ARANI SERIES
Spark 56
Friday, May 1, 2020
UNDERSTAND YOUR PSYCHOLOGY
Understanding is the key to change in behavior
It is no exaggeration to say that Bhagavad Geetā is a guide to psychology. The scripture helps us study our own (or others) behavior and troubleshoot in areas of problems.
One of the observations that Lord Shri Krishna makes is how we are generally filled with likes and dislikes when it comes to taking up the tasks before us. We would like to go on doing things that we like, even if they are less important. We would endlessly postpone such tasks that we do not like, even when they are important. A number of people, for example, are nowadays so attached to their gadgets and to watching videos on their mobile phones that they have no idea how many hours they remain glued to their handsets. They forget the promises they have made and many things remain pending in their ‘inbox’. In contrast, lots of people avoid doing any physical exercise though their heart knows it is important.
There was somebody who simply disliked physical exercise. He, all the same, became famous in some field of intellectual exertion. When they interviewed him and asked him why he never exercised, he said he did not like it. When they persisted and enquired if he did not know how necessary or important it was to maintain good health, he said, “I know. Many times my conscience would prick me, saying I should do some physical exercise at least for 30 minutes.” The interviewer said, “Then how did you manage that voice inside you?” This highly head-oriented fellow said, “At such times I would just lie flat on the ground. When that disturbing thought of having to do exercise would disappear, I would get up and get going with other work!”
The above is all right for humor but we generally pay a heavy price for not doing what needs to be done. Therefore it is important that we work on ourselves and overcome our likes and dislikes. We must stop our engagement with things that we are fond of, when our inner voice says ‘enough’. And we must persuade ourselves to get down to things, which our inner voice urges us to do.
Thus it is in the Geetā that we find a description1 of someone spiritually very mature, “He does not yield to any dislike towards duties nor does he get stuck with activities of his liking.” Shri Krishna praises such performance of work, which is without the foul smell of personal attachments or aversions2. The Upanishads on their part prescribe3 patient adherence to duties (karma) as a way to purify our minds, which then can attempt the rewarding engagement with wisdom studies (jnāna). When the mind is not pure enough, the study of Vedānta does not deliver the goods. Purity here is freedom from likes and dislikes.
We, therefore, have no way to escape. We must overcome our hidden prejudices. We must gain objectivity. We should have the right perception in the domain of work, to begin with, and graduate to the level where we may see rightly in the context of the supreme truth (paramārtha). Thus right seeing, without bias, is the very essence of mature living on both the lower plane of karma (action) and on the higher plane of jnāna (liberating wisdom).
Swāmi Chidānanda
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- Notes:
- 1 na dvesthi akushalam karma, kushale na anushajjate – Geetā 18.10.
- 2 niyatam sanga-rahitam arāga-dveshatah kritam – Geetā 18.23
- 3 kurvann-eva iha karmāni jijivishet – Ishāvāsya Upanishad, mantra 2
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