The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 8.2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, April 10,  2023. 07:20.

Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action -2.

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One would wonder why should everything be active. Why is it that the whole universe is evolving and moving towards something? What is the matter? The matter is simple. The finite struggles to overcome its limitations, because the essential nature of the finite is not finitude. We are not finite entities, really speaking, and the consciousness of finitude is attempted to be overcome by the so-called activity involved in what we know as evolution. No action can be isolated from finitude. The vibration set up by every finite individual or entity is the action thereof.

We are made up of various layers of personality, and every layer is vibrating with a tendency to overcome the limitations of finitude, with an urge to move onward, forward, for the realisation of a wider finitude, a more comprehensive one, with the final intention of a total abolition of all finitude by an establishment in the Infinite. Until we are established in infinitude, we shall be active and, therefore, there is nothing in all the universe that can be regarded as really inactive. Inaction is a misnomer, and the absence of initiative in action in a physical form cannot be regarded as inaction. To be thinking actively and to be inactive physically is condemned vehemently in the very beginning of the Third Chapter. It is not only a hypocritical attitude on the part of the individual, but a false approach to realities in general. That would be the opinion of the Teacher of the Bhagavadgita in regard to people who are physically inactive but mentally active. Mental action is real action. Our bondage or our freedom is in the way in which our mind works, and not in the manner of the movement of the physical body, merely. So, the substance of this essential point about action is that everyone is active, and everyone has to be active, on account of the very structure of the universe.

But, then, if we are compelled by the law of the universe and have to be acting in some manner or other, we appear to be helpless tools in the machinery of the cosmos. Are we such? Or have we some freedom? What is Yoga? If bondage in the form of this compulsive activity cannot be escaped under any circumstance, what for is any endeavour? To this, the answer is the principle of Karma Yoga. While karma, or action, binds and can bind, Karma Yoga, which is transmuted action, cannot bind and will not bind. The binding type of action is a whirling of the individual centre within its own cocoon towards the apparently conceived fulfilment of a personal objective or ulterior motive. But there is another kind of action which shall not bind, and that is designated in the Bhagavadgita as ‘yajna karma', action performed as a sacrifice.

In a mythological style, in the form of a beautiful image, Krishna says that the Creator produced the individuals in the early days of creation, with a message to everyone. The great God who created us seems to have spoken to us thus, at the time of creation: “Children, I have created you, but I have created you together with a duty.” To be born as an individual is also to be born with a duty inseparably. If we are to be free from duty, we have to be free from individuality itself. So, when we were born as individuals at the time of creation, at the origin of things, we have been sent by the Creator with a commission to perform a duty in the form of yajna. “Sahayajnah prajah srishtva purovacha prajapatih; anena prasavishyadhvam esha vo'stvishtakamadhuk” is a famous verse which sums up the principle of spiritual action. Individuals were created together with the principle of yajna, or sacrifice. The obligation to perform a duty is a call to sacrifice. And action performed as a sacrifice becomes a divine worship, and it shall not bind. Any action which is performed without the spirit of sacrifice involved in it but with the selfish intention of the fulfilment of an individual or personal motive shall bind, and bring sorrow to the individual.

Now, what is this yajna, or sacrifice, with which we are born, and which is the message given to us by the Creator in the earlier days? What is yajna, in whose spirit we are expected to perform action or do our duties? This is something very crucial for us to remember. The concept of Deity is brought forth as an important item in the understanding of the nature of sacrifice. The word ‘Deva' is used in the following verse, which speaks of co-operative action as the form of every type of sacrifice. The Deva is a superintending Deity. “May you be propitiating the gods (Devas) by means of your actions, activities or duties, and in return may the gods bestow upon you their blessings.” This is a mythical form given to an important scientific principle or a philosophical point involved in the performance of any action.

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