The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 8.1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, April 03,  2023. 08:00.

Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action -1.

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The famous doctrine of Karma Yoga is the theme of the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. This is one of the most difficult sections in the whole text, and a very important one, which provides the key to an understanding of the basic principles of the whole message. It was stated earlier that action should be grounded in understanding. This was the point made out in the Second Chapter. Now, what does it mean? How is it possible to root activity in understanding? This is expounded in the Third Chapter.

There are certain misconceptions prevalent in the minds of people in regard to activity. For instance, oftentimes we feel that we are fed up with activity. We wish to withdraw ourselves from action as such, and remain inactive and do nothing. There are occasions in life when people feel like doing nothing. And the Bhagavadgita's answer is that this is an impossibility. There is no such thing as doing nothing, because of a very important reason, viz., the activity of the universe.

The universe is ever active, and it can never be inactive. A person, any individual, anything, for the matter of that, which is a part of the universe, has no freedom to maintain an independence over the prescriptions of cosmic laws. The way in which any individual has to conduct himself, the manner in which anything has to behave in this world, is decided by the law that operates in the universe as a whole; and for you to say or for me to say that I shall do this, or I shall not do that, would be a misplacement of the understanding.

The universe is not separable from the individual, and vice versa. Inasmuch as there is nothing inactive in the universe and no individual can be inactive, there is no chance of any person maintaining a silence in regard to activity. The idea of inaction arises on account of a misunderstanding of the nature of action. We feel that if our hands and feet do not move, or if we do not speak a word, we are inactive. But action does not necessarily mean the movement of the physical limbs. It is a vibration that we set up in ourselves and in our atmosphere by the process in which the constituents of our individuality conduct themselves.

Every cell of the body is active, and our mind is never inactive. To think is to act, and to be really inactive would be to cease to think. Even in the so-called mental inactivity of deep sleep, the mind is subtly active in a different manner. The psychology of sleep reveals that the mind is not really inactive even in sleep. There is no occasion conceivable when we can be totally inactive. Right from the minutest atom up to the highest conceivable galaxy, one cannot see anything sitting idle or being inactive. This is one of the aspects of the reply of Krishna to Arjuna's decision not to act. There is no such thing as ‘no action'; your action is inseparable from your being. Every finite entity is active on account of the very finitude of itself. Action is the necessary consequence of the finitude of entities.

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To be continued

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