Bhagavad Gita – Chapter 5, sloka 13, part 2
Sloka 13
SARVA KARMANI MANASA SANYASTASTE’ SUKHAM VASHEE
NAVADWARE’ PURE’ DEHI NAIVA KURVAN NA KARAYAN.
Mentally renouncing all actions and self-controlled, the embodied rests happily in the nine-gated city neither acting nor causing others to act.
Nava Dware Pure’: Nine gated city. which is our body,The physical body is compared to a city of nine gates.
The gates had two purposes: To keep a firm control over the traffic that would like to come in from outside (only let in what was needed and not to let in that is not required or that is dangerous. Not to let in those who might harm the residents or who would be spies/warriors in disguise to dethrone the king,) AND to let the residents go out as needed. (To bring in essential requirements, for pilgrimage etc.) One can say it is like the customs clearance and security check at the ports of entry in any country.
What are the nine gates in our body? 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, one mouth, anus and urethra.
Whatever comes in the body has to come through these nine gates. If we can control what comes in and out of these nine gates, we are said to help in keeping our body healthy and this in turn brings in peace.
If our mind learns to keep a control over itself and not get excited or develops hatred to what reaches it from the nine gates, it will experience the peace. The enemy we are talking about in this instance is “The Ego”. The ego gets more powerful with every success and soon the individual forgets the Atman within.
Naiva kurvan na karayan: Neither acting nor causing others to act. (the embodied rests happily)
This is to reiterate the fact that the Atman is only a witness to all the bodily actions, emotional feelings and mental thoughts. Each one of us are given the freedom to think and act and learn from own experiences in life. We have to go through the samsara which is a series of cycles of births and deaths.
In the example we have taken, all the residents of the city need to carry out their daily activities that ensure peace for themselves, their country and prosperity for the society. The monarch remains as a witness without personally interfering in the life of majority. In relation to the Atman, it is the nearest example we can give but not totally similar to the life of the monarch.
He who constantly remembers the Atman within and acts as the servant of the divine will experience constant peace. On the contrary he who forgets the Atman
within and lives for personal pleasures will experience the transitory nature of pleasures and does not experience “Peace.”