The Bhagavad Gita and Ulysses

'Ulysses' was written in October 1833 after Tennyson came to know about the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. ‘Ulysses’, based on the Greek legendary character Odysseus, desires for adventure and Karma, is ready to leave his empire and monarchy of Ithica to his son Telemachus.  His idea of an ideal King is not of one who sits around the fire with his wife and making laws for people who don’t even know him. He compares people to a sort of animal (“savage race”), who needs to be fed and showered with freebies and taken care of. He feels uneasy, as he knows he is meant for things that are more meaningful.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees……                                                                                                                           (‘Ulysses’, ll. 1-7.)

The Bhagavad-Gita also echoes the same thoughts:

TEXT 17

k-MaR<aae ùiPa baeÖVYa& baeÖVYa& c ivk-MaR<a" )

Ak-MaR<aê baeÖVYa& GahNaa k-MaR<aae GaiTa" )) 17 ))

karmaëo hy api boddhavyaà

boddhavyaà ca vikarmaëaù

akarmaëaç ca boddhavyaà

gahanä karmaëo gatiù

TRANSLATION

The intricacies of action are very hard to understand. Therefore, one should know properly what action is, what forbidden action is, and what inaction is. 

                                                                                                      (The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch.IV., Sl. 17)

Death is the full annihilation of all vibrations of the human body. The heart has stopped to function, the lungs, the veins, arteries, in fact, every limb of the physical body, has closed operation, pulsating, vibrating. The afferent and efferent nervous system has stopped getting any order or feeling. This is a kind of silence, which may be called death. Everything is stopped with death. So Ulysses feels that if nobody can stop the death, so better die to do some work for the people and world. The Bhagavad-Gita and Ulysses believe in the same philosophy of action or Karma.

Ulysses is the modern passion for Karma, for the discovery of its boundless areas, for the takeover of the new kingdoms of science and knowledge. He believes that the human spirit is bold. It can never grow tired in its hunt for knowledge. 

In the first part of the poem, Ulysses is talking about the problems that he has been facing in his kingdom. Ulysses expresses himself as an 'Idle king', which shows he is impatient and although rules, is not getting any fulfilment from it.

The poem communicates the voracious craving of the human soul for knowledge. It was the spirit of the Bhagavad-Gita, which made modern Europe what it is today. He has also specified us here an image of that mind. He kept up his thoughts in mind all through life and constant in poem after poem the idea of the endless search after truth beyond the limits hitherto attained.    

All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. ……                                               (‘Ulysses’, ll. 7-17)

The Bhagavad-Gita also expresses the same idea where it says that this world is just like an illusion and nothing is real and permanent here.

TEXT 12

NaTvevah& JaaTau NaaSa& Na Tv& NaeMae JaNaaiDaPaa" )

Na cEv Na>aivZYaaMa" SaveR vYaMaTa" ParMa( )) 12 ))

na tv evähaà jätu näsaà

na tvaà neme janädhipäù

na caiva na bhaviñyämaù

sarve vayam ataù param

TRANSLATION

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.           (The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch.II, Sl. 12)                                                                                         

This life and world are just illusion or Maya. The theory of Mäyä says that after liberation the individual soul, separated by the covering of Mäyä, or illusion, will unite into the impersonal Brahman and lose its individual existence and is not protected by any power. Only God is not the illusion and He is a reality. According to the Mäyä theory, the individuality is not spiritual, but material. An ordinary man with all the four defects of human imperfection is powerless to teach that which is worth hearing. However, prior to this verse, such a physical belief is already condemned.

For Ulysses, 'experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that unraveled world whose margin fades forever and ever when I move'. Through this, he is presenting us that, the more we know, the more we realize we do not know anything. The 'margin' is the sphere, which shrinks, as we get more far-off from it by moving on through life.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
>From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ……                                                       (‘Ulysses’, ll. 18-32.)

The reiteration of 'ever' show there is so much more to observe and do. Ulysses says that it is wrong to 'rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! Here, he is contrasting our abilities to a sword, saying that we should not let it rust, but use it to the utmost. The exclamation at the end of the line shows his strong effect on this.

The contrasting image can also be seen the Bhagavad-Gita:

TEXT 9

k-aYaRiMaTYaev YaTk-MaR iNaYaTa& i§-YaTae_JauRNa )

Sa(r)& TYa¤-a f-l&/ cEv Sa TYaaGa" Saaitvk-ae MaTa" )) 9 ))

käryam ity eva yat karma

niyataà kriyate 'rjuna

saìgaà tyaktvä phalaà caiva

sa tyägaù sättviko mataùand

TRANSLATION

O Arjuna, when one performs his prescribed duty only because it ought to be done, and renounces all material association and all attachment to the fruit, his renunciation is said to be in the mode of goodness. 

                                                                            (The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. XVIII. Sl. 9)

In respiration also, after we inhale in, we do not immediately exhale. We retain the breath within for a while and then exhale. Similarly, after exhaling, we do not at once inhale. We stop for a little while, and then only inhale. Therefore, in both cases, there is a short pause. The first pause, after inhalation, is called purna kumbhaka, and the second pause, after exhalation, is called shunya kumbhaka. These are states of pause, not of speed.

