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The Principles and Practice of Karma Yoga in the Writings and Life of B. G. Tilak¹

Anand C. Paranjpe

 

Karma yoga is a means for liberation of the self with the primary emphasis on action as opposed to emotion or cognition as in respectively bhakti yoga, and jñāna yoga. There cannot be an exclusive emphasis on only action, emotion, or cognition in any pathway to self-realization, since all three aspects of personhood are present in, and necessary for the functioning of, every person at all times. The different pathways are named according to the relative emphasis on one or other aspect of personhood, and individuals may follow predominantly one or the other pathway depending on their natural aptitude or inclination.

Karma yoga, alternatively called karma mārga, or pathway to liberation with emphasis on action, has evolved over the millennia as have the other pathways. The literature describing, explaining, and advocating them has also evolved over the centuries. However, unlike the extensive literature available on Sāṁkhya and Advaita systems on the path of knowledge (jñāna yoga), or Patañjali's aphorisms and its standard commentaries that offer a step-by-step guide to concentrative meditation (dhyāna yoga), it is hard to find an extensive body of literature on the path of action. The Bhagavad Gītā is often thought of as a principal source in support of karma yoga. However, the Gītā adopts an eclectic approach, and is virtually a compendium of a large number of alternative approaches to self-realization. A highly popular text, it has been interpreted as being especially supportive of their favourite path by partisan interpreters. In modern times B.G. Tilak (1915/1998) wrote Gītārahasya, a major commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā suggesting that it clearly and strongly favours karma yoga. This work, originally written in Marathi, offers a clear exposition of the doctrines of karma yoga.² Swami Vivekananda (n.d./1915) has also a book-length work on the subject. The present account primarily follows Tilak's exposition of karma yoga, and presents a sketch of his life history as an illustrative case of its practitioner.

Part I — Karma Yoga

The Sanskrit word karman, or simply karma, means action or activity, and the Law or Doctrine of Karma provides a broad conceptual framework within which action can be conceived for theoretical and practical purposes. It is within the framework of this doctrine that not only karma yoga, but also most schools of Indian thought are structured. Before beginning an account of karma yoga it is necessary to recount some of the basic concepts explained as part of the section devoted to the Law of Karma, and also to explain certain related concepts that are especially relevant to karma yoga.

Conceptual Foundations of Karma Yoga

It is important first to remember that in the Indian tradition, karma, meaning action or activity, is conceived as being simultaneously part of the physical (kāyika), mental (mānasika), and verbal (vācika, or ‘conversational’) as well as moral (dhārmika, or vaidika) domains. Each action is believed to leave behind it traces that have consequences in each of these domains. It is common to conceive of these traces metaphorically as seeds that sprout or fructify, that is, lead to appropriate consequences under appropriate conditions. Extending this metaphor, it is thought that the seeds get ‘stored’ within individual living beings that serve as receptacles for the seeds, as it were. The seeds may lay dormant for indefinitely long periods of time. The putative longevity of the seeds implies their survival over endless life cycles in a succession. This assumption of longevity serves an important purpose within the widely accepted and long-living Indian worldview. The Law assumes that every action has its inevitable consequences. In that sense it is parallel to the law of causality in the physical sciences, but unlike in the physical sciences, it is deemed to apply equally to physical, mental as well as moral domains. It is believed that good and bad actions will inevitably have their respectively good and bad consequences. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.4.5) makes this moral implication of the Law of Karma quite clear when it says: ‘The doer of good becomes good, the doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action’ (see Radhakrishnan's translation, 1953/1994, p. 272).

One way of understanding the good and bad consequences of action is to view them in terms of rewards and punishments. Such a view appears in the interpretation of the Mīmāṁsā school according to which right action is what is prescribed in the Vedic scriptures, and this would be ‘rewarded’ with a place in heaven (svarga) and vice versa. The thinkers of the Mīmāṁsā tradition did not think of some celestial authority such as God who would administer this system or rewards; indeed they did not believe in God (īśvara). Instead, they viewed good/bad consequences as naturally following from an invisible force called the adṛṣṭa (which literally means ‘unseen’) generated by all actions. Such an interpretation distinguishes the Law of Karma from justice administered in society according to the prevailing code of conduct, for it implies consequences of actions that result according to a cosmic system of nature, rather than according to social regulations. The concept of adṛṣṭa which was thought of as a kind of force that persists as long as it brings about its natural consequences further distinguishes the notion of a cosmic rather than social system of justice implied in the Law of Karma. This is because the adṛṣṭa as a force is supposed to survive death of the body such that miscarriages of justice within the human-made systems would be corrected in life after death; indeed belief in reincarnation (punarjanma) is a corollary of the Law of Karma. This implies that the world is a just place; justice will ultimately be done, no matter how many incarnations of the soul it takes. A popular saying in the Hindi language says that there is delay in God's world, but no darkness, that is, lack of justice. This assumption preserves the hope that crooks will ultimately be punished and saints will be eventually properly rewarded, although justice is often unmet in their lifetime. Such beliefs could as well be the soothing balm for the disgruntled moralist. Nevertheless, the Law of Karma, like the belief in the Day of Judgment, may serve a psychological purpose, and help sustain the moralist on a righteous path.

The Law of Karma is a common theme in almost all schools of Indian thought, both orthodox as well as heterodox, such as Buddhism and Jainism, with the exception of the materialist followers of Cārvāka and Lokāyata. As pointed out by Wilhelm Halbfass (1991, p. 295), in the Indian tradition, the Law has served in various ways, as: ‘(1) a principle of causal explanation (of factual occurrences); (2) a guideline of ethical orientation; (3) the counterpart and stepping-stone of final liberation’. As a causal explanation, the concept of karma has the widest connotation, covering physical movements, mental events, as well as intentional action with moral implications. When the Law of Karma covers this entire range, it implies the assumption that the universe is a cosmos and not chaos; nothing occurs as a happenstance. Taken in this sense the Law is similar to the basic assumption of causality in modern science. As noted by Potter (1964), such ‘laws’ are fundamental assumptions that are taken for granted without needing proof. They provide the necessary framework for a systematic inquiry, for the presumption of the universe as chaos would arrest inquiry before it is started. The Law of Karma gives a similar framework for an inquiry of phenomena in the moral domain; it accepts the ‘just world hypothesis’ (Lerner, 1980) to help make moral quest a meaningful endeavour. Although justice is often not seen to be made in the lifetime of persons, it assumes that justice will ultimately be done. Lapses in the human system of justice tend to be ignored even as science often ignores anomalies rather than rejecting the universality of the law that is apparently violated. It is interesting however, that as noted by Halbfass, the relevance of the Law of Karma in Indian thought goes even beyond the physical and moral domains: it steps into the spiritual domain when taken as a stepping stone for final liberation. It is in this sense that Tilak takes it, using it as a conceptual framework within which to build his case for karma yoga as a legitimate and effective pathway to liberation (mukti). Before we examine how Tilak develops his explanatory strategy within this framework, we need to understand a few more nuances of the concept of karma.

Parallel to the concept of adṛṣṭa is the concept of saṁskāra, which is commonly used in yoga, and is particularly relevant to psychology. From the yogic perspective, all mental phenomena such as perceiving, thinking, imagining, doubting and so on are activities of the mind even as physical movements are activities of the body. All such activities leave their impressions behind, and these impressions are called saṁskāras. The saṁskāras are imprints of original mental activities that tend to revive experiences similar to those that caused them under appropriate conditions. For instance, the pleasant experience of the aroma of coffee one morning would revive a similarly pleasant experience at the breakfast table the next morning, and may prompt action toward making a fresh cup of coffee. In this sense, a saṁskāra is like a memory trace that revives images of the original experience, and it tends to ‘reinforce’ the behaviour that accompanied the earlier pleasant experience. As in modern psychology, yogic psychology also conceives of saṁskāras as pleasant or unpleasant, and indicates their positively or negatively reinforcing nature just as modern learning theories do. However, unlike modern psychology which claims to be value free and avoids any moral implications, yoga conceives saṁskāras as having moral merit (puṇya) or demerit (pāpa). Against this background, it should be clear why in India the term saṁskāra is also used to indicate good or bad influences on a child arising from situations to which it may be exposed either inadvertently or by design. Thus education, whether inspired by secular or religious interests, would be designed to maximize ‘good’ saṁskāras as defined by the values of the educators. The rituals introduced in Hindu traditions at various stages of life, such as those of the child's naming, initiation (the ‘thread ceremony’), wedding and so on are also called saṁskāras since they are designed to shape behaviour in culturally appropriate ways.

In Yoga, as in Advaita and other systems informed by the Law of Karma, each individual is believed to carry with her or himself the entire storehouse of the impressions left by her or his own past actions, good and bad. The Sanskrit word for this cumulative fund of merit and demerit is sañcita, which literally means that which is stored. The term karma is also used to designate the ‘seeds’ left behind by past karma, and hence the term sañcita karma to designate the stored seeds. This concept should not appear to be alien or strange to students of modern psychology; it is closely equivalent to what behaviourists would call the entire repertoire of behavioural tendencies originating from the genetic and historical background of the organism. As in the behaviourist context, responses appropriate to the environmental conditions are elicited in the presence of adequate stimuli with appropriate experiences of pleasure or pain to accompany the responses. The pleasant and unpleasant experiences constitute ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ as dictated by the same natural laws that may be viewed from an amoral perspective by the behaviourists, and from a moral perspective according to the karma theorists. At any rate, according to the traditional Indian worldview, sañcita, the cumulative repertoire, is conceptually divided between two parts: the portion that has already begun to play out under the present circumstances (prārabdha), and all the rest which has not yet begun to play out (anārabdha) and thus belongs to the future. It is widely assumed that the results of what has begun to play out are unavoidable—like the consequences of an arrow that is released from the bow. The consequences of the left over are, however, considered preventable. In this context, the question is: how could one orient oneself so as to reap the positive consequences while avoiding the negative ones? In other words, how can we effectively deal with the burden of the past (or the cumulative effects of the past ‘reinforcements’, to use a contemporary phraseology)? Tilak explicitly asks such a question, and uses it as a point of departure for his explanation and justification of karma yoga as an effective vehicle for a spiritual journey toward liberation.

