Desire is the root cause of all evil, said the Buddha. The concluding verses of the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita too emphasise the same. Sri Krishna tells Arjuna that all objects that are perceived by the five sense organs have the two qualities of attraction and repulsion rooted in them. For instance, take a mode of transport. “I like to go by car.” That is attraction. “I hate to go by a two-wheeler.” That is repulsion. Attraction and repulsion are basic to all objects, but their gradations may be soft or hard. If the human being wants to function in this world with a free mind, then the first of the two enemies that stand in the way of that freedom are these two polarities.
Krishna talks of Swadharma or doing one’s duty here in this very important verse. “Doing your own duty, even if it is not done properly, is better than doing someone else’s job well. Even if you happen to die doing your duty, you are blessed. The mind is saddled with fear when you do another’s job.”
What does one’s own duty mean here? Swadharma is a very complicated word, just as Dharma itself is. Swa means one’s own and dharma means many things like existence, rule of law and in this context, duty. By one’s own duty in this context, the meaning is not that of an engineer, doctor, lawyer etc. Everybody’s primary duty is to their own self — discovery of their true self. Arriving at the knowledge of, “Who am I?” is the primary duty of all and that has to be done well, whatever else one may do for a living — business, sports, teaching, art, craft or music.
Arjuna, the ever questioning one is saddled with another doubt here. “Why does man commit sins involuntarily, as if some force is driving him to do it?”
The ever patient Krishna answers, “The element of Rajas or the agitation of the mind is the cause for desire and it manifests as anger, if the object of desire is not fulfilled. Understand desire to be your enemy that covers knowledge of the self, just as smoke covers fire and dust covers a mirror. It is also an insatiable force that keeps kindling itself.”
In a rather subtle scientific approach, Sri Krishna says that desire sits comfortably in the cushion of the sense organs, mind and the intellect. It hides the light of truth, through these three means and deludes the human being from knowing his self.
The foremost duty of an individual or rather the Swadharma is to control the sense organs and then vanquish this evil force of desire which obstructs both Gnana or the supreme truth within, and Vignana or the manifest divinity without.
The body is the lowest in the order of power. Then come the sense organs. The mind is more powerful. The intellect is greater than the mind and the biggest of all is the self, which is the essence of everyone’s being. So Sri Krishna tells
Arjuna to know this truth that the self is the greatest and subdue the mind with reason and kill the enemy of desire, which is the most difficult to vanquish.
The essence of the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita hence begins with the need for everybody, whether enlightened or not, to continue to do action and set an example to the others in the world and vanquish desire which covers the intellect and hides the mind from knowing the supreme essence of your own self.
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