THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 18
Text in Transliteration:
Karmany akarma yah pasyed akarmani cha karma yah
Sa buddhimaan manushyeshu sa yuktah krrtsnakarmakrrt
Text in English:
He who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, he is wise among men, he is a yogi and accomplisher of everything.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
1) Action is innate in Prakriti or Nature and inaction in Atman. The former is kinetic and the latter is static; one is the becoming and the other the Being; one is perishable and the other the imperishable. The ignorant are confused being unable to distinguished between the two. A passenger in a running train mistakes the nearby trees as running in the opposite direction. Here motion is attributed wrongly to the motionless. Action is seen in inaction due to ignorance. A man on the shore mistakes a sailing ship at a distance in the sea as one that stands still. Here inaction is seen in action. Thus it is seen that actions and inactions in nature do not always present themselves in their true perspective. The characteristics of the one are often imposed on the other due to ignorance. The ignorant man thinks of himself as the body. “Now I work; now I rest”—thus does he transpose the function of Prakriti on Atman. Mistaking the non-Self for Self is egoism. There is agency in the egoistic man. The agency-laden egoistic man may be sitting quiet abandoning all his duties. Even in that inert state he is verily a doer of karma. This ignorant condition is designated as action in inaction. In contrast with this, there is no trace of egoism in the man of Self-realization. While his body works incessantly, the Self remains as a witness. Atman is in nowise entangled in karma. The sense of over-work, under-work or neglect of duty is not in the knower of the self. This supreme position is recognized as inaction in action. Only they who have attained self-knowledge and they who are on the right path of Self-knowledge can be in this benign state.
--Sri Sankara
2) Activities taking place in and through the body, mind and senses are designated as karma or action; and the knowledge Supreme as akarma or inaction.
A man earnestly takes to cookery. He occupies himself with cooking. Seeing inaction in action is the process of adding to ones’s knowledge by doing ones duty properly. He who has a wide knowledge in cookery is able to execute that art efficiently. This leads to seeing action in inaction. This way karma enriches knowledge and knowledge brings in proficiency in work.
Karma known as living a righteous life culminates in Self-knowledge. The man of self-knowledge discharges his earthly duties to the best of his ability. Karma and Jnana (wisdom) are complementary to each other. -- Sri Ramanuja
3) What the individual soul views as his personal effort is karma, action. The unfailing Cosmic Function of the Supreme Lord is Akarma, inaction.
Man in his ignorance thinks that he is sole agent of his action. But when he sets aside his egoism and agency and feels that his actions are in reality the doings of the Lord, he is said to see inaction in action. Man is not responsible for what he does in dream; but whatever takes place in that state is also the Lod’s doing. With or without the instrumentality of man, the Lord’s work goes on perfectly. He who sees this great fact sees the Lord’s action in man’s inaction too. Such a man gains in wisdom.
-- Sri Madhwa
4) The nature of karma is to bind man to the wheel of birth and death. But that karma which is performed without egoism, purely for the glory of the Lord does not bind man. Furthermore it disentangles man from the bondages of his previous karma. To see, therefore, inaction in action is to convert all bondage-creating actions into freedom-creating actions. Work done for the sake of the Lord has this effect.
Desisting from obligatory action, due to laziness or ignorance, is highly harmful. New fetters are thereby created. Giving up auspicious action is inaction leading to encumbrances. Creating new entanglements in this way or seeing action in inaction, is not the way of the enlightened.
-- Sridhara
5) Mind requires to be cultured both in society and in solitude. If the mind can maintain its equilibrium and calmness while being engaged in a roaring battle, it is seeing inaction in action. While one is bodily detached from the turmoils of the world and placed in a far off deep mountain cave, if one’s mind goes Godward steadily and earnestly, it is seeing action in inaction.
It will not do for the mind to be top-sided in its development. There are those who are habituated to solitude. If such people be dragged into the tumultuous society, they go mad. There are others immersed in the throngs of the world. A day of solitary confinement is enough to turn them insane. Both of these types of men are partially trained. The perfectly trained alone are at their best both in solitude and in society. They are tuned both to action and inaction.