Tilak (1915/1998, p. 257) points out three different answers to this question that evolved in the Indian tradition through the ages. Tilak's delineation of these three approaches is not his original interpretation; he explicitly traces it back to the dialogue between Sulabhā and the sage Janaka in the Śānti Parva (320.36) section of the epic Mahābhārata (Tilak, 1915/1998, p. 261). The first approach emphasizes action mainly in the form of rituals prescribed in the Vedas (vaidika karma) as means to liberation (mukti). It belongs to karma kāṇḍa, meaning part of the Vedic lore, especially the Brāhmaṇa texts, which offers elaborate descriptions of complex rituals prescribed as means to help attain prosperity on earth or a place in heaven. It is the interpretation of the Vedic commandments by scholars of the Pūrva Mīmāṁsā school that is central to this approach, and not the symbolic meanings and mysticism of the Ṛg Veda that is pointed out by Sri Aurobindo in his Secret of the Veda (1914–1920/1971).³ The second approach emphasizes knowledge rather than action as means to liberation. It belongs to the jñāna kāṇḍa, the Upaniṣadic portion of the Vedic lore, which emphasizes knowledge (jñāna) as opposed to ritual as means to liberation. What is relevant here is the interpretation of the Upaniṣads offered by the scholars of the Uttara Mīmāṁsā school, alternatively called the Vedānta due to the later origin of the Upaniṣads after the Brāhmaṇas. The third approach involves an emphasis on engaging in action without attachment to rewards, and is explained mainly in the Bhagavad Gītā. We shall consider these three approaches to karma yoga one by one, emphasizing Tilak's views of the same.

The Mīmāṁsā Approach to Action As Sacrificial Ritual

Jaimini's Mīmāṁsā aphorisms (Jaimini, n.d./1984) begin with a quest for the nature of dharma, which in this context implies right action or moral duties. Indeed, Jaimini defines dharma in terms of Vedic injunctions or commandments.⁴ This should make perfect sense, since the concern for action is necessarily the concern for doing the right thing, and it is moral imperatives that point to right action. It should be no surprise, then, that in Gītārahasya Tilak pens a chapter titled ‘inquiry into the nature of karma’ (karmajijñāsā) to discuss moral dilemmas in light of traditional Indian as well as modern Western theories of ethics, such as the views of Kant, Green and Mill. Working in early historical times, Jaimini turned to the ancient Vedas for moral guidelines. To that end, he developed rules for the correct interpretation of the scriptural texts to delineate the injunctions or moral directives that the sages gave. Following these rules of exegesis, called the mīmāṁsā in Sanskrit, led to the formulation of Jaimini's system called the Pūrva Mīmāṁsā. Its designation as pūrva, meaning earlier, distinguishes Jaimini's system from the interpretation of later Vedic texts (that is, Upaniṣads) which is called the Uttara Mīmāṁsā or Vedānta. The primary directive of the Vedas is the conduct of sacrificial rituals. While some rituals are to be performed every day, such as the evening prayer (sandhyā), others are appropriate for specific occasions such as a death anniversary (śrāddha), and still others are recommended for fulfilling special desires (kāmya karma), such as birth of a son in this life or a place in the heaven in afterlife. Before we examine the meaning and psychological significance of sacrificial rituals, we need to understand certain concepts and assumptions relevant to this context.

Consistent with the widely shared perspective of the Law of Karma, the Mīmāṁsā thinkers like Jaimini believed that the impressions left behind by every action constitute a force, and called it adṛṣṭa, meaning the unseen, and conceived of it as a cause that inevitably results in appropriate consequences. Calling it ‘unseen’ makes sense, since a cause, as a connection between an event and its effect, is never directly observed as David Hume (1739/1978) pointed out in eighteenth century Europe. The assumption of causality in the Mīmāṁsā system is similar to the presumption of inexorable laws of nature in modern science (Potter, 1964)⁵, except that while in Mīmāṁsā causal laws extend to the moral sphere, in natural science they do not. In other words, good actions must result in good consequences or rewards and bad actions in punishments. Since it was believed, as noted above, that it was impossible to avoid the consequences of causes that have already begun to manifest, the question before the Mīmāṁsā thinkers is—what can be done to stop the perpetuation of the chain of consequences of good and bad actions and be free from the cycle of birth and death?

Dasgupta (1922/1975, p. 402) summarizes the Mīmāṁsā perspective as follows:

Salvation is brought about when a man enjoys and suffers the fruits of his good and bad actions and thereby exhausts them and stops the further generation of new effects by refraining from the performance of kāmya-karmas (sacrifices etc. performed for the attainment of certain beneficent results) and guarantees himself against the evil effects of sin by assiduously performing nitya karmas (such as the sandhyā prayers etc., by the performance of which there is no benefit but the non-performance of which produces sins). This state is characterized by the dissolution of the body and the non-production of any further body or rebirth.

As can be easily seen, this is a moralists' stance, and its view of morality is tightly tied to the scriptural injunctions which emphasize rituals. Tilak's (1915/1998, pp. 230–231) is not in favour of this approach. For, he notes, new actions and their impressions arise incessantly in the very fact of living, and complex situations arise where avoiding bad action is not always possible. Murky situations of daily life often present complex moral challenges that often produce mixed results that are neither completely meritorious nor the exact opposite. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to exhaust the mixed bag of good and bad consequences at precisely the same point in time and attain release at the exact moment when the balance has stopped swinging between the plus and the minus side of the ledger. All these are apparently intractable logical difficulties with the Mīmāṁsa's rationale for sacrificial rituals as means to liberation. Note also that the Mīmāṁsā approach ties down moral implications exclusively to rituals prescribed by the Vedas, ignoring the moral implications of inevitable mundane actions of daily life, which are inevitable. There is of course a suggested way out of such difficulties by the path of knowledge, which claims to destroy the entire accumulated fund of impressions of past action at once in one single stroke by ‘burning the seeds by the fire of Self-knowledge’. We shall examine its rationale later in this chapter.

Aside from questioning the logic of the Mīmāṁsā approach, Tilak points out the historical changes in the Vedic religion that makes it irrelevant or redundant. Writing in the early twentieth century, Tilak (1915/1998, pp. 245–246) notes that the ancient Vedic practices were no longer in vogue in his time; the traditions had already eroded under the influence of Buddhist opposition to animal sacrifices and other historical circumstances. Over the centuries, focus had shifted away from the Vedas or the Śrutis as guidelines for moral conduct. A myriad of Smṛti texts, such as the Manusmṛti and texts of the Dāyabhāga, Mitākṣarā and other systems had started to guide the moral and legal thought in the Indian subcontinent. Their guidelines were based on principles such as truth, charity, compassion, non-violence and others that originated from the Upaniṣadic tradition. On the whole, this later approach to ethics tried to ensure the welfare of the population as a whole, rather than aiming only at the higher castes that were supposed to be eligible for conducting the Vedic rituals. The overall thrust of the Smṛtis was on articulating right conduct as appropriate to each social category (varna) and phase of the life cycle (āśrama) of a person. In this context, doing one's duties as appropriate to one's station in life became the new way of understanding yajña, that was defined in earlier days primarily in terms of sacrificial rituals under the influence of Jaimini and others. Tilak explains the principles underlying yajña as understood within both the ancient Śruti and later Smṛti guidelines. It is necessary to briefly describe Tilak's analysis here since it provides some interesting psychological insights to the traditional approach to behavioural guidelines.

One of the basic principles underlying the concept of yajña was the idea that every human being is born with three kinds of debts that he or she must pay back as the unavoidable duty in life (Tilak, 1915/1998, p. 246). The first one is the debt to the ancient sages, which was to be paid back by studying the scriptures and preserving the legacy of knowledge the sages left behind. The second one is the debt to the gods to be repaid through offerings made to the sacred fire in ritual worship, and the third debt is to one's ancestors, which is to be repaid by producing and raising the younger generation and passing the cultural legacy to them. According to a tradition that was still in vogue in the early twentieth century, a householder was expected to perform a fivefold sacrificial ritual (yajña) every day. In these rituals various sacrifices were to be made to various forms of the divine: daily study of the Vedas as per debt paid to Brahman, the ultimate principle of reality; food and other goodies symbolically offered to satisfy one's ancestors; making similar offerings to the sacred fire, a symbolic messenger to the gods; feeding the animals in the vicinity, and offering food to all hungry humans around. One was supposed to eat only what was left over after satisfying all these varied forms of the divine: the gods, the ancestors, and animals and humans in the vicinity. What was thus left over was considered nectar conferring immortality (amṛta), and anyone who eats without first feeding all the needy was considered a sinner (Tilak, 1915/1998, p. 245). The spirit behind this ritual is explained in the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad, which says that everything in the world belongs to the Lord (īśāvāsyamidam sarvam); one has right to eat whatever is left over by satisfying others' needs. Doing otherwise simply constitutes theft.

Within almost a century that has passed since Tilak wrote the Gītārahasya, the tradition of the daily performance of complex Vedic fire rituals that had somehow survived till his days has virtually disappeared at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Yet, the concept of giving that underlies the tradition of sacrificial rituals has persisted. In ordinary forms of worship, that are in common practice of millions today, one offers morsels of food or spoonfuls of milk and honey to the sacred fire, saying I offer this to such and such deity; ‘this is not mine’ (idam na mama). These oft-repeated words denying exclusive private ownership is a mantra that is heard again and again in Hindu worship well into the twenty-first century. A sight that is still not uncommon is a person bathing in a local river, saying—‘Oh Ganges (any rivulet could be taken as symbolic representative of the sacred river), I offer you this bit of water in my palms; I give this back to you, it is not mine.’

The idea behind such daily rituals should be obvious, but let us see how Swami Vivekananda explains it in his book Karma Yoga: ‘[R]itual is, in fact, concretized philosophy. This ritual is karma; it is necessary in every religion, because most of us cannot understand abstract spiritual things until we grow much spiritually’ (Vivekananda, n.d./1915, p. 90). The principle is of course that of giving, or charity, which is common to virtually all religions. Repeatedly saying ‘this is not mine’ as part of daily and occasional rituals is expected to reduce greed and possessiveness, and the common feeling of ‘me’ and ‘mine’. The symbolic sacrifices of food and other goodies in rituals are designed to impress on every mind every day that good things of life belong to Nature, they are not for individuals to hog. Private possession and consumption of any of those things is all right only after they are consumed by all and sundry to satisfy their needs. Call it socialism if you will, or maybe an ecological concern for Nature, but that is the spirit of traditional Indian culture. Vinoba Bhave, a distinguished disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, recognized this, and tried to revive the traditional attitude to giving by appealing landowners to grant at least part of their holdings to the landless (Bhave, 1953). His ‘Bhūdāna Yajña’, a movement to give away land in one's possession, did not catch on; it failed to bring about a socialist revolution as intended. Despite the ideals behind their design, the rituals remain, well, ‘mere rituals’. Humans have the capacity to translate philosophy into relevant action if they want, but they also can trivialize or pervert it, just as they can abuse a good thing like science for mass destruction.

