Sankhya Yoga 2.11

 The beginning of Gita

श्रीभगवानुवाच |

अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे |

गतासूनगतासूंश्च नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिता: || 11||

śhrī bhagavān uvācha

aśhochyān-anvaśhochas-tvaṁ prajñā-vādānśh cha bhāṣhase

gatāsūn-agatāsūnśh-cha nānuśhochanti paṇḍitāḥ

śhrī-bhagavān uvācha—the Supreme Lord said; aśhochyān—not worthy of grief; anvaśhochaḥ—are mourning; tvam—you; prajñā-vādān—words of wisdom; cha—and; bhāṣhase—speaking; gata āsūn—the dead; agata asūn—the living; cha—and; na—never; anuśhochanti—lament; paṇḍitāḥ—the wise

The Supreme Lord said: While you speak words of wisdom, you are mourning for that which is not worthy of grief. The wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.

Krishna starts his teaching from this sloka. Hence this sloka is called upakrama sloka. The tradition of vedantic teaching is to provide the essence of the teaching in the beginning sloka itself. In this sloka too, the essence of Bhagavad Gita is given.

Panda means atma jnana (self knowledge). Pandita means people who have self knowledge. Krishna says pandita na anu shochanti - Wise do not grieve. This indirectly means only ignorant people grieve. Hence the journey of self knowledge is given in the following manner.

Wise don’t grieve ----> only ignorant people grieve ----> Hence the reason for sorrow is ignorance of one’s self-----> removal of sorrow is achieved by the removal of ignorance of one’s self. Hence the essence of teaching is shoka nivritti (removal of sorrow) by imparting self knowledge. Here the sadhyam (goal) is removal of sorrow. Sadhanam (instrument) is self knowledge.

What is the reason for grief or sorrow?
Is death in itself a cause for grief? Or the thinking that the one who has deceased is somehow related to me brings about grief? Bondage comes from the attitude that this is me or mine in a situation. This is called memind syndrome. Hence in order to remove someone’s grief, we do not require them to change the situation. If one changes the attitude that I am related to that situation or the things which are related to that situation are mine, the very attitude itself removes the sorrow.

Let us analyze if atma (the self) is the cause of grief or the anatma (the things apart from the self). If atma is the cause of grief then one need not bother removing grief. If atma’s nature is grief, it must be unalterable, for it is its nature. It is better to leave it alone. If jumping from one branch to another is a monkey’s nature, then we should just let nature be. We can not possibly do anything about changing it. Therefore if atma is the reason for sorrow, then that fact would not be a problem for one.

Is anatma the cause of sorrow? Anatma means anything living or inanimate apart from the self. If one or few of them become the cause of suffering, it is due to my validation of those things as mine. Only things that I consider mine can give me grieve if they are lost or damaged. The thinking mine (mamakaram) stems from the thinking that I am of a certain nature. So in order to remove sorrow one needs to do atma anatma vichara (an enquiry into self and non-self). This is the theme of Bhagavad Gita.

Who Am I?

By nature, every living being in this world has a mistaken identification about the nature of their Self. Every human being is born with ignorance about one’s own nature. The ignorance about the self has no beginning but it has an end. Ignorance once removed will never return. 

The result of ignorance is superimposition (adhyasa). For example, in the dim light, we look at something and are scared as though it is a snake, while in reality it is only a rope. We superimpose the non existent snake on the existing rope due to the dim light. In the same way, due to ignorance of the self, we superimpose the I on things that are not the self and suffer because of  wrong identification. The vedantic teaching removes this wrong identification and enables the seeker to rest his identification on his true self.  The job of vedanta is not to change situations, but change one’s attitude towards the situation. 

The foundation of yoga

The first step for yoga is indirectly taught here. Krishna says Arjuna talks like a wise man while suffering and complaining like an ignorant person. Many of us too do this mistake. We say one thing, feel something else while doing an entirely different thing. Yoga is the unity of thought, word and action. It is the duty of a seeker to keep all these three in one straight line. If this unity does not happen, then one’s energy is scattered in different directions. Hence One should start practicing the yoga of keeping one’s thoughts, actions and words in unison. Only then he attains the spiritual strength to pursue self knowledge.

Krishna says nothing in this world is worthy of grief, not even the dead, nor the living. He says wise don’t grieve. For anything. Hence it leads one to conclude that whoever grieves is not wise, but ignorant. He will be curious to know the nature of this ignorance and the ways in which one can become wise. Krishna answers these questions in the subsequent slokas. In fact, the entire Bhagavad Gita speaks exclusively about the qualifications, the path to self realization and the benefits of self realization.