Chapter 5: Karma Sanyasa Yogam

In this chapter, Arjuna asks Krishna which is better, renunciation of action or performance of action?. Krishna responds both lead to higher bliss. But performing action is better.

Krishna explains the qualities that a human should attain to reach god.

-> Controlling his own senses and Renunciation

This is the most difficult part in any one’s life.

We struggle everyday to control our taste buds and tongue.

Why do we love to eat in restaurants, though we know it is not good for our health?

Why do we love eating a masala dosa in a restaurant more than what we make at home, in spite of knowing that it is loaded with butter/oil/ghee?

Why are we standing in a queue in front of a pani puri stall on the road side, despite having doubts about its cleanliness.

Why are we overeating, though we suffer from bloating by end of the day ?

Why is dieting so difficult?

[P.S : Everyday morning I tell myself that I won’t overeat today. I watch all cooking videos, start cooking and finally end up over eating. Some times because food is tasty, sometimes food is not tasty but I have to finish all the cooked food. ]

Why self control is very difficult for simple things like this our daily life ? It is because of our “Me, Myself, and I” attitude.

Why do we want to control our food habits? Mostly, because we want to lose weight, look good and maintain our health.

Let’s start thinking from a different perspective.

Why should we eat healthy ? Not for us, but for our family. Investing in our health is the best investment for our family’s future.

If you don’t take care of your health now, you are putting lots of stress on your kids when they are busily settling in their lives.

How many times did we regret not talking the right words?

We react too much and start uttering words which hurt our own spouse, not because we don’t love them nor that they are hurting us intentionally. This is just because we feel we were hurt and we try to recollect all the past incidents and imagine few future incidents. Most of the hatred comes from imagination.

If you think from their perspective and just remind to our own mind that we love them so much, so hurting them will just make us feel guilty in the end, don’t we stop uttering words.

Krishna sees renunciation not as the act of giving up all material belongings -- or shunning work, the family, material possessions -- but rather as renouncing the “Me, myself, and I” point of view, which is the source of all sorrow.

Just the thought of doing something for someone makes you powerful.

This reminds me a scene from a Telugu movie (Mahesh babu’s Khaleja) where hero stops a bike and asks for 10rs just like that, he won’t get the money. Later on when he stops another bike and asks for 10rs, the biker gives 100rs. Mahesh explains, before asking the second biker, he thought of buying milk to an orphan standing on the roadside if he gets that money. Putting some one or something ahead of you makes one divine.

Sacrifices can be as simple as putting your loved ones ahead of you. God gave us the gift of ability to sacrifice. With this sacrifice one will prosper.

If one understand the power of this simple sacrifice, he will become great leader. Teamwork is possible only with sacrifice.

Does this not explain you why you should help your co-worker first when he is stuck with something you can help, though you are busy with your own deliverables.

Most of us have this 360 degree feedback during our appraisal. This is a simple example of how we will prosper with this simple act of sacrifice.

Renunciation can be getting rid of clutter.

Clean up your closets. Most of us have at least a pile of clothes which we don’t even fit in. We save these thinking that one day we will lose weight so can wear those, but are we sure that this is going to happen? Even If it does, we will probably end up considering these as old fashioned. Its okay to buy new clothes but we shouldn’t forget to declutter old ones.

Just removal of unwanted emails in mailbox and unwanted papers on our desk gives us a big sigh relief so how peaceful we will become if we remove unwanted and unnecessary thought from our mind.

-> No Duality

We should try to treat all living beings equally.

If we don’t see any difference between mother/mother-in-law, daughter/daughter-in-law most of our family problems are solved. If we try to think from other person’s perspective most of the arguments end.

If we consider all of our colleagues as our partners not as competitors and just believe that we are only dedicated to raise the bar of the project/product and as long as we both work to the best of our ability, it doesn’t matter who gets promoted first. We will definitely prosper.

We can read/write so many good things but unless we practice, we will never benefit. We should get out of our comfort zone and try to practice what we read. It might not be easy but at least we can start doing one task every day by stepping out of our comfort zone.

-> Intent on the welfare of all beings

-> Free from desire, fear and anger