5. Gyan, Bhakti and Karma Yoga

Gita appears different to different people based on their orientation. There are three different paths given in Gita. Karma yoga, Sankhya yoga and Bhakthi yoga. Karma yoga is ideal for someone who is mind oriented. Sankhya yoga is for Intellect and Bhakti for heart oriented. In today's world, majority falls in the category of mind oriented. Its based on belief that we are tied up with chains and need to work hard to break them to free ourselves. So its action oriented. Any conversation with them would end up with ‘What should I do now’. This path leads us to Nishkam karma i.e. unmotivated action. Sankhya yoga is also known as Gyan Yoga and this is about awareness or knowing, but not knowledge. Its beginning point is the belief that we are in a dark room and have to just lighten a lamp in the dark to quell the darkness as no amount of action or flight can remove that darkness. This path takes us to realize about choice-less awareness. Bhakti Yoga is about surrender. They equate themselves as a wave which owes its existence to ocean and the ocean being paramatma, the supreme being. At the beginning, the language and understanding of these three paths would be quite different. If a path of awareness is explained to a mind oriented person, he would keep looking for some action for awareness. Certainly, these are not water tight paths and combination of them is what one experiences. For example, when karma and sankhya paths meet we will get awareness that final destiny of all karmas is a mirage and would become unattached to karma while performing it, like an act in a drama. Just like the entire universe is combination of three particles electron, proton and neutron, the spiritual world is combination of these three paths. Krishna says, all these paths have one common destination of realizing self, which is free of ahankaar.