Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 19-2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, March 15, 2022. 20:00. 

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).

Chapter-19. Knowledge and Action are One - 2.

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Knowledge and action are usually contra distinguished, and even in our own minds just now these things do not seem to be properly clear. We have had occasion to analyse the concepts involved in the terms sankhya and yoga, and it was found that in one condition, one circumstance, at one level or degree of expression it appeared that knowledge and action are indistinguishable. But the particular level where it appeared to be like that was so lofty and so far removed from our normal thinking that often we find that this teaching of the Bhagavadgita is not a proper daily guide for us in our workaday existence. It is not humanly possible for our brains to conceive that fine, ethereal, rarefied state where it is possible for knowledge to be indistinguishable from action, because we live a life where knowledge is not action. I mentioned briefly yesterday that a person with knowledge need not be an active person, and an active person need not be a learned or knowledgeable person, taking knowledge and action in the usual sense. But the usual sense is one thing, and the proper sense is another thing.

Arjuna also thought like every one of us. It was understood by him in the usual sense only, that knowledge and action do not seem to be the same. When I understand a thing, I do not at the same time act. I may understand; I may not act. But the Bhagavadgita is of the opinion that there is a specific type of understanding which is necessary for a safe and meaningful life in the world, which cannot be separated from action. Knowing and acting are one and the same thing. They are not two different things. In fact, the more we know, the more is our capacity to act, and here we would agree that knowing is not academic learning. A person who has vast academic knowledge or acumen need not be endowed with a correspondingly wide capacity to work. There are handicaps in doing anything even in the case of a very learned person, a master of the sciences and the arts from a theoretical and academic point of view. He will be suffering in the world due to problems of a practical nature, though his theoretical acumen is superb. So academic learning is not what is intended here by sankhya, because it is said that sankhya and yoga are not two different things. Knowledge and action are not to be distinguished.

Now here we have to ponder awhile before we proceed further. Under what circumstances can we say that knowledge and action are the same, and what are those circumstances which compel us to feel that they cannot be reconciled? We know very well the conditions which compel us to feel that they are two different things. What are those circumstances? They are the circumstances in which we are living today. 

We have the problem of means and ends, so to say – the difficulty of bringing together causes and effects, means and ends. 

Is action a means to an end, or is it an end in itself? 

You have to open your eyes and open your ears to contemplate this problem. 

Do you do anything because it will bring something else other than itself, or do you believe that the work that you do is itself your satisfaction? 

Here is a doctor in front of me who seems to be doing work merely because the work itself brings some satisfaction. He does not do it because it brings something else. Nothing comes to him through that action. It is itself a satisfaction. The performance itself is an end; it is not a means to an ulterior end. But in our case, we find that such a thing is difficult to conceive. 

How could you do something imagining that the doing itself is the purpose of doing it? 

Who can be so foolish as to imagine that?

Now, it is difficult for us to understand this circumstance of action because we live in a world of duality where means and ends are cut off. The process is not the same as the end result. Walking is not the same as reaching the destination. But here, there is a condition in the mind of the author of the Bhagavadgita where the movement and the destination are the same. How could man conceive this state? The path and the goal are identical. How can human minds, which know that the path is different from the destination, ever except that the movement towards a destination is itself the destination? Then only one can know that action is the end.

To be continued ...

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