Jñāna Yoga's Approach: The Burning of the Seeds of Action

In contrast to the Mīmāṁsā approach to action by way of sacrificial rituals, the Vedānta or Uttara Mīmāṁsā system suggests a different, radical way to deal with the cumulative store of the past karma (sañcita). It extends the metaphor of the ‘seeds’ by adding the idea of ‘burning’ the seeds to render them incapable of sprouting ever again. The ‘fire’ to be used for this purpose is Self-knowledge. The Bhagavad Gītā (4.37) says—Just as once kindled fire reduces all the firewood to ashes, the fire of Knowledge reduces all seeds of action to ashes.⁶ This metaphorical bonfire is expected to get the self-realized person free from the entire burden of one's own past action instantaneously in moments of genuine insight into the nature of the Self. How is this idea supposed to work?

According to the Advaita system (see Paranjpe, 1988; 1998), the primary focus in its ‘path of knowledge’ (jñāna mārga) is to discover the single unchanging principle underlying the many diverse manifestations of the ego. Normally a person identifies the ‘I’ with what one knows or thinks, feels, or does. But viewed in the long run, one cannot be permanently identified with any of one's beliefs, feelings, and actions. It is not unusual for people to believe one way now and in the opposite way later; learn to hate something that was once dearly loved; or completely reverse a course of action once held steadfastly dear. The ‘I’ is thus capable of completely transcending cognition, affect, and conation. The true Self is experienced in a transcendental state of awareness, or the state of nirvikalpa samādhi in which experience is emptied of all thoughts. One who has experienced such ‘self-realization’ recognizes that he or she is NOT the one who thinks, feels, and acts. One discovers that the entity that was supposed to enjoy the rewards and suffer punishments as result of past actions is a mere construction, an imaginary entity. When the enjoyer/sufferer thus disappears in thin air, as it were, there is no place either for the fear of suffering in the future, or for a lure of rewards in this life or anytime later. The impressions accumulated from the past are thus rendered totally ineffective—like burnt seeds.

Śaṅkara, the arch proponent of the Advaitic approach to the path of knowledge, insisted that liberation could be attained through Self-knowledge alone (jñānādeva tu kaivalyam). According to Śaṅkara, karma in the form of performing rituals prescribed by the Vedas or other forms of good action may be useful simply in purifying the mind (cittasya śuddhaye), that is, as preparation for starting on the path of knowledge, nothing more. Although many followers of the Advaita tradition stick to this view, not all of them do; many others hold that a combination of knowledge and action (jñāna-karma samuccaya) is needed for attaining liberation. There is an unending controversy among followers of Śaṅkara's Advaita tradition who hold these differing views about the relative importance of knowledge and action. In Gītārahasya Tilak (1915/1998) strongly opposes Śaṅkara's view about knowledge as the only means to liberation. Tilak is also opposed to Śaṅkara's view that one must renounce all social involvements common to a householder, both before and after attaining self-realization. He suggests that Śaṅkara's pro-renunciation (nivṛtti) views are product of his historical background, his teacher's teacher having been a Buddhist monk. Tilak refers to an ancient tradition of social involvement (pravṛtti) among persons deeply involved in spiritual life going back to the sage Janaka of the Upaniṣadic era, and wished to start a movement to revive that tradition. His advocacy of karma yoga is an integral part of that movement.

Tilak's View of Karma Yoga As Action Without Attachment to Rewards

The basic rationale of karma yoga can be found in the Bhagavad Gītā's analysis of the various factors involved in the results of an action. According to the Gītā (18.14), the following five factors are involved in accounting for the totality of results of any action: (1) the location or context of action (adhiṣṭhānam); (2) the agent (kartā); (3) the various instruments (karaṇam) available on hand; (4) the specific activities (ceṣṭāḥ) involved in the action, and finally (5) chance, or ‘fate’ (daivam). It should be clear that the outcome of an action would be quite different if it is performed in a quiet and congenial location as opposed to a noisy and unhygienic one; if performed by an experienced and expert agent as opposed to a novice; if one is well equipped to do the job rather than being empty handed; if the actions are clumsy rather than smooth and skilled; or if lightening suddenly strikes in the middle of the action rather than a cool breeze. The Gītā (18.16) adds that such being the case, it is only an unintelligent person who thinks that he or she is solely responsible for the outcome while ignoring all the contributing factors. Moreover, the Gītā (3.27) points out that while indeed the interaction of various forces of nature is responsible for any event to happen, an egotistic person thinks that credit for its accomplishment must belong to him and him alone. Against the background of this analysis, Gītā (2.47) advises us to note that only one's own actions are under one's control (karmaṇyevādhikāraste), the total outcome is never [fully] within our control (mā phaleṣu kadācana). And hence, it says, one should neither be solely focused on the fruit of the action, nor is it necessary to despair due to the uncertainty of rewards and give up the undertaking on hand.

The rationale just explained is, according to some, the very essence of the Gītā's teaching. All this is, indeed, simply common sense. Anybody who is prepared to pay a bit of attention to what is involved in his or her successes and failures can realize that the credit or blame for success and failure might most often be reasonably distributed across a bunch of different factors. As such, it should be possible for any person with a little intelligence and some capacity for self-reflection to begin acting in real life without getting emotionally worked up by excessive hopes of success or fear of failure. If this is correct, then one need not wait till becoming fully self-realized to begin a march on the path of karma without attachment to the results of one's action. According to Tilak, one can start with a modest degree of insight into one's own behaviour, and gradually proceed all the way to liberation. It is possible to attain full-fledged self-realization through the experience of samādhi sometime along the way, but one need not wait till such a moment to attain liberation.

Tilak is quite aware of the fact that it is natural for persons to act with an intention, hope, desire, or even expectation of an end result while starting on a course of action in real life. None of these, in his view, are harmful. What really matters, and ‘binds’ the doer to the consequences of his or her action, is hankering for specific results, being covetous or avaricious (Tilak, 1915/1998, p. 274).⁷ Tilak (1915/1998, p. 241) quotes a couplet from the Maitrī Upaniṣad (6.34), which asserts that it is the mind that causes both attachment to the world, as well as the liberation from it. While ‘binding’ (bandha) results from emotional investment in objects, ‘release’ (mokṣa) results from the absence of such investment. As modern psychology affirms, it is the expectation of future reward that reinforces an organism's response rather than the reward itself, and expectation is a ‘mental’ entity, not physical. From Tilak's viewpoint, it is the excessive investment of affect (called āsakti in Sanskrit) in the expected outcome that causes problems in life, and it is possible to willfully reduce the strength of this binding force. The very process of an initial rational reflection can detach a person from the immediate context of action, and help reduce the investment of affect in that context. Tilak's contention is that even a slight reduction in ego-involvement through reflection—call it a cognitive intervention, if you will—can start a person on an irreversible course of successively increased level of detachment. Gradual change in this respect is bound to reduce possessiveness, and eventually eliminate greed, thereby radically transforming one's orientation to ‘Me’ and ‘Mine’. The transformation expected in this process would counter egotism and yet strengthen one's self-confidence, or courage to carry on onto a course of action regardless of success or failure. It would reduce selfishness on the one hand, and build up the capacity for cooperation, empathy and compassion for others. A successive reduction in selfishness and ego-involvement would be conducive to increased investment in collective goals, and that is what Tilak expects to happen as one progresses on the path of action.

A gradual shrinkage in selfishness and a matching increment in social involvement is expected to ultimately end in the karma-yogi's realization of the unity of all individual selves, and the merger of the yogi's self with the universal Self (paramātman, or Brahman) (Tilak, 1915/1998, p. 283). Committed to the traditional Indian way of life, Tilak expected all men to perform all the legitimate duties of a householder in the status and position to which one is assigned. This implies a person's inevitable involvement with immediate as well as extended family. One should perform one's occupational duty with commitment and pride, he suggests, no matter if the job is as humble as that of the signalman on the railway lines (p. 282). He points out that society could not function normally unless everyone in the entire social hierarchy does his or her job properly. Further, Tilak (1915/1998, p. 337) explicitly refers to the desirability of a person's feelings of belongingness to, and pride for, successively more inclusive ingroups, such as her/his family, clan, caste, religion, nation and so on. Moreover, he considers an increasing sense for a series of successively expanding groups as a natural progression toward a universalist feeling for entire humanity as a single family (vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam). It is not necessary to dilute one's feelings for any of the smaller ingroups, whether family or province, to be a genuine universalist. Even if we had a perfect society in which unity of humankind was a reality, we could not dispense with belongingness to, and pride for, a series of smaller groups contained within more inclusive groups.

In Tilak's opinion, in an imperfect society where one large group dominated another of its type, such as one nation against another, it is legitimate for the oppressed one to fight against the oppressor (p. 338). He surely did not see non-violence as a practicable one-way policy in the real world, and he did not see fighting for the legitimate cause of a group as inimical to the ideal of universal brotherhood. He was explicitly aware of the fact that concentric loyalties to less inclusive groups can sometimes conflict with more inclusive groups—such as province versus nation—, and he had an explicit answer to what ought to be done under such situations. Loyalty to a larger, more inclusive group must take precedence, he suggested, to a smaller, less inclusive group (1915/1998, p. 338).⁸ Finally, he explicitly disapproved the individualist approach to spiritual involvement by pooh-poohing enjoyment of samādhi as a mere selfish act (Tilak, 1915/1998, p. 279).

Tilak considers this social aspect of the evolution of the individual self in the context of the traditional concept of lokasaṅgraha, literally meaning bringing people together. Tilak (1915/1998, pp. 277–278) explains what he means by this term. He first locates it in the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā (3.20). The context of this reference is that in this chapter (3.3-9) Lord Krishna is conveying to Arjuna—at least as Tilak interprets it—the superiority of karma yoga, which favours social involvement (pravṛtti) over the jñāna yoga of the Sāṁkhya system which favours renunciation (nivṛtti). He then criticizes (p. 277) Śaṅkara's interpretation of the term lokasaṅgraha as attempting to turn people away from the tendency toward evil. Then he goes ahead to suggest (pp. 278–279) that the ‘loka’ part of the compound term lokasaṅgraha should not be interpreted to mean only human beings, and adumbrates with numerous textual references that it means all living beings—even ancestors in heaven, gods, and demi-gods. In Sanskrit verses he composed by way of dedication of his Gītārahasya, Tilak says that he is dedicating the work to janatātman—a neologism coined in analogy with paramātman by substituting the word janatā, meaning people, for parama, meaning the Supreme.