--Swami Vivekananda
6) Sri Krishna and Arjuna arrive at Kurukshetra, the former driving the chariot and the latter impatient to fight. The implications of the war that is about to commence flash in Arjuna’s mind just now. He throws away the bow and arrows. “I want not this vainglorious warfare,” says he and sits quiet.
Sri Krishna and Arjuna now present two different pictures, one contradicting the other. The Lord is the embodiment of inaction in action. His duty is to drive the chariot. With the left hand He wields an iron grip at the reins of the four spirited is the embodiment of inaction in action. With the left hand He wields as iron grip at the reins of the four spirited white horses, ever ready to dash forward. His right hand assumes chinmudra, the finger pose of imparting wisdom to His dejected devotee, Arjuna. While the hands are fully engaged this way, the benign face beams with some other message. Calmness reigns supreme on the countenance, indicating that the mind within is firm as a rock. Action belongs to Prakriti. Atman embodied as Sri Krishna is ever established in inaction. Poise in the midst of purpose, inaction in action—this inspiring principle gets revealed through Yogeswara.
Arjuna, on the other hand, has cast off his bow and arrows. He puts on the appearance of inaction, though the fact is otherwise. Great commotion goes on within. Fear is on one side wrecking his heart. Pang is on the other side piercing his body to pieces. He who seems to have easily renounced his duty is tortured by the conflict of duty. His face indicates the storm within. The miserable Arjuna embodies action in inaction.
A yogi ought to be in the world but not of the world. He keeps his head in solitude and hands in society. He works incessantly and enjoys eternal holiday. Through His personal life Sri Krishna offers this grand philosophy of action and inaction to the world. How the half-educated man errs and deviates from the profound path is demonstrated by Arnjuna at the outset. But that his earnestness combined with the grace of the Lord weans him to the right path is also made evident. The commentaries of all the great Acharyas (Teachers) are contained in the careers of these two characters—Sri Krishna and Arnjuna. He who diligently inquires into this becomes wise among men; he is verily a yogi; he gains the here and hereafter.
7) Sri Ramakrishna seemed all inaction externally, but the greatest of all actions, the quest for the Infinite, was going on within. Swami Vivekananda was energy personified, and action was his message, but at the core of his heart he was established in Atman designated here as inaction.
(The Blogger’s Note: both paragraph 6 and 7 have been written by Swami Sidbhavananda)
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The lad holding fast to a pillar spins speedily round it without the fear of falling down. Similarly you fix your mind on God and do the earthly duties as best you can. All good will come out of it.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
So long as we work in a detached spirit our mental balance is not disturbed. We refrain from actions which are born of desire and do our duties, with a soul linked with the divine. So true non-activity is to preserve inner composure and to be free from attachment. Akarma means the absence of bondage resulting from work because it is done without attachment. He who works without attachment is not bound. We are acting, even when we sit quiet without any outward action.Co, Astaavajragitaa. The turning away from action by fools due to perversity and ignorance amounts to action. The action of the wise ( that is their desireless action) has the same fruit as that of renunciation.
Shankara explains that in atman there is no action; in the body however there is no rest, even when there seems to be rest.
Ramanuja holds that akarma is aatmjnaana .The wise man is he who sees jnaana in the true performance of karm. For him jnaana and karma go together.
According to Madhva, akarma is the inactivity of the self and the activity of Vishnu. Therefore the wise man is he who sees the activity of Vishnu. Therefore the wise man is he who sees the activity of the Lord whether the individual is active or not.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
In common parlance action means ‘movement of the body, movement of the hands and feet’, and inaction means ‘to sit quiet’.