A state of pause is nothing but a state of death because, in that state of pause, every function and vibration is suspended. At that time, vibrations of all objects of the universe remain in a body in seed form, but not yet fully accepted or assimilated.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone.  ……(‘Ulysses’, ll. 33 - 43)

When Ulysses makes a decision to hand over his throne to his son Telemachus, he contrasts his son to himself as being less restless and more stable, therefore able to rule his throne when he is away. He talks about his people as “rugged people” who are rough and uncultured, that is why they need to be tamed and taught and put to good use. According to Tennyson, as well as Ulysses, it is necessary to worship the native or household Gods for perfection in life.

This poem is set when King Ulysses returns home to Ithaca from a long journey and fighting in the Trojan Wars. His pursuit of knowledge beyond human limits and for his adventures in disregard of his family and family responsibilities have been criticized greatly on a positive and negative mote.  The Bhagavad-Gita says that as far as work is concerned, one should transfer his energy entirely to God conscious activities.

TEXT 55

MaTk-MaRk*-NMaTParMaae MaÙ¢-" Sa(r)viJaRTa" )

iNavŒr" SavR>aUTaezu Ya" Sa MaaMaeiTa Paa<@v )) 55 ))

mat-karma-kån mat-paramo

mad-bhaktaù saìga-varjitaù

nirvairaù sarva-bhüteñu

yaù sa mäm eti päëòava

TRANSLATION

My dear Arjuna, he who engages in My pure devotional service, free from the contaminations of fruitive activities and mental assumptions, he who works for Me, who makes Me the ultimate goal of his life, and who is friendly to every living being—he certainly comes to Me.  (The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. XI. Sl. 55)

Those who want to realise the Unchangeable and the Immortal must go beyond this system of change. Only the Entity that never changes at all is the immortal Entity. That Entity is Paramatma super soul or God. So, to be established in immortality, what will one have to do? One will have to awaken one’s sharp intelligence, and in due course, that awakened pointed intellect will merge into Supreme Consciousness, Parama Chaitanya.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. ……(‘Ulysses’, ll. 47 - 56)

There is in human spirit an unquenchable inquisitiveness, a strong urge to know more and more of the mysteries of the cosmos. If we lead a life of mental activity, we are sure to prosper. A settled and lazy mind is bound to kill the soul. Ulysses is the face of those eternal and never-ending elements in man’s nature.

Tennyson mentions how “death closes all”. He expresses his own need of going further and braving the efforts of life after the loss of his beloved. “Ulysses” like many of Tennyson’s other poems, deals with the yearning to reach beyond the limits of one’s thoughts. He mentions how he wants to go beyond the place where stars bathe themselves at night, and he challenges norms in society, as he does not feel without purpose following a herd would do any good for anyone. He feels the need to strip away from all who give him negativity

TEXT 5

Na ih k-iêT+a<aMaiPa JaaTau iTaïTYak-MaRk*-Ta( )

k-aYaRTae ùvXa" k-MaR SavR" Pa[k*-iTaJaEGauR<aE" )) 5 ))

na hi kaçcit kñaëam api

jätu tiñöhaty akarma-kåt

käryate hy avaçaù karma

sarvaù prakåti-jair guëaiù

TRANSLATION

Everyone is forced to act helplessly according to the qualities he has acquired from the modes of material nature; therefore, no one can abstain from doing something, not even for a moment.               (The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. III, Sl. 5)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

It is not an issue of embodied life, but it is the nature of the soul to be always full of life. Without the presence of the spirit soul, the material body cannot move. The body is only a dead vehicle to be worked and commanded by the spirit soul, which is always active and cannot stop even for a moment.    

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'       ……(‘Ulysses’, ll. 57 - 65)

On the desired and set, adventure journey, this may reunite him with his companion in the Trojan War, Achilles.  It means the soul never dies only the body changes the body and abode.  Ulysses says that 'some work of noble note can be done' which will suit him as he has noble qualities. The assonance in 'Long day wanes' and 'slow moon climbs' drags the line down and shows how time is running out fast and unconcerned. The run - on line 'come my friends 'Tis not too late' shows how Ulysses is trying to boost the morale of his fellow mariners, into one more battle. The 'purpose holds', shows that they are soldiers. Ulysses' main aim is to reach the 'Happy Isles' to see 'Achilles, whom we knew'. The 'one equal temper of heroic hearts', shows the strength of the mariners and Ulysses. He wants to go to the “happy isles” which refers to the Islands of the Blessed, or heaven where their personal hero, Achilles resides.  A man with noble qualities and deeds can directly go to heaven and can meet his creator or God. This status is called Moksha in the Bhagavad-Gita.

TEXT 24

AC^eÛae_YaMadaùae_YaMa(c)e-Ûae_XaaeZYa Wv c )

iNaTYa" SavRGaTa" SQaa<aurcl/ae_Ya& SaNaaTaNa" )) 24 ))

acchedyo 'yam adähyo 'yam

akledyo 'çoñya eva ca

nityaù sarva-gataù sthäëur

acalo 'yaà sanätanaù

TRANSLATION

This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same.              (The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. II, Sl.24)

All these qualities of the minuscule but atomic soul positively establish that the individual soul is eternally the atomic particle of the spirit and the God whole, and he remains the same atom eternally, without any change. After liberation from material contamination, the atomic soul may prefer to remain as a spiritual glow in the effulgent rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the intelligent and great souls enter into the spiritual planets to associate with the Personality of Godhead. Perhaps Achilles represents this status, discussed in the Bhagavad-Gita.