The above account should make it clear that knowledge, in the form of a cognitive insight into the relatively limited role of the agent in the outcome of action, has an important role in Tilak's prescription. The thrust of Gītārahasya is clearly to convey to the reader that the identity of the individual self with the universal Self is a most important lesson to learn. The discovery of this identity is of course, the province of knowledge. Thus, jñāna yoga is also important, if only second in rank to karma yoga—as a step along the way, as it were. If so, one may ask, how does he view bhakti and dhyāna in this context? As to the first question, his answer is clearly given in a separate chapter on bhakti in the Gītārahasya (Ch. 13). First he points out that even a scientist insisting on perfect rationality cannot dispense with trust, call it devotion if you will, since the scientists’ belief in the universal natural laws cannot be based purely on experience or reason. No one can assure that the sun will rise again tomorrow, he points out, no matter how many trillions of times the sun may have been seen to rise night after night. This point is not an exclusively Indian insight; Hume, the committed empiricist of eighteenth century England, had pointed out that one cannot reasonably generalize from many to all instances in any category, no matter how large the number of instances. It is not difficult to find similar arguments from Christian thinkers in the context of the ‘reason versus faith’ controversy in late medieval Europe (Jones, 1969, pp. 196–207).

Tilak follows the Gītā in suggesting that the path of knowledge requires thinking hard about abstract issues, which many individuals may be incapable of doing due to their limited intelligence. By contrast, bhakti implies loving, and even persons with low intellectual levels may have a natural capacity for love. Moreover, devotion usually—if not necessarily—involves the use of a concrete symbol that is much easier to focus on when compared with the highly abstract notion of a formless God. Focusing on a symbol of divinity is made much easier if the symbol is a personified being, especially a loving, assuring, forgiving, caring mother- or father-figure. The practice of karma yoga is much easier, he suggests, if one learns to surrender the fruits of all action to a loving personal god. In this connection he points out the common practice in Hindu prayers to say ‘Kṛṣṇārpaṇamastu’, meaning let this be dedicated to Lord Kṛṣṇa, and to a couplet of a similar meaning addressed to Lord Nārāyaṇa. Despite his strong support to bhakti, Tilak is against superficiality, blind faith, and fanaticism. He writes words of caution about religious devotion by pointing out first, that many people go to the temple not to pray but to ogle at the opposite sex, and second, that followers of many religious groups insist that only their chosen symbol is the right one and are ready to kill others who choose a different symbol.

As regards dhyāna yoga Tilak explains his position clearly in his comments on Chapter 6 of the Gītā in Gītārahasya. He points out the usefulness for a karma-yogi of taming the sensuous desires as in haṭha yoga, and of the concentration of mind as prescribed in Patañjali's yoga. He recommends spending some time every day in such yogic practices as dhyāna or concentration, but explicitly suggests that one should not spend twenty four hours a day in such practices. He also cautions against the overenthusiastic use of haṭha yoga practices that sometimes result in extra-ordinary powers that tempt practitioners to their misuse.⁹

A Modern Psychological Interpretation of Karma Yoga

Karma yoga can be easily seen as focusing more on action or behaviour than on cognition and emotion, and in this respect it is similar to the behaviourist approach. However, here the similarity between the two ends. Whereas in the behaviourist approach behaviour is viewed primarily as a mechanically induced response to external stimuli, in Indian thought informed by the Law of Karma, behaviour is viewed as intended action. Moreover, it is the attitude behind action that is emphasized somewhat in a way that in Piaget's perspective the reasoning behind the response to a dilemma is considered important. To be specific, in Tilak's view, what is important is the intensity of desire for intended results (āsakti) that matters the most. In sharp contrast to Skinner's radical behaviourism, which totally rejects free will, Tilak strongly argues in its favour. In fact Tilak (1915/1998, p. 227) devotes a whole chapter¹⁰ of Gītārahasya to explain the conundrum following the controversy over free-will with special reference to the determinist position of modern science, and concludes in favour of free will. In this regard he quotes from the Vedānta aphorisms of Bādarāyaṇa (2.3.33), who defends freedom of the will basically on grounds that morality becomes meaningless unless we presume freedom.¹¹ Also, in sharp contrast with Skinner's denial of the self, Tilak affirms the Self as experienced in the state of samādhi. Moreover, unlike Skinner (1974, p. 225), who flatly denies the self as an originator of action, Tilak takes human agency as the very foundation of his approach to life. Also, while Skinner proposes a ‘psychology of the “other one”’, Tilak's approach is framed within a system of psychology that has the Self at its core. Whereas applications of Skinnerian psychology aim at changing someone else's behaviour, Tilak's approach is focused entirely on transforming oneself by one's own effort. Tilak, following the system of the Vedānta, strongly affirms the Self, although he recognizes the workings of the ego which tends to often take the undeserved credit for success.

Indeed, the recognition of the tendency of the ego to take undeserved credit for success is a basic insight on which the enterprise of karma yoga rests. This insight is interestingly similar to Freud's insight that the ego deceives itself, as it were, by projecting blame for failure on something other than oneself while implicitly assigning more credit for one's performance than deserved. This similarity is ironic, since while psychoanalytic intervention tries to strengthen the ego against the moralistic repression of the pleasure-seeking id within the constraints of reality, and aims at the uninhibited sating of instinctual desires, karma yoga proposes reining-in of desires by systematically cultivating dispassionateness. This does not mean that Tilak adopts a kill-joy attitude toward sex. Indeed, as follower of the traditional Indian values, he implicitly considers the satisfaction of sexual desires (kāma) as one of the four major goals prescribed in life for men (puruṣārtha).¹² In affirming free will Tilak implicitly accepts an autonomous ego, and in this respect his position is more like the ego-psychoanalysts such as Anna Freud and Erik Erikson, than like Freudians who assume a perpetually conflict-ridden ego. Speaking of Erikson, Tilak's ideal of expanding the boundaries of the ego to embrace the entire humanity is much like Erikson's view of an ideal psychosocial identity for men and women—an identity that ‘seeks human brotherhood in self-denial’ (Erikson, 1974, p. 41).

In sharp contrast to most psychoanalysts, who view emotions as the most important aspect of human beings, Tilak's view of human nature seems to give emotions the last priority. As to cognition, Tilak under-rates it, but places it right next to the top below volition. Without the recognition of the common human tendency to take more credit to self than deserved, the enterprise of unattached action could hardly begin. Such tendency is a matter of cognitive deficit, as it were, and modern cognitive psychologists have had much to say about it. Note, for instance, that following the lead of Harold Kelley (1971) attribution theorists have conducted many empirical studies on internal versus external attribution of success and failure. The ‘cognitive deficit’ implicit in Tilak's observations just mentioned is basically a tendency to attribute success to an internal factor such as the self, and failure to external factors such as luck or lack of instruments. Anthony Greenwald (1980) has coined a neologism ‘beneffectance’ to refer to the common tendency to take credit for success to self and project blame to outside factors. He quotes many research findings in support of this concept, including Cialdini's famous observation that fans of a college team often said ’we won’ when the college team won, but spontaneously said ’they lost’ when the team lost a game (Cialdini et al., 1976).

Although such modern insights are basically no different from Tilak's ideas following the ancient text of the Bhagavad Gītā, there is a fundamental difference between their approaches to psychology. While Kelley, Greenwald and other cognitive psychologists act like pure scientists focusing primarily on the discovery of general laws governing behaviour, they are generally loath to try application of such laws in real life. True, there are many clinical psychologists like Beck (Beck et al., 1985), Mahoney (1993) and others who use insightful discoveries of cognitive psychology as bases for designing therapeutic strategies. However, the orientation of clinical psychology is primarily to develop intervention strategies that clinical practitioners could apply in changing clients’ behaviour, rather than developing strategies that interested persons could use in helping themselves in attaining the highest levels of self-development. The latter is, clearly, the specialty of applied psychology of the type that developed in the Indian tradition. Against this background, seen from the vantage point of contemporary clinical psychology, Gītā's karma yoga as explained by Tilak may be thought of as a method of ‘cognitive behaviour modification’ of the self-help variety.

The mention of self-help psychology in this context may cause some misunderstanding, and some explanation is needed to dispel it. Unfortunately, the self-help type of psychological intervention in recent times is often considered ‘pop psychology’ utterly lacking in academic respectability. This lack is probably the result of the lack of conceptual rigor expected by academic psychologists, and the lack of monetary return expected by professional clinical psychologists—for self-help makes the clinician redundant! However, karma yoga as advocated by Tilak belongs to a different cultural context where spiritual practices require initiative and self-help on behalf of a serious minded seeker of enlightenment. In that context, the guru or spiritual master does not expect fees from the seeker as a professional clinical psychologist would, nor would an author need to avoid intellectual rigor in the name of catering to a popular market as a writer of pop-psychological tome would. Moreover, contrary to a common misconception, karma yoga is not part of a religious cult where blind faith is demanded, and questioning discouraged. Indeed, Tilak's Gītārahasya, although addressed to a wide audience, is a scholarly treatise based on deep knowledge of the Indian as well as Western philosophy, not a book of light reading. It is inspired by the tradition of Śaṅkara, who is recognized as a logician in the league of Aristotle and John Mill. Moreover, Tilak's approach is based on analytical reasoning that encourages further critical thinking and welcomes demands for evidence. Indeed, in recent years the Gītā's approach to action without attachment to outcomes has inspired serious empirical research looking for evidence with the use of the methodologies of contemporary psychology. That is the topic we would now turn to.

An Empirical Test of the Working of Karma Yoga: The Work of Pande & Naidu

In a trend-setting work, Namita Pande and R.K. Naidu designed and conducted a series of studies that combined the theoretical framework of indigenous Indian origin with a methodology imported from the West. Their specific purpose was empirically testing the Bhagavad Gītā's approach to action without emotional attachment to outcomes. To that end, they focused on the concept of anāsakti, literally meaning lack of attachment. They defined it as an orientation to action which emphasizes effort more than outcome, combined with the cultivation of emotional equipoise in the face of success and failure, a relatively weak concern for obtaining extrinsic rewards, and an intense effort to achieve excellence. This was conceived as a matter of individual differences (or a personality ‘trait’) measurable by means of a self-report questionnaire of the type commonly used in contemporary psychology. The items for this questionnaire were constructed on the basis of the description in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā of ‘sthitaprajña’, which literally means a person of stable intellect. Such a person, it is suggested, manifests the characteristics of an ideal condition attained through the successful practice of karma yoga. The thrust of Naidu and Pande's research program was to administer the Anāsakti Scale to a significant number of subjects, and to correlate its scores with a variety of measures of mental health, such as stress, strain, experience of anxiety or distress and so on. It is neither possible nor necessary to review the many studies that were conducted in the research program using the scale to measure anāsakti. However, it may be simply noted that the major conclusion of some of their research reports (Pande, 1990; Pande & Naidu, 1992; Naidu & Pande, 1999) was that high scores on the Anāsakti Scale were associated with lower perceived stress and distress and other such measures of mental health.