It is the idea of agency, the idea ‘I am the doer’ that binds man to Samsara. If this idea vanishes, action is no action at all. It will not bind one to Samsara. This is inaction at all. It will not bind one to Samsara. This is inaction in action. If you stand as a spectator or silent witness of Nature’s activities, feeling Nature does everything; I am non-doer (Akarta), if you identify yourself with the actionless Self, no matter what work or how much of it is done, action is no action at all. This is inaction in action. By such a practice and feeling, action loses its binding nature.
A man may sit quietly. He may not do anything. But if he has the idea of agency or doership, or if he thinks that he is the doer, he is ever doing action, though he is sitting quietly. This is action in inaction. The restless mind will ever be doing actions even though one sits qietly. Actious of the mind are real actions. “Nor can anyone even for one moment remain really actionless, for helplessly is everyone driven to action by the qualities of Nature.” (chapter III.5)
Inaction also induces the feeling of egoism. The inactive man says, ‘I sit quietly; I do nothing.’ Inaction, like action is wrongly attributed to the Self.
He is the performer of all actions who knows this truth. He has attained the end of all actions, i.e., freedom or knowledge or perfection.
When a steamer moves the trees on the shore which are motionless, appear to move in the opposite direction to a man who is in the steamer. Moving objects that are very far away appear to be stationary or motionless. Even so in the case of the Self inaction is mistaken for action and action for inaction.
The Self is actionless (Akarta or non-doer, Nishkriya or without work). The body and the senses perform action. The actions of the body and the senses are falsely and wrongly attributed by the ignorant to the actionless Self. Therefore the ignorant man thinks , ‘I act’. He thinks that the Self is the doer or the agent of the action. This is a mistake. This is ignorance.
Just as motion does not really belong to the trees on the shore which appear to move in the opposite direction to a man on board the ship, so also action does not really pertain to the Self.
This ignorance which is the cause of birth and death vanishes when you attain Self-realisation.
Comments by the blogger:
God in His Turiya (Spirit) state is totally actionless. The jeevatmas or the human beings are full of actions. But even inside of them,their Atman is actionless.
One who sees action in inaction and inaction in action is a wise man; he is a yogi.
For God who comes down to earth for a particular purpose action is a must. For human beings also is a must. Because in Samsara or the worldly life which is akin to an Ocean, there is illusion, desire and action and the whole Universe is filled with action. The sun shines and the planets move around the sun. There are millions of trillion stars bigger by many hundred times than our sun. They look very small to our naked eyes because of the distance. Such is the magnitude of the sky. That is why it is said to be infinite. Indeed it is finite and round in shape. What is outside the orb of the sky. A colossal void or darkness? Then they too must be included with the sky! Such is the magnitude of the Universe. The earth revolves at such a speed it seems to be motionless. T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartet” speaks of the exact point of the revolving earth and the poet says there is no action at that exact point!
Everything about God’s creation is amazing. We can’t even believe it. The revolving earth remains to our eyes to be stationary. It is inaction in action. This Universe with so many wonderful things can be put an end to and all the lives may be taken by God if He removes just one atom from out of the Universe. That is why Kalki Avatar (the tenth and the last Avatar by Lord Vishnu) is for putting an end to this Universe. And during the Kalki avatar Lord Vishnu is said that He would be coming to the earth mounted on a white Horse. His reason for the Kalki Avatar is that the life on earth can no longer continued; that everyone and everything has become filled with sinful thoughts and has attained a state whereon no one could be redeemed. So God would come down to earth as Kalki mounted on a white steed. But in His heart there would be no thought as hatred. That final act of destruction wholesale by Kalki would be inaction in action!
That apart, why should Kalki come down here mounted on a white steed? It is highly allegorical. Sri Vishnu in His Kalki Avatar would just remove one single atom from this universe filled with numberless and uncountable planets and all including sky! One single atom removed from here would be enough to put an end to the Universe.
How?
It has been scientifically proved that matter may change and be changed. One thing may be changed into another thing. The mud is turned by the potter into beautiful pots. We create and assemble Rockets that travel in the interstellar Universe. That is an assemblage of iron, plastic and other metals principally. But we cannot destroy matter. Everything can be ultimately reduced to ash. But can ash be changed? Is a handful of ash perishable?
