What Are The Elements That In Our Action?

In this week, I read the Sanskrit poem Bhagavad-Gita, also known as the Song of the Lord.  This poem contains great philosophical ideas that are so endurable, powerful and it has influenced Indian society for thousands of years.  There are many of the philosophical perspectives within this poem, such as the rule of reincarnation, the rigid of the reincarnation order, discipline and duty etc.  However, among all those fascinating perspectives, the one towards to humans’ actions, which in The Second Teaching, from section 47 to 51 (Krishna’s words to Arjuna, trying to persuade him to fight), is interesting, critical and that idea is free from the religion in my point of view.

 In section 47, it initially states that our actions should not bind with the consequences, and in the ensuing section 48, it complements that rather than focusing on the consequences, our actions should follow the discipline. The discipline is the neutral balanced manner between failure and success.  Section 49 to 50 basically describes that men become pitiful if their motives of the action are influenced by the consequences, instead of from their understanding of the discipline (it is neither failure and success, nor good and evil). In order to do that, they need to be rational and wise.  In fact, this idea is similar with a famous German philosopher, Immanuel Kant’s moral theory.  In Kant’s moral theory, he indicates that morality only exists when one’s action’s motivation come from a good will, which contains an obligation/discipline that has moral worth; and one does something only for the sake of the right thing itself, regardless of anything else (such as consequences, self-interests, experiences, education, etc).  Kant’s explanation to his idea is that if we do things do not meet the requirements he mentioned before, than we are not doing the right thing out of our very pure heart, and our mind are not free from desires(or any personal things), nor our decision or action will be considered free.  Coincidentally, in the section 51, the poem also indicates that if we are wise enough to “relinquish the fruit born of action,” we will be “freed from these bonds of rebirth,” and can “reach a place beyond decay.” 

This is something that we rarely thought about in our daily life, isn’t it? When we do things, it almost impossible that not to think of the consequences or reactions that would following after our decisions or actions; and in modern perspective, our motives of action should always have a reward or a punishment behind it, rather than thinking what is our firm duty/discipline, and that is why we are so easy to bind up with things in our life.