It would be useful to make some general observations to help place the empirical research just mentioned in a broader context. First, it demonstrates that it is possible to meaningfully combine a traditional Asian perspective with methods of modern Western psychology. Second, the principle of karma yoga that suggests benefits following from focusing on action rather than outcome need not be viewed as something unique to this particular spiritual path; similar benefits can occur in fairly mundane enterprises—in competitive sports, for example. Thus, in his doctoral research Roy (2004) observed that athletes who show long term involvement in highly competitive sports tend to enjoy more—and even attain higher levels of success—when they focus on sporting activity itself disregarding win or loss. Indeed in highly competitive sports such as the Olympics, hundreds of aspirants put in great deal of time and effort. Every one of them knows very well that on the final day only three will mount the podium. If an athlete counts the odds, she or he would despair; the main reason they do not give up is because most learn to intensely focus on the activity itself, and derive pleasure from the activity itself. As the saying goes, there is more pleasure in the journey itself rather than in reaching the destination, and the ‘journey’ might involve all sorts of activities including the most mundane. To put it simply, the basic principle of karma yoga has a very wide range of applicability to all walks of life. It is important to note that Pande and Naidu conceived of the benefits of the orientation to action suggested by the Gītā as yielding benefits to common individuals in various degrees, and this point has deeper implications for understanding karma yoga that may have been unintended in the conception of the research project. It implies that karma yoga need not be viewed as some distinctive and specialized spiritual pursuit that might result in a highly exalted state of sthitaprajña putatively in very rare individuals recognized as saints. Nor would such an ideal condition suddenly emerge following the moment of self-realization in the experience of samādhi. Rather, the practice of the basic principles of karma yoga may occur unknowingly or knowingly in the lives of ordinary persons in various degrees, gradually leading to mental health benefits ranging from an imperceptible reduction in anxiety to the highest level of spiritual attainment.

This last point is particularly relevant in the examination of the life of Tilak, who is known more as a political leader than either as a typical yogi, or a member of the galaxy of saints from the Buddha and Jesus to Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Sri Aurobindo or Sri Ramana Maharshi. Yet, he was not a mere politician, nor simply an academic, and it would be interesting to see whether and in what way the principles he propounded were reflected in his life. Before we turn to an examination of Tilak's biography as a practitioner of karma yoga, however, it is necessary to briefly explain the strategy and methodology we could adopt in embarking on such an examination as a psychological study.

A Psychological Approach to the Study of Life History

The use of biographies as data for psychological study is relatively new and also rare in psychology. In some ways, the study of a biographical account may be seen as a variation of the method of case study which is widely used in clinical psychology. Freud is easily seen as a pioneer in the use of case studies such as those of Anna O, and of Wolf Man, which he used to illustrate specific types of psychopathology, or the case of Little Hans used to explain the concept of the Oedipus Complex. We need not here be concerned about the many legitimate criticisms that Freud's case studies have faced over the years; the point is that they have established the usefulness of case studies in psychology. Case studies are particularly relevant in clinical psychology to substantiate the use of a diagnostic category and also to indicate a therapeutic strategy based on its interpretation within a theoretical framework. It is possible to use the case study approach outside of the clinical field as well. Abraham Maslow (1954/1970), for example, has suggested the names of several well-known individuals as illustrative cases of self-actualization, which indicated an ideal form of personality. However, Maslow did not engage in elaborate examination of biographies of such persons. The credit goes to Erik Erikson for introducing systematic studies of biographies of persons, especially those of exceptional or highly accomplished individuals such as Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi and Thomas Jefferson (in respectively 1958/1962; 1969 & 1974). By way of rationale, Erikson's approach follows the ‘personological’ approach of Henry Murray, who considered life history or elaborate biography of individuals as primary data for the study of persons. Focus on an individual as a whole and viewed across the entire span of life implies a holistic approach that stands in sharp contrast with the focus on specific (and often pathological) aspects common in clinical psychology, and on common traits viewed across individuals in today's personality psychology. Such a holistic approach is specifically suitable to the traditional Indian perspective on personality.

The present essay follows primarily Erik Erikson's approach in the study of the biography of an exceptional person, but with a major difference. Erikson used his theory of the eight stages of the development of personality, which was grounded in Freudian psychoanalysis and in the ego psychology of Anna Freud and others, to analyze the life and work of all the persons he studied regardless of the distinct philosophies of life that shaped the lives of those persons. By contrast, the idea here is to use the philosophy propounded by Tilak to help understand how it shaped his own life. The main thrust here is the idea that what you preach should be what you practice; this is a distinctly Indian perspective, a kind of a principle of authenticity. This is particularly true of spiritual pursuits; in the spiritual context it would be meaningless to say one thing and do another. Thus, Sri Ramana Maharshi, practiced jñāna yoga, which he advocated, and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who preached that various spiritual paths lead to the same ideal state actually practiced several paths under the tutelage of accomplished practitioners of several paths. Against this background, it makes sense to examine the life of a proponent of karma yoga as a karma yogī.

In a study such as this, published biographies serve as the basic data; good biographers painstakingly search through archives and often interview persons closely connected with the subject of the biography. A good biography provides observations by many persons about the actions of a given individual often providing detailed accounts of the contexts of those actions. It is true that in some cases, especially where the subject of the biography is a charismatic or highly accomplished individual, what the author presents is a hagiography where bias predominates. So the psychologist must be careful in sifting truth away from hyperbole. But then some biographers also offer interpretation in addition to descriptions of facts. In using biographical accounts as data the psychologist is not so much a direct observer of facts but a selector and interpreter of accounts presented by the biographers. The interpretive task belongs to hermeneutics. There is no standard methodology with clearly stated hermeneutic principles yet developed for the study of persons using biographies as data. In the absence of explicit rules and guidelines, one must depend on common sense and do the best one can to relate concepts on the one hand, and accounts of events in life history on the other.

Part II — The Life of a Karma-Yogi: Lokamānya B.G. Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) was a foremost freedom fighter, who used primarily his writings as a journalist against the British Empire to arouse patriotic feelings among his countrymen. His remarkable success in this endeavour earned him the epithet ‘Father of the Indian unrest’ at the hands of a British journalist Sir Valentine Chirol. Lokamānya, which literally means respected by people, was a title by which he became widely known just as his junior Mohandas Gandhi became known by his title Mahatma, meaning a great soul.

Tilak was born on 23 July 1856 in the coastal region south of Mumbai. Since early childhood he distinguished himself as a very bright student. He started his career as a mathematics teacher in New English School that he founded along with his friends. Soon after this he founded the Fergusson College, where he taught mathematics and Sanskrit. Soon thereafter he resigned from this position due to differences of opinion with his colleagues. Following this he started classes to train would-be lawyers, and earned a reputation for his expertise in law. He then started two newspapers, Kesari in Marathi, his native language, and Mahratta in English. Using these as his base, he started a number of public activities, all geared to arouse public opinion against the injustices of the imperial government, and to inculcate intense patriotic feelings in the nation.

The first one among the activities which Tilak initiated was the public celebration of the annual festival of god Gaṇeśa, which was up till then normally celebrated as a family affair. As expected, this public celebration brought Hindus of all castes and creeds together. However, it was sometimes viewed as a way of uniting the Hindus against the Muslims, who were perceived as finding excuses to start riots against the Hindus with the tacit support of the British government. Another such activity promoted by Tilak was the public celebration of the birth anniversary of Chatrapati Shivaji, a seventeenth century king and hero who turned the tide of the Mughal rule in the southern parts of India. Both celebrations continue till this day as highly popular public events particularly in Maharashtra, the Marathi speaking region of Western India.

During the early days of his journalistic career, Tilak wrote several articles in his newspapers against what was seen as injustices against the heir of the princely state of Kolhapur by the chief minister of that state named Barve. In retaliation, Barve filed a libel case against Tilak and his co-editor Agarkar, and won. This led to his first imprisonment in 1882.

Tilak began direct participation in politics starting with an election to the governing body of Bombay University, and then continued with elections at the municipal, state and national levels. He won an election to the provincial legislative council after the British Government allowed such elections in 1892 as part of its program for political reform. He joined the Indian National Congress in 1889, and soon gained national prominence as one of its most influential leaders. Within the Congress he distinguished himself as a radical in contrast with influential moderate leaders, such as Ranade, Gokhale, Sir Pherozshah Mehta and others. While the moderates believed in petitioning the government for participation in local self-government and other such rights, Tilak proclaimed that complete political independence was the birthright of every citizen, just as liberation (mokṣa) was the natural goal for every soul. Small wonder that he ran foul with the British government, and suffered repeated imprisonment.

In trying to control the plague epidemic of 1897, the British government used police force to drive people out of their homes in the city of Pune to quarantined areas out of the city. The police used excessive force. There were several instances of desecration of idols in homes, theft of property, and allegations of dishonouring women. As a result there was widespread fear and rage against the police rule. In response, the Chaphekar brothers assassinated a police chief named Rand, who was in charge of plague control activities. Pro-Government newspapers started innuendo suggesting Tilak's involvement in the plot to assassinate Rand. The fact that Tilak was among the leaders who publicly justified the killing of the Mughal general Afzulkhan by Shivaji in the 17th century provided the background for such innuendo. Notwithstanding allegations of inciting Rand's assassination, Tilak continued writing articles denouncing police atrocities. Thus, the title of one of his articles was ‘Has the government lost its head?’¹³ (Kelkar, 1928/1988, Vol. 1, p. 544; Tamhankar, 1956, p. 78). Such strong words and relentless complaints against oppressive bureaucrats added fuel to the fire, and the government took Tilak to the court on the serious charge of sedition. This was in 1897, the first time that he was tried for sedition. While citing his commendable work in assisting the people in settling in quarantines outside the city, and in providing them medical help as reasons for his leniency, the judge sentenced Tilak for eighteen months of hard labour (Kelkar, 1928/1988, Vol.1, p. 572).