What is predominantly inside of the atom? Space and void indeed! And it has been proved to all. Inside a cell or an atom apart from the nucleus and electron and proton and other specks or tiny particles, there is space predominantly. If an atom is magnified, according to the Tamil Writer Sujatha, into the size of a circus ten, all the electron, proton and other things’ mass would not be bigger than a mustard seed. The rest of the atom, the circus tent, is filled by void space! And the Vedic and Upanishadic Sages saw the space as white. So Lord Vishnu, they said, would come down to the earth mounted on a white steed!
And Kalki would occur only when the earthly beings get to be so vile and incurably bad that the very purpose of creation would be set at naught.
But Lord Vishnu would be just doing His last action. And in that action would inhere inaction because there would be no personal feeling or anger on the part of the Lord. Whatever is born must die. Whatever is created must find its destruction.
All these apart, what is action and what is inaction. As has already been said by Swami Sidbhavananda that the matter of forbidden action is elaborately dealt with in the chapters 16 and 17.
The Hindu saints and Sri Krishna have gone deep into this philosophical point. Because only if we know what is action and inaction and forbidden action, our life here could be filled with the right kind of actions!
God in His Spirit stage is beyond action. Contrast this between the Old Testament, which is common both to the Bible readers and Quran readers: According to the Old Testament, God took six days for creating this Universe and life and on the seventh day He took rest. This is how the Sabbatical day and observances on that day came about. Out of this the Europeans and the Americans found out weekend holidays!
Joking and Jestings apart, the Hindu Sages see found out that according to the perceiver, the Universe can be seen as matter or a great and beautiful thought!
Here all sorts of actions are possible. Samsara or worldly life involves human beings suffering from illusion which gives rise to desire and which in turn gives rise to actions of all kinds.
All our actions are geared toward achieving something useful for us. That only amount to adding fuel to the fire. We can never become free of actions by indulging in them the way we do. We only act for its fruits. Selfishness is the order of the day. It is as if we cannot act without selfishness. And such actions give rise to more and more actions.
But the problem and the great human tragedy is we cannot go without actions as the Samsara or worldly life in this illusory world is full of material desires. Our desires can never find fulfillment. When one desire is fulfilled through arduous actions thousand desires crop up. We are chained to this mode. We must act. We can, any of us, help go on living without action.
But Sri Krishna shows a way out. That is turning all actions into inactions. How? By indulging in actions without any iota of selfishness and without egotistic tendencies we can turn our obligatory actions into inactions. Those actions are inactions which do not enchain us to prakriti or Nature. Such actions are very hard indeed.
Whoever can sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, he is a wise man as the Lord says. We have self-ordained obligatory actions. We can do them for selfish purpose or completely without any selfishness.
But how to see inaction in action and action in inaction?
For this we have to know what action is. That indulgence which produces some effect is action. How can we see inaction in action?
We can see inaction in action if we can shed the ‘I’ ness and the tendency that means ‘I do this’ and ‘I do that’. Our basic notion about our action is EGO. This need not necessarily mean we are egotistical bastards. The very simple thing that a five-year-old child’s thinking that he is my father and she is my mother and this is my toy is born of EGO! All here about us is filled with EGO. I love her is ego. She loves me is ego. I eat, I drink are because of ego. For we are the tiny and individual expression of the Lord who has everything here! We have been sent here to work ceaselessly and helplessly. But this is not our place, not our native place! We belong to and co-extensive with God. That is why the moment we feel ‘ I do this. I will do that. This is mine’ enchain us. And this is basic action. But if we can say ‘this body does this, this body did that, and instead of feeling and saying I sit here in this chair we can say, ’this body sits here in this chair’ that will mean inaction. The act of sitting in a chair can be turned into an inaction! Likewise, we can change every small and big action including eating, drinking, sleeping with the spouse and every other thing into this kind of consciousness, and refuse to identify ourselves with our body then whatever we do, big or small, will be turned into inaction. This is seeing inaction in action.
