Newton, Krishna and Whatsapp

My teenage years were consumed by Newton, learning Newton’s law of this and Newton’s law of that. I was grateful to the dog that spilled a lighted candle on his works. Otherwise, I would have to learn more laws. My adult life is consumed by Krishna, learning his laws of living and trying to follow them. Knowingly or unknowingly, their laws drive us and here is how.

Nothing is worse in life than waking up in the morning from the comfort of the comforter. As per Newton’s first law of motion, I would like to stay in that state of inertia and never have any external force act on me forcing me to get up and work. But here Krishna comes in between, saying,

न हि कश्चित्क्षणमपि जातु तिष्ठत्यकर्मकृत्* ।
कार्यते ह्यवशः कर्म सर्वः प्रकृतिजैर्गुणैः ॥

It is the prakruti (nature, swabhav, fitrat) of the living to do work and no living being can escape work even for a moment and has to do work according to their nature. Honoring Newton, Krishna creates an external force in my stomach to force me to wake up and go to the bathroom.

Fine, can’t escape from work, so we will do work. But here Newton comes back with the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] law,

“Expectation of desired result is directly proportional to the efforts involved in the work and the success of the work”

Fair enough. The harder we work and the more successful the work is, naturally, we should get what we deserve. But no, here Krishna comes in between saying,

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

The result of your works is not in your hands and nor you should work based on desired result and nor you should never relinquish doing work.

So, we can’t escape from work, we have to do the work and not have any expectation of the desired result from the work!! Tough, but that is the rule of the game and we have no option to play the game. So we go on playing the game. But here Newton comes in between with his 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] law.

“A force, of depression, which is proportional to the difference of the expectations of the desired results and the obtained result acts on the individual”

So if there is a greater delta between the desired result and obtained result, greater is the depression.

So how does one lead a life under such circumstances?

Here Newton and Krishna suggest the same solution.
Newton in his 1[SUP]st[/SUP] law of motion puts the perpetual equilibrium state as either when the body is at rest (no work, inaction) or in constant motion (work, action) in absence of an external force (desire). So, if one does an action without desire, it is equivalent of not doing work and is not impacted by opposite force of depression.
Krishna echoes the same point,

कर्मण्य कर्म यः पश्येदकर्मणि च कर्म यः ।
स बुद्धिमान्मनुष्येषु स युक्तः कृत्स्नकर्मकृत्* ॥

A person who sees inaction in action and action in inaction is a wise man.
So if an action is done without desire, the expectation of desired result will be nearly zero. Hence the depression from not getting the expected result will not happen.

So, how to get rid of desire?

Here Krishna gives principle of equilibrium,

योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि संग त्यक्त्वा धनंजय ।
सिद्धयसिद्धयोः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते ॥

Krishna suggests samatvam, equanimity in success and failures, happiness and sadness and handles them equally. Physics mentions that a body stays in state of equilibrium if two equal, but opposite force acts on the body. So the forces (happiness and sadness) are there and one needs to handle it in a way that it balances out and a person is not impacted.

So how does one achieve samatvam?

Whatsapp comes to help here. Here are my whatsapp messages

Good morning messages
Motivational messages
Jokes
Sad news of someone I know
Jokes
Spiritual message
Motivational message
Some unbelievable stuff done by people
Spiritual message
Tragedy news
Some good news in the family
Jokes
Etc….

So just in a matter of minutes, one goes through the feeling of happiness, sadness, motivational, spiritual etc. Just like a sequence of hot/cold therapy works on a frozen shoulder, this shock and awe therapy should make us reach a stage that no happiness can make us happy and no sadness can make us sad, leading us to the Samatvam state. In this samatvam state, desires will go away and we can perpetually do our work without being impacted by failures.

Not sure if all this makes sense, just some random thoughts.