The substandard food and other conditions of the prison took a toll on Tilak's health. However, with the intervention of Indian and European intellectuals, Tilak was given some limited facilities such as the use of books and an oil lamp for reading in the night. He used these facilities to read Max Mūller's edition of the Vedas and other references and continued his studies of ancient Indian civilization while in prison. He is reported to have experienced a great sense of joy when he stumbled over a reference to a two-month-long night before daybreak mentioned in the Vedas. This reference led him to infer that the Vedic Aryans lived near the North Pole where days and nights are very long. He developed this theme in a scholarly work called the Arctic Home in the Vedas.

In the midst of all the political activity, journalistic pressures, and religious and social programs, Tilak found time not only for serious scholarship but also to form a large number of close friendships. In trying to help a close friend, a wealthy man named Bābā Mahārāj, Tilak suffered an inordinate amount of trouble for over two decades. While suffering from cholera and lying on his deathbed, Bābā Mahārāj asked Tilak to be one of the trustees of his estate. He specifically requested Tilak to look after the welfare of his pregnant wife, and find her an adoptee son in case she fails to give birth to a male child, or if her son dies young. When her son died an infant death, Tilak helped Mahārāj's widow in finding a suitable male child from a family of blood relations, and formally adopt him in accordance with the local tradition and legal provisions. However, eyeing her big estate, one of the trustees named Nagpurkar tried to get the adoption annulled in favour of a boy of his choice. Under Nagpurkar's influence the young widow, Tāī Mahārāj, filed a court case against Tilak and other trustees alleging irregularities in regard to the adoption. Nagpurkar found great support from Aston, a British district officer, who was trying to find excuses to implicate Tilak, a thorn in the side of the government. The result was a series of very serious trumped-up charges, including unlawful confinement of Tāī Mahārāj in her residence, unlawful assembly around the residence, persecution of Nagpurkar and Tāī Mahārāj, preparation of forged documents, and deceit. The Inspector General of Police named Bruin, who was appointed to investigate the charges, recommended dropping of the charges for lack of substantiation. Yet, Aston pressed the charges, and a biased court declared him guilty, sentencing him for eighteen months of rigorous labour plus a fine of one thousand rupees. Ironically, the judge cited Tilak's selflessness and spotless character as the reason for this ‘light’ sentence (Phatak, 1999, p. 193).

A tireless fighter and a legal tactician of high order, Tilak appealed the sentence. Although the original case was a civil matter regarding adoption with little or no relevance to anyone other than a widow and the trustees of her estate, it was turned into a highly publicized criminal case. A highly respected gentleman was manacled as a common felon to make a point. The young age of the widow and the suspected profiteering from the estate gave enormous opportunities to Tilak's enemies for endless innuendo and character assassination. In fact one of the Judges involved in the case, Chandawarkar, indulged in casting aspersions against Tilak's honesty (Kelkar, 1928/1988, Vol. 2, Pt. 3, p. 30). The case and its appeals to higher courts caused him a lot of agony, let alone heavy expenses and a constant distraction from his numerous political and scholarly undertakings. Nevertheless, the High Court found Tilak innocent of every criminal charge, his conviction was set aside, and the amount paid in fine was refunded. Although the criminal case thus ended with his vindication, the civil case regarding the dispute over the adoption was taken all the way to the Privy Council, the highest court of appeal in the British Empire. Tilak won the appeal, thus ending an ordeal that lasted over twenty years. This final and full vindication considerably added to Tilak's already high reputation as a saintly man of impeccable character and boundless fortitude. Recognizing the role of the British bureaucracy in taking special interest in the case with the view of persecuting one of their staunchest critics, the public rewarded him by raising money for his defence.

Another important episode in Tilak's life began after Lord Curzon decided to adopt the highly unpopular policy of the partition of the province of Bengal. The agitation against this policy took an explosive turn when an angry young man named Khudiram Bose tried to assassinate Mr. Kingsford, a district magistrate, at Muzafferpore. Although the bomb missed its target, two English women were killed. The pro-British press started blaming the Nationalist leaders for inciting racial hatred, and British officers started a series of repressive measures against suspected youth and their leaders. Tilak wrote some articles in Kesari in which he drew parallels between the situation in Bengal and the Czarist tyranny in Russia. One of his articles titled ‘These remedies are not lasting’ suggested that the right solution to avoid people's rage against the British bureaucracy was to start granting them important rights of self-rule. The Governor of Bombay Sir George Clarke (later Lord Sydenham) found Tilak's articles objectionable, and charged him of exciting disloyalty and hatred against the Emperor and the Government of India (Tamhankar, 1956, p. 176). Thus began his second trial on the charge of sedition (this was in 1908—the first one being in 1897).

Tilak's defense involved hair splitting arguments disputing the correctness of translations of original Marathi words into English words like ‘despotic’, ‘repressive’, ‘arbitrary’, and so on. But an interesting point was made by Tilak's counsel, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (later recognized as the farther of the nation of Pakistan), that Tilak deliberately avoided speaking on the fine points of law that could have helped him get off the hook. Instead, he used his speech to demonstrate that the Government connived at the Anglo-Indian press, who were really to blame for hurting the feelings of the masses and thereby inciting them against the Government (Phatak, 1999, p. 279). In other words, Tilak used his trial as yet another opportunity for propaganda, rather than trying to save himself from the clutches of the law. When asked to make a final statement before his sentencing, Tilak famously uttered the following words with courage and unshaken confidence:

All I wish to say is that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of things, and, it may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free (Karandikar, 1957, p. 322).

In any case, the court sentenced Tilak to six years of ‘transportation’—a euphemism for exile from his country, and sent him to a jail in Mandaly in Burma, now called Myanmar. Although he was given some special privileges in the jail, such as having a convict from his province to cook his meals, the weather was very hot, muggy and dusty, and the overall conditions of the jail were injurious to health. People expected such treatment of their popular leader at the hand of the government, and there was widespread public unrest in the city of Mumbai in anticipation of a negative verdict. As the case was drawing to a close, over 35,000 workers from a couple dozen mills in Mumbai went on strike. This strike, along with widespread public support of the strikers, firmly established Tilak's reputation as a leader of the masses. Once the moderate leaders had derisively called him a leader of the lower castes,¹⁴ and now the masses proved that Tilak had an enormous following that the moderates could never dream of. Indeed, there was strong nationwide reaction in response to Tilak's sentencing. The words he spoke in response to the sentencing provided further proof of his moral calibre and spiritual greatness. The thoughts expressed by Khadilkar in his editorial of Tilak's paper, Kesari, are worth noting as a sample of the public reaction. A paraphrase of the Marathi words he wrote would be as follows (Phatak, 1999, p. 280):

Tilak's words in the court were divinely inspired. He did not try to draw the court's attention to his old age and poor health. This is because, being in a state of a highly accomplished yogī (yogārūḍha sthiti), he had become unaware of his physical existence, and was concerned only about the future of his favourite political movement.

As is widely known, Tilak used his imprisonment in Mandalay to write the Gītārahasya, his famous commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā aimed at explaining its essence, or secret (rahasya). He composed this scholarly work under highly adverse conditions, with no library at hand, and only the limited number of books he was allowed to use in the jail. Upon his release from Mandaly, the authorities held the manuscript to examine if it contained his usual brand of inflammatory words against the Government. Under these conditions, for some time after his return from the jail, the manuscript was presumed to have been either confiscated, or lost. When asked about it, Tilak calmly replied that the Government could not destroy his work, for the contents were still in his head and he could write the whole text down in a short time.

The publication of the Gītārahasya invited immediate reaction, favourable as well as highly critical. Notwithstanding his highly controversial conclusions, no one would doubt the scholarly excellence of this work. Aside from the deep knowledge of the traditional Indian philosophy and of the numerous commentaries on the Gītā, this work contained an in-depth comparison of the Indian approach to ethics with the philosophical scholarship of the West, including the works of Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Green, Spencer and other prominent thinkers. Tilak's biographer Tamhankar (1956, p. 204) quotes Tilak's own words in this matter: ‘What I have done in Gītārahasya is to prove, by comparing the philosophy of the Gītā and the philosophy of the West, that ours, to put it at the lowest, is in no way inferior to theirs.’

Although the Gītārahasya was his magnum opus, it was by no means Tilak's first or only scholarly work. He had been active in serious scholarship despite his heavy involvement in political activity throughout his working life. His earlier works, the Orion and the Arctic Home in the Vedas had already earned him a solid international reputation as a serious scholar in the field of ancient Indian history and culture. Aside from this, he was known for his deep knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, the Indian classics such as the epic Mahābhārata, and so on. He was also deeply involved in attempts to revise and harmonize the various calendars then in vogue in various communities among the Hindus.

Tilak was fifty-eight years old when he returned from Mandalay. Thus, he was past the normal retirement age, which was then commonly set at fifty-five. Naturally, he received friendly advice from many colleagues that he should retire from active political life. But instead of retiring, he quickly sprang back into action. He began his normal activities, such as writing in Kesari and Mahratta, giving lectures, meeting politicians, entertaining any odd person who would drop in anytime of the day or night for help or advice, and so on. There was an additional activity not common in earlier days, namely giving lectures on the Gītā, and responding to critics of his Gītārahasya. The national and political situation had now radically changed, for this was 1914 and the British Empire was deeply embroiled in World War I. Such an adversity of the enemy was an opportunity not to be missed by any patriotic Indian, much less by a consummate tactician like Tilak. He started using the newly founded Home Rule League as a national platform to seek increasing concessions from the Government. He interpreted the English term ‘Home Rule’—commonly translated as 'svarāj' in most Indian languages—to mean more and more political rights at all levels of government from local to national, leading to total independence from the British rule in the near future.

It is in one of his public lectures in support of the Home Rule movement that he spontaneously asserted that ‘Home Rule is my birth right, and I WILL have it’.¹⁵ These words became etched in the national psyche throughout India's struggle for freedom. In lecture after lecture his general strategy was to insist that he was not trying to replace British Sovereignty with an Indian ruler, but just the faltering bureaucrats with efficient Indians, citing every possible slip and misrule by any British officer. He tactfully compared the Sovereign with Brahman—an unchanging metaphysical principle that did not directly participate in running the daily affairs of the world. Thus, he suggested, he had no quarrel with the irreplaceable Sovereign, thereby implying his allegiance to the Crown. His quarrel, he explained, was only with the bureaucrats who ran the daily business and goofed quite often. These bureaucrats were not an integral part of the immutable principle of Sovereignty, but simply a part of the government machinery that was mutable—like the ever-changing māyā or prakṛti.