How to see action in inaction? That is a matter of meditation. of all human actions meditation is the most supreme. Next, comes praying to the Lord. At the time of meditation, at a higher level, nothing happens. We see into the soonya or nothingness. This is important. Everything here has come out of nothing. So the origin or every thing is nothingness. But the act of meditation at a higher level is the crowning act a human being can indulge in. But in that great inaction we should see action. For God is without any act. God will neither act nor suffer any action. But Lord Siva and Vishnu or the human manifestation of God. When they come down here they will eat, drink and love but those actions will not bind them, for prakriti or Nature and her Maya or illusion are enslaved by Shiva and Vishnu. God in His pristine form is called by the Muslims as Allah, Christians as the Holy Spirit and the Hindu sages as “Turiya”. God in that state does not act.
God’s prakriti is a great discovery of the Vedic Saints. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks also were aware of the Lord’s prakriti and they were Nature or Elemental worshipers like the Vedic Sages.
Some time ago we were talking about God in His Kalki Avatar need only withdraw one single atom from His universe. That is true. He need not do anything more. What is the implication? That Man has an umbilical relationship with stars thousands or light years away! Can you imagine much less believe? And believe me, the Rig-Vedic saints were well aware of this singular fact. Every single thing in this enormously massive and immense Universe is interrelated with each other.
Hindu Saints studied, like the Greeks and the Egyptians the stars and sky, and made a thorough study of the paths of the planets. They immensely believed that each planet influences Man in his earthly sojourn. Thus was born the astrological predictions and it was developed into great science! Astronomy was one of the things the ancient Hindus thoroughly understood.
And they found out various planes of existence. They called them Lokas or worlds like ours. And they could tell they are not removed from us by thousands of light years’ distance. But they are just different planes of consciousness. Thus they sent pindas or a handful of cooked rice with mustard seeds to the deceased forefathers through the medium of Agni or Fire in various sacrifices. They had various sacrifices tune up to minute scientific theories. In Quran Allah the Akbar speaks of His having created seven skies. Seven skies are called by the Hindus as seven Lokas or worlds. In the Holy Bible Jesus Christ declares, “My Father’s palace has several mansions.” Almost all the saints speak greatly about the Pranavi sound “OM”! for the Christians it is Amen. For the Muslims it is Aameen. For every saint has heard this sound in his meditation and felt unbearable joy.
Hey, great guys! Thanks for being with me this far.
What to do if we can’t become saints overnight or overbirth, so to speak.
Take heart. Never become disheartened. Have you ever indulged in killing a man, raping a girl or boy , have you ever transgressed God’s common code of law? I will say definitely not. For you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you had. Would the Nirbhaya’s rapists read this blog? So take heart. And please understand the first thing that comes to trouble us when we go deep into spiritual things is fear. Have you heard of the story of the caged birds? The caged birds would not take to their wings the moment the cage is opened. They will go round the cage and try the open space and only much after a time-loss they will take to their wings in that glorious way God has invested with them. A bird in flight is a sight for the gods, no?
We are like that bird. Caged into sheerness of selfish actions! And we certainly have enemies. And it is very difficult to forgive them not to speak of loving them. Though loving must precede forgiveness.
Let us make a though study of The Holy Gita. It is a testament for all. You might have taken up some yogic exercise. You might even have dabbled in some sort of meditational methods. Can you deny you didn’t feel your stress completely relieved? So yoga is not for the Hindus though it is a Hindu-contribution to the world. Like that, Gita too is not for the Hindus alone. It belongs to the world.
And take heart further. After teaching all these things, the Lord of Gita drives Arjuna into war as it was his self-ordained duty as a kshatriya!
At the same time some great yogis and yoga teachers might be following this blog, and I touch their holy feet with my forehead.
