CAUTION – MEN AT WORK ! - ABOUT KARMA

SMOKE & FIRE

We all have heard it being said that, there is ‘no smoke without fire’. That is, a conventional fire is necessarily accompanied by smoke.  The smoke gives us the visual signal,  thus revealing the fire.

KARMA – GITA 18 :48

This simile about the smoke and fire is effectively used, to  illustrate the connection between  action/movement/work /karma  and its ill-effects (dosham)  in the Bhagawad Gita, in Chapter 18:48.  Similar to how smoke covers fire, all actions are necessarily covered with its defects or faults. That is any action is accompanied by its  ill-effects.  Fire and smoke,  thus action and ill-effects. Fire also provides heat and light and ashes , like-wise actions may provide ‘fruits’, and if one had performed actions desirous of the fruit, one is bound to alternate between births and deaths. In general, the Gita states that  all karmas have ill-effects.

Dr. S.Radhakrishnan has translated the above verse into English as follows :- “One should not give up the work suited to one’s nature,  O Son of Kunti (Arjuna), though it may be defective, for all enterprises are clouded by defects as fire by smoke”.(p.368, Pub. Harper Collins). ‘Enterprises’ is the translation of the Sanskrit word “Samarambham’  in the sloka, which actually means ‘all actions’. The Gita is thus vehement about any kind of movement/action/work, that ultimately it will have only negative consequences. A parallel thinking we can find in ‘modern’ science.

Stuck to knowledge gained in middle-school.

we are a generation whose brain is clouded with Newton’s  Laws of Motion, especially the Third Law. Our naive minds got hooked to the axiom “ For every action there is an equal and opposite  reaction”.  Our tethered  minds went round and round  these and similar  kinds of  ‘base’ scientific facts, learnt in middle-school. Scientists and engineers amongst us tended to develop applications based on these basic scientific facts .eg. rockets used in space exploration , aeronautics, automobiles etc . When we reached  senior classes ie in college,  our brain was too clouded to fully appreciate higher scientific facts and ruminate over them ,like the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If we had fully apprehended the consequences of this law, maybe, we would have exercised much restraint in our movement/actions. Individually as well as  collectively in this ‘modern’ world.

ENTROPY – A ‘CATCH-22’ Situation

And the Second Law expressed in complicated scientific jargon is this “The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy”  And what is entropy ?. In simple language it means “a measure of disorder in the universe or of the availability of the energy in a system to do work.^{”  (Definitions source :Wikipedia)}  Maximum entropy means less energy for doing useful work. Thus the Second Law of Thermodynamics clearly  means that the available energy for doing useful work keeps on reducing in the Universe, leading to heat death of the Universe. Another law ie.The Law of Conservation of Energy  states that the sum total of the energy in the Universe is Constant, but the Second law adds a ‘catch’ to it, ie the energy available for useful work, let us put it as ‘concentrated energy’,  will keep on diminishing. A ‘CATCH 22” situation !!!!

 SNEEZING, SAP RISING IN THE TREE, BLOOD CIRCULATION - MOVEMENTS

Now for any movement or action we have to expend energy. This will necessarily lead to entropy increase. Thus it becomes evident that the Second law has got implications for man-kind. Even a plain sneezing will lead to entropy increase !!!! Even putting together and typing this matter. And let us also not be fooled by the hype of “green technology’, after having knowledge about entropy and Gita 18:48.

ONLY NEGATIVE-EFFECTS !!!!

Gita 18: 48 and the Second Law  clearly shows that movements/actions are having negative net-effect.  That means we must be conscious about all kinds of movements.  Lesser  the movements, that much better for mankind. Each one should self-regulate his movement, but if self-discipline is absent, movement will have to be regulated from outside. That is Governance. (In machines there is speed-governor)

The sociological implications of  the combined strength of Gita 18:48 and Second Law , I have not touched here. !!!!!