The bureaucrats were clearly replaceable, for the government transferred them every now and then. If so, why not replace the English officers with more competent Indians? Why import an inexperienced—and yet expensive—young Englishman of twenty-one years of age to be a district Collector, when more mature and experienced Indian officers were already employed and readily available at all levels at a much lower salary? After all, there were countless examples of Indians chosen by the government and successfully operating at various positions from bottom to top. Then why pay Rs 25,000 a month to the top bureaucrat, namely the Viceroy in Delhi, when he could be replaced with an equally competent Indian who would cost far less? Tilak used all kinds of ingenious arguments in his speeches that continued to attract larger and larger audiences in villages and cities where he kept getting invited to lecture.

A golden opportunity to bargain for more rights came up in 1916 when the Empire wanted to recruit thousands of Indians to fight in the war in Europe. Tilak offered his unstinting support in recruiting soldiers, promising to recruit more men to the army than the Empire needed, including one of his own sons. He even offered to deposit a large sum of money toward a fine per each soldier short of the number he promised to recruit. But such support to the government would not be unconditional, as some moderate leaders had offered; it would come only at a price. He demanded in return for his efforts officers' positions to Indians commensurate with their qualifications and quality, as well as more rights to the public at every level of the government. Unlike in earlier days of his participation in national politics, he was now perceived as—and behaved like—a mature elderly statesman willing to make compromises and forge alliances. Thus, he tried to unite the moderates and the radicals within the National Congress, the latter having split from the main body since the meeting of the Congress in Surat, and since organized as a separate group under the Nationalist banner. As is widely known, it is at the Surat Congress that Tilak was joined by a young revolutionary from Bengal by the name of Arbind Ghose, who later became famous as Sri Aurobindo, a great sage and saint. Tilak's radical politics continued; at the annual meeting of the Congress in Lucknow in 1916, he tried to strike an accord between the Hindu and Muslim leaders—a significant effort in the right direction.

By the time of his sixtieth birthday on July 23rd 1916, Tilak had reached the pinnacle of his political career with unquestioned dominance recognized by friends as well as foes as the most influential leader of the Indian people. His increasingly popular and influential lectures were becoming a headache to the Government. Willingdon, the then Governor of the Bombay Province, ordered him to stop inciting the people again, and pay a large sum as surety for ceasing and desisting insidious activities. This action came with a specific reference to a couple of his speeches attended by scribes specially appointed by the Governor to record his lectures verbatim to help avoid legal wrangling over the words he used. Tilak went to court to contest the Governor's action, and won this case. This was the third case of sedition in his life.

It would have been a great surprise if Tilak's fame had not reached England as his reputation and influence continued to grow in leaps and bounds year after year. While occasional news about his political activities had been published in British newspapers, Sir Valentine Chirol, the foreign correspondent of the London Times, came to India in 1909 to study the political unrest in the British Raj. The Government provided access to its secret files and police records, for portraying Tilak in the darkest possible way was clearly in their interest. Chirol published a series of articles in the London Times, which were later put together as a book titled ‘Indian unrest’. It is in these writings that Chirol coined the epithet ‘Father of the Indian Unrest’, which pithily describes Tilak's place in history. That Chirol's words were not a matter of journalistic flare but the authentic perception of the highest officers of the Empire is shown by the following words of Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India: ‘This is the only political figure,’ said Montagu, ‘whose influence on India is perhaps greater than that of all others’ (quoted by Phatak, 1999, p. 384). Tilak saw Chirol's book the day after he returned from Mandalay. Soon he decided to file a libel suite against Chirol, as well as against Macmillan Company, the book's publishers.

In 1918, Tilak left India for London to fight the libel case against Chirol. Fighting this case was an expensive affair, given the long journey and the fat fees of British lawyers he had to engage. The long and short of the case is that Tilak lost it. Tilak's motivation in undertaking such a risky and costly project would seem questionable, especially given that it appeared to seek personal vindication rather than a fight for a public cause. Karandikar (1957, p. 564) quotes Tilak's own words from his letter to a close associate Khaparde, which throw some light on Tilak's views on this issue:

I was rather surprised to find that the result of this [Chirol] case dejected you [Mr. Khaparde] so much. Well, we must take our reverses calmly…. It was a game. If we had succeeded, it would have given us some advantage, not in private life but in our public contest with the bureaucracy. We have failed, not through any fault or mistake of ours, but through the incapacity of the British Judge and Jury to distinguish between private character and political opinion of men. But this is, on its face, an eye opener to our people, and, let us now utilise it as such. So you see that any way we gain, provided we are not disheartened.

There was more to Tilak's trip to England than fighting a libel suit. He met a lot of politically important people in an attempt to find potential friends and sympathizers to the national cause. He took every opportunity to speak to British audiences, addressing mainly industrial workers who could be sympathetic to his criticisms of the bureaucracy. Any publicity of India's problems among the British subjects would be an advantage to the Indian cause. He also used his stay in England to pursue several other relevant goals, such as learning more about the latest printing technology for potential use in running his newspapers. In any case, the Chirol case turned out to be one of his major undertakings toward the end of his life. He died on 1 August 1920, at the age of sixty-four.

Understanding Tilak as a Karma-Yogi

The story of Tilak's life would normally look like that of a renowned politician rather than that of a yogī. Although his thoughts on spirituality are clearly explained in Gītārahasya, there are no first person accounts, whether diaries or autobiographical writings, available that would throw light on his own perspective on his sādhanā, that is, his spiritual quest. So we cannot avail ourselves of first person accounts of his experiences along the path of karma yoga, or of his spiritual attainments. In general, it is not common in the Indian tradition for persons to speak about their spiritual life except in the immediate circle of the guru and fellow disciples. Moreover, as a politician Tilak had little by way of private life; his life was an open book. There are only a few second-person accounts by persons near to him, which are considered below, and there are not many third-person accounts either. Despite volumes, especially biographical works, written on the life of Tilak, it is not easy to find writings that examine his life and work as a spiritual aspirant. An extensive search through the catalogue of works on Tilak collected at the office of Kesari, the newspaper that he founded and is now run by his great grandson, led but to a single short work in Marathi that deals exclusively on the issue of spirituality in Tilak's life (Vidwans, 1926/1945). In spite of its explicit focus on the topic of spirituality, this book is of little help in answering such pertinent questions as the identity of his guru, the nature of his spiritual practices (sādhanā), or an estimate of the result of the level of success in his spiritual enterprise.

Most of Tilak's biographers stress his political activities and successes therein, and rare ones such as Phatak try to critically assess his political and social work. Some articles published in the context of his birth centenary in 1956 make some valuable points. A good example of this is an article by S.D. Pendse, a noted Marathi scholar, which presents a perspective on Tilak's thoughts on ethics and spirituality as reflected in the latter's Gītārahasya (Pendse, 1956). Pendse points out that, in Tilak's opinion, the origin of all ethical norms must be found in the highest spiritual attainment of a human being. According to the Vedānta system, the highest spiritual attainment of a human being is mokṣa (liberation). While Vedānta implies pure spirituality, ethics are simply its practical aspect. Thus, from Tilak's viewpoint, spirituality and ethics are but two aspects of the system of Vedānta. Pendse points to a long sentence from Gītārahasya as indicative of the essence of Tilak's life and teaching. The sentence is long-winded and hard to translate. Its purport may be paraphrased as follows, ‘Ideally a person should attain inner calm by purging the mind of all desires through the realization of the identity between the Self and Brahman. One should thereby attain equanimity, and malice toward none. Upon attainment of such a state, one should set an example for others through one's own behaviour, and help everyone around oneself in attaining spiritual progress.’ According to Pendse, this is what Tilak preached, and that is what he successfully practiced throughout his life.

It is interesting to note that the sentences Pendse chooses to help understand the essence of Tilak's life are taken from his chapter on the behaviour of a self-realized person in the Gītārahasya. As explained in the Bhagavad Gītā (2.54-72), a self-realized person attains a dynamically stable intellect (sthita-prajña) that reflects equanimity and inner calm that enables such a person to face the gravest crises without being ruffled by negative emotions. Are there any indications in Tilak's life that he had attained such a state? S. B. Belvi (2004) suggests an answer to this question in his short recent biography of Tilak. He points first to Tilak's involvement in the Tāī Mahārāj case, which dragged on for over twenty-three years and drained his financial and other resources when he needed them the most. The allegations, innuendo and gossip arising from this case raised suspicions about his personal character and public involvement in a way that would have been personally painful, as well as injurious to the many causes for which he fought in public interest. Tilak went through this ordeal calmly regardless of the many reverses and nagging moments. His only motive in facing the situation was to perform his duties following from promises to a friend. There are several other instances of Tilak's exceptionally stable emotional disposition.

While waiting to hear the result of his first trial on the serious charge of sedition, Tilak's friends broke down in anticipation of the bad news. Indeed, Tilak went to sleep as usual while his friends had literally lost their sleep. After waking up he made casual remarks and joked despite the sombre mood of those around. Similarly, while waiting for the result of the second sedition trial in 1908, a friend said that Tilak would soon be taken to the jail. In response Tilak casually remarked, ‘What difference would that make? The British have already turned the whole nation into a prison. All they will do is to send me to a different cell in the same prison’ (Belvi, 2004, p. 41). There were also instances in his life where an ordinary person would break down with grief, but Tilak remained unmoved. Thus, in 1903 when his eldest college-going son Vishwanath succumbed to the plague, his son-in-law Ketkar stood speechless in front of him. Tilak broke the silence saying, ‘Is it not natural, after all, that we would lose some firewood of our own when the whole town is up in flames?’ A couple of years later, someone informed Tilak that his second son was seriously ill. Tilak instructed his attendants not to distract him with such news from home until the tasks on hand, namely the celebrations at Shivaji's fort, were complete. He could attend domestic issues only after his public responsibilities were taken care of. In another instance, when his youngest son, Waman, died at a very young age, he asked his nephew not to wake up the infant's mother from sleep; she would come to know what has happened soon anyways.

