Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 11.3 Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday,  August 12, 2021. 7:01. PM.
Discourse 11: The Fifth Chapter Begins – Knowledge and Action are One -3.
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Intense motion sometimes looks like no motion. If we see an electric fan moving at high speed, it looks as if it is not moving at all. We do not see any motion, though it is at the greatest speed. If we put a finger into the fan to see whether or not it is moving, we will know the answer. Otherwise, from a distance it looks as if it is at a standstill. Hence, intense activity is like no activity; and so-called activity has its visible form when individuals are the medium of movement. The smaller, grosser and more limited the individual, the more visible is the action and the more limited is its effect. But the larger the dimension of the individuality from where the action is produced and proceeds, the less is the reaction, so that when the dimension of the individual reaches the cosmic level, action becomes no action. In the levels which are less than the ultimate cosmic level, there is movement, as it were, on account of a type of individuality maintained by everything that is at a level lower than the cosmic level. Therefore, we feel that something is happening, and something is moving, and somebody is doing something, on account of the limitedness of the personality that is supposed to be the agent of action. But if the agent of action is unlimited, there is unlimited action—and unlimited action is no action.

To have everything is to want nothing. All desires melt in the state where we have all things. Ekam apy ?sthita? samyag ubhayor vindate phalam: If we are established in the highest form of activity, we are also, at the same time, established in the highest form of knowledge. There were great sages in India. Bhagavan Sri Krishna was one, and there were many others such as Vasishtha, Vyasa, Suka Maharishi, Jada Bharata, Vamadeva, and Dattatreya. They were all established in the highest knowledge of the Universal Reality and yet looked like ordinary individuals doing nothing at all—though in fact, everything was done by them. A tremendous velocity is assumed by the personality of the person established in knowledge, and so the one who is established in the highest knowledge may appear to be doing nothing at all.

Once somebody went to Ramana Maharishi and asked, “Why are you not doing some good work for people, instead of sitting here?”

Ramana Maharshi replied, “How do you know that I am not working? The highest knowledge is the highest action; therefore, those who are established in the highest knowledge may appear to be doing nothing while they are engaged in the highest action.”

I mentioned the other day about the vibrations set up by that idiot-like Jada Bharata. Dacoits dragged him to the temple in order to offer him to Kali by beheading that poor man. He was the worst of people in the eyes of men because he would do nothing. He sat as if he was sleeping—most lethargic, as it were, to all outside perception. He was completely inactive. Neither would he move at all, nor would he talk. But he was such a vibrant action inside that it touched the very gods in heaven and pulled Durga—Mahakali—from that stone image. He looked like a nobody, and people despised him as a good-for-nothing, but the lords in heaven were conscious of his existence. He had the ability to pull the powers of nature into himself by the tremendous velocity of his internal activity, which looked like no activity on account of his knowledge having expanded to the dimension of cosmic levels.

To be continued ...

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