to bring about a right end. This is why Gandhi has said, “Full effort is full victory.”

  Gandhi followed the path of karma yoga or selfless service, which requires the capacity to be perfectly detached from results and undaunted by reverses. When he returned to India from South Africa in 1915, the country had been in political bondage for nearly two hundred years, and nobody believed him when he said that through the grace of the Lord he could lead us to freedom without firing a shot, without using any means of violence. Everywhere he went, he identified himself with the people. He woke them from their long stupor, and within a little more than three decades, a very short period for a nation, the country became politically independent because of the tremendous capacity of nonviolence to win respect and cooperation even in Britain.

  Gandhi was subject to the severest criticism, not only in foreign countries but in India as well. Composite photographs and scandalous stories were published in the papers. It is a painful experience when those who have supported us turn against us. Very few can remain calm and considerate when the crowd is crying for their downfall. This happened many times to Gandhi, and I do not remember even one occasion when he lost confidence in himself or in the final goal. At the same time he was very firm, saying, in effect, “If you are not prepared to be nonviolent, I do not want to have anything to do with you.” He was prepared to wage the fight alone, because he knew that the Lord would use him as a humble instrument if he used right means for attaining a right goal.

  The second line warns us not to interpret Sri Krishna’s words as a counsel for inaction. There is sometimes a dangerous tendency in the contemplative life to withdraw, to retire into our ivory tower, to ignore the tremendous need for all of us to contribute selflessly to solve the problems of the world. Every one of us has a debt to pay in life, and anyone who drops out of society, who turns his back on the problems of the world, is incapable of leading the spiritual life. The Gita is a forceful call to action – but to action in which the right goal is pursued by the right means.

  48. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself – without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.

  Here Sri Krishna defines yoga in a single word, samatvam: ‘to be equal,’ to be completely serene. This is yoga. The man established in yoga, the illumined man, is equally loving to those who support him and to those who attack him, equally concerned about the welfare of all around him, regardless of their attitude and actions. Besides my Granny, the one person I have seen in life who never allowed himself to be shaken by the attacks of unfavorable circumstances was Mahatma Gandhi, who is a source of inspiration as to how you and I can free ourselves from dependence upon public applause and appreciation. Following Gandhi’s example we can develop such calmness and such confidence in the Atman that during reversals of fortune, which will inevitably come to all of us, we can maintain our equanimity and tranquility. We do not need any external support because we are complete in ourselves. We need not be downcast when people withdraw their support, or even attack us, because we can draw upon the Lord within to face any challenge.

  Sri Krishna tells Arjuna, Yogasthah kuru karmani: “First become established within yourself, be united with Me; then begin a career of selfless service.” Do not be intimidated by heavy odds, by changing winds of fortune, or by the vacillations of people. Sangam tyaktva: do not worry about the results, thinking, will this come about? How long will it take? Will the results be delayed? Do not be anxious about all this because you have nothing to do with results. This is the secret of Gandhi, who embodies the ideal of karma yoga for the twentieth century. From the Gita he learned to throw himself into an undertaking for a selfless goal, to use right means, and never to be anxious about the results.

  Sri Krishna says siddhyasiddhyoh: be alike in victory and defeat. What does it matter if you have won temporarily, or have been defeated temporarily? When victory comes, do not get elated; do not let the ego get inflated; do not go about saying, “I have won; I have defeated my opposition.” Instead, remain calm, remain considerate, and remember that the Lord has given you victory. When defeat comes, do not moan, but grit your teeth and increase your effort, using right means to attain a selfless goal. This is yoga; this is the spiritual life: being alike in pain and pleasure, victory and defeat, praise and censure.

  The Gita is a call for enthusiastic, selfless action. Sri Krishna impresses upon us that by practicing meditation daily, by repeating the mantram daily, we too can learn to establish ourselves within Him and then throw ourselves into tireless service for our family, community, country, and world.

  49. Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of spiritual awareness. The man who is motivated only by desire for the fruits of his action, and anxious about the results, is miserable indeed.

  “Miserable” is the word used here to describe people who are caught in results. Such people do not have any peace of mind; they are consumed with the anxiety, “Am I going to fail? Am I going to succeed?” They begin to use unscrupulous means once they become afraid of not achieving the results they desire. Sri Krishna tells us through Arjuna: “
Whatever you do, therefore, do not get caught in the result. That is for Me to give; as long as you use right means and strive for a selfless goal, you can be sure that I shall give you the right results.”

  Even after we have selected a selfless goal and the right means, and have thrown ourselves into the endeavor, we have to free ourselves from anxiety about the results, which is the most difficult part of the discipline for all of us. If I may take an example from our own work, when I started looking for an ashram over ten years ago, I could not help being somewhat entangled in the results. Now, through long, strenuous years of detaching myself, and through the hard discipline of reminding myself that the results are not in my hands, that the world does not belong to me, that not even a leaf of the tree in the back yard belongs to me, I have been relieved of all anxiety and agitation. Today I take a great deal of interest in finding a suitable ashram – read the papers, underline the property that is likely to be of interest to us, go to these places and ask, “What is the temperature like? Do many motorcycles come this way?” I do everything possible to further our work, but I do not get at all apprehensive. I do not get at all anxious about the results because I know these are in the hands of the Lord, and it is for him, who knows our needs and our difficulties, to give us the right place at the right time. This is detachment: throwing oneself completely into selfless work, and yet knowing the results are always in the hands of the Lord.

  50. When consciousness is unified, all vain anxiety is left behind. There is no cause for worry, whether actions proceed well or ill. Therefore, devote yourself to the disciplines of yoga, for yoga is skill in action.

  “Yoga is skill in action.” When we become detached from results and work hard without thought of profit or prestige, deeper resources come to us. We see our way clearly; we do not waver when difficulties come. Selfish motives hide our goal, for when we are attached to results, when we are worried about the outcome, we do not see the goal; we see only the opposition and the obstacles before us. Most of the time we just do not know what to do when caught in a wrong situation in which we should not rest content. Feeling unequal to the difficult circumstances, we become resigned. But no matter how complicated and explosive the situation may be, there is always something we can do. Many small people working together can take on even the biggest problem of our age – violence. Sri Krishna repeats over and over again, “Do not get caught in the results. I am in you; therefore keep on striving, and at the right time I shall give you victory.”