Such instances should not be interpreted to mean heartlessness, indifference or emotional shallowness. It did not seem to be his style to express his tender emotions, although he was very sensitive to the needs of his family and earnest in fulfilling them. This is well expressed in his letters from Mandalay written to his nephew who was the family's caregiver in his absence. These letters are full of the minutest details of things that needed to be done for every family member; only a highly emotionally sensitive person could think of such details while himself suffering from diabetes and a host of other health problems under the harsh conditions of a jail. In one such letter that he wrote after hearing the death of his wife of forty-one years, he expressed his deep frustration for not being there to take care of her during her last illness. That Tilak was a man of boundless compassion was expressed in his day-to-day behaviour. His doors were always open to anyone who sought his help, no matter how busy he would be with one thing after another. It was quite common for people to knock on his door—without an appointment or formality at anytime in day or night—for any odd mundane matter, most commonly free legal advice in court cases of all types.

What kind of spiritual practices did Tilak follow to help attain emotional equanimity and boundless compassion? Whose guidance did he follow? Such questions are not easily answered on the basis of the large amount of biographical information that is available. Although it is widely believed that Tilak thought of Shri Aṇṇāsāheb Patwardhan as his guru, there are no indications to confirm a clear guru-disciple relationship between the two men from either Tilak's many biographies, or from Patwardhan's (see Aprabuddha, 1926). There is no indication in Tilak's biographies suggesting that he may have followed any step-wise procedure explained in texts of Yoga or Vedānta. It is important here to understand that Tilak primarily—although not exclusively—followed karma yoga, which does not have a step-wise procedure to follow, or a series of markers of progress, like those described in Patañjali's yoga. Tilak's own exposition of karma yoga does not lay down any steps to follow. The reasons for the lack of a well-defined procedure to follow in the practice of karma yoga should not be difficult to understand. It should be clear that the basic principle of karma yoga is to keep doing the duties appropriate to one's station in life without clamouring for success. Given that each person finds himself in relatively unique social and historical situations, he must devise appropriately unique solutions to the challenges unfolding in life. Although one could and should be guided by some general principles, such as refraining from injury to any life (ahiṁsā), there are situations where such principles cannot be followed. Indeed, the Gītā, while fully recognizing the importance of the principle of ahiṁsā, tries to convince Arjuna that it is imperative that he ought to fight a war against his own cousins and other close relatives.

Tilak argues in Gītārahasya (in Chapter 2, called Karmajijñāsā) that, given the complexities of practical life, one cannot expect to be guided by a fixed set of very specific moral principles uniformly applied to a myriad of highly complex situations. There are situations where one moral principle clashes with another principle requiring skilful compromises between the two. This should be clear to students of moral behaviour in modern psychology, given the famous examples in Kohlberg's research on moral dilemmas. Thus, in a popular case presented by Kohlberg (1981), Heinz, the fictitious hero of a story, was faced with the prospect of having to steal a drug to save his sick wife because he could not afford an excessively high priced medicine from a greedy pharmacist. Under such circumstances, Heinz is required to think of some higher principles that would help justify stealing. In Gītārahasya Tilak cites numerous such examples of moral dilemmas often taken from the epic Mahābhārata and other well-known Indian classics. Given the commonness of such dilemmas in human life, each person is doomed to device resolutions to unpredictable and often unique situations presented in the course of life. Tilak was born in a specific historical context where he and millions of his compatriots had to face an exploitative rule by one of the most powerful empires in the history of the world. Fighting against it was a historical need of his times, and Tilak used his considerable talents and fine moral sensitivities to justify such a fight. He did not in principle rule out killing as a justifiable action under appropriate circumstances. In this regard he differed from Mahatma Gandhi, his junior contemporary, who advocated ahiṁsā at all costs. Alas, Gandhi's best disciples could not afford to follow ahiṁsā; in a short time of after the Mahatma's death, they marched Indian armies to protect India's interests in Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Goa.

Although quite aggressive in his political life, Tilak was not a soldier by temperament, but rather an intellectual. He often used to say that, had he been born in different historical circumstances, he would have preferred to be a mathematics professor. But he could not afford the luxury of such a choice since he felt compelled to take a line of work such as journalism that would be more appropriate for the task of opposing a mighty empire. Regardless of the demands of an active political life, he remained tirelessly engaged in intellectual pursuits of the highest standards of scholarship. Given such a strong intellectual aptitude, he could be expected to choose the path of knowledge (jñāna mārga) toward his spiritual development. He did in fact study the philosophy of Advaita Vedānta very deeply, and meticulously followed its principles advocating the path of knowledge. Indeed it would be fair to say that, despite his advocacy of karma yoga as the best among the many pathways to mokṣa, he was in fact a jñāna yogī. Tilak's writings make no secret of his admiration for Śartkara, the great exponent of Advaita. However, as noted in the previous section, he disagreed with the followers of Śartkara who insisted that knowledge is the only means to liberation (jñānādeva tu kaivalyam). Tilak openly advocated a combination of knowledge and action (jñāna-karma-samuccaya) as the most appropriate means to liberation (mokṣa). Such disagreement with the great master invited the strongest criticism from some of Śaṅtkara's staunch followers of his time. In his biography of Tilak, Phatak (1999, pp. 356–366) gives several instances of serious debates with erudite and serious followers of Śaṅkara's philosophy, as well as comic situations of farcical diatribes in public meetings by self-appointed defenders of Śaṅkara.

The roots of Tilak's disagreement with Śaṅkara lie in his early youth. As Tilak's biographers point out (for example, Phatak, 1999, p. 8), and Tilak himself notes in his preface to Gītārahasya, he was only 16 years old when he had a serious encounter with the Bhagavad Gītā when his ailing father asked him to read aloud an old commentary on the Gītā. It is at that time that he thought that, given that the main thrust of the Gītā was to convince Arjuna to fight a fratricidal war, it would be odd indeed to conclude, as Śaṅkara did, that it preached renunciation from active life. Following this, decades of serious study led him to conclude that the Gītā's main teaching favoured active participation in life's challenges, not renunciation. It is only in regard to the relative importance of action in comparison to knowledge that Tilak's position differs from Śaṅkara's. There was no doubt whatever in Tilak's mind about the importance of the realization of the identity of the Self with Brahman. On that issue, Tilak and Śaṅkara are one. More specifically, Tilak wrote repeatedly about the need for action after self-realization (jñānottara karma). He writes with such conviction about the identity of the Self (Ātman) with Brahman that his words appear to follow from a direct experience of this identity. However, there are no external means to assert if he, or anyone for that matter, had a direct experience of self-realization in a higher state of consciousness.

Although it seems fair to say that Tilak successfully travelled the path of knowledge (jñāna mārga) to its rightful destination, what can we say about his possible involvement in dhyāna yoga and bhakti yoga? There are some references in the biographical material that indicate the possibility that he regularly, and likely intensely, practiced concentrative meditation (dhyāna). The collection of reminiscences and anecdotes about Tilak provide some clues in this matter. For instance, according to a reminiscence recorded by his son Ramachandra, Tilak spoke to his children about the importance of concentration of one's mind as a key to success in life. He spoke not only about concentrating one's mind, but also about emptying one's mind of all thoughts—and thereby attaining Samādhi. Further, according to the son's report, Tilak specifically mentioned that, as many persons around him must have noticed, he often sat for hours on end in his easy chair oblivious to what was happening around him. Tilak indicated that at such times he used to reach high levels of concentration, although he would not say—and nobody would ever know—if he experienced Samādhi at any level (Tilak & Dhavale, 1992, p. 19)¹⁶. A similar indication of Tilak's practice of concentrative meditation (dhyāna) is found in the reminiscences of Kulkarni, the convict who was appointed as Tilak's cook in the Mandalay prison. Kulkarni mentions that it was Tilak's daily practice to sit in his bed after waking up every morning for about an hour and a half—apparently absorbed in deep meditation (Tilak & Dhavale, 1992, p. 78).

Reports of regular meditation for one or two hours every day completely conform to his expressed views in this matter that were noted earlier. While such practice of dhyāna yoga was clearly part of his overall spiritual practice (sādhanā), there is little if any indication in the biographical materials about his reliance on devotion (bhakti). Although Tilak actively promoted the celebration of the annual festival of god Gaṇeśa, he appears to have thought of such worship more as means to unite the worshippers than as means to self-realization in his own case. The clear impression of his personality given in the biographies indicates that he was not by nature an emotionally highly sensitive person. This makes him not a natural candidate for the practice of bhakti yoga. In this respect, Tilak stands in sharp contrast with Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa, whose high emotional sensitivity was manifest from early childhood. In his article on the occasion of Tilak's birth centenary, Mahādevśāstrī Divekar (1956) throws some light on the place of bhakti in Tilak's spiritual life. In Divekar's view, there comes a point in the life of every person, whether he is a karma yogi, jñāna yogi, or a bhakti yogi, when he totally surrenders to God. He points out that in the speeches Tilak made in his last lecture tour in support of the Home Rule League, there are frequent references to God's Will. According to Divekar, Tilak's attitudes in this matter are consistent with his views about bhakti expressed in the Gītārahasya where he advocates performing action without egotism, without hankering for rewards, and with total faith in God. Divekar notes that Tilak makes a reference to the will of Providence in his famous words upon being sentenced to six years of exile in Mandalay. In other words, Tilak's attitude of surrender to God's will apparently intensified toward the end of his life.

Divekar offers an interesting perspective in regard to the connection between love of God and love of motherland in Tilak's life. According to this perspective, which he points out to be a traditional one in Indian thought, there is a continuum from individuality through collectivity to Divinity (vyaṣṭi, samaṣṭi, and parameṣṭi). Thus, individualistic self-love may be transformed into love for the all-encompassing Divine by successively expanding its limits to increasingly expanding in-groups. This approach to the successive expansion of ego-boundaries helps make sense of Tilak's legendary quip that he viewed his love for the motherland as but a measure of his love for God. Tilak's deep involvement in his family, with his city where he was a councillor for some time, his devotion to his profession of journalism, his deep love for his language expressed in his choice of Marathi as the language of his magnum opus, his pride for Hindu religion and philosophy, and most of all his intense nationalism, all indicate that he practiced exactly what he preached.

Here one may pause to examine why Tilak seems to stop short of working for the whole of humanity, as if arrested in his spiritual growth beyond the point of nationalism. A possible answer to this is that, born in a historical era of subjugation under an exploitative foreign rule, fighting for national freedom had to be the highest priority. Moreover, as noted earlier, he explicitly mentions in Gītārahasya that it is most legitimate for a nation to take up arms against another nation that politically dominates and exploits it. Had he been born under different circumstances, he might have been a jñāna yogi working hard in the service of the whole of humankind. This would of course be pure speculation, and not a testable hypothesis, and may be left at that.

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