k Siva Prasad

Gita Acharan

(K Siva Prasad is an IAS officer and these writings can be accessed at anchor.fm /GitaAcharan and medium.com /@GitaAcharan).

Krishna says (2.41) in karma yoga, the buddhi (intellect) is coherent and the intellect of those who are irresolute is bahu-shakha (many-branched).

Krishna says (2.48 & 2.38) that samatva (equanimity) is yoga, which is the union of two polarities we face, like pleasure and pain; winning and losing; and profit and loss. Karma yoga is the path to transcend these polarities, which ultimately results in a coherent intellect. On the other hand, an imbalanced intellect robs us of our ‘peace of mind’.

Our general presumption is that ‘peace of mind’ automatically follows pleasure, winning and profit, but Krishna says that a coherent intellect brought about by the practice of karma yoga gives us peace of mind by helping us transcend polarities.

An irresolute intellect looks at different situations, outcomes and people differently. At our workplace, we apply one yardstick to people below us and another one to those above us in the hierarchy. Children do not develop ‘ samatva’ when they see different yardsticks being applied while facing different situations in the family where we have one set of rules for loved ones and another set for others.

In our daily lives, we are victims of shared myths like religion, caste, nationality, dogmas and the list goes on. They were put into our mind at an impressionable stage and they continue to divide us. We are impacted differently for two sides of each of these shared myths.

With irresolute intellect, we have one level of justification to judge our mistakes and another set of parameters for judging those of others. While seeking help and offering help, we wear different masks.

Krishna says that by following the path of Karma yoga, one attains a coherent intellect capable of ‘samatva,’ which is the foundation for peace of mind.

— The writer is a senior IAS officer in the Punjab Government.



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