The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 8.3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, April 14,  2023. 07:20.

Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action -3.

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The binding character of action consists in the neglect on the part of the performer of the action in regard to a principle that is inseparably involved in the performance thereof. We have noted on an earlier occasion that we are not the sole agents of action, and that it is not true that everything is decided by us. The agent of an action is not one single individual, on account of which, the fruits cannot be expected by us, solely. The important invisible factor which conditions actions of every kind is what is termed the Deity, or the Deva, in this context. There is a spiritual guiding element existing as an intermediary reality between the apparent individual agent of action and the fruit that is to accrue therefrom, the motive with which the action is performed and the ideal towards which activity is directed.

Our actions are directed towards some end; this is the nature of every action. It is a means to an end. Now, this end is remotely placed away from the agent of action, and there is something in between, in the middle of the agent of action, and the end aimed at through that action. That principle which is in between is the Deva, the Deity, the god, the spiritual conditioning factor, an ignorance of which is the cause of failure in the fulfilment of any purpose. To be ignorant of this principle is to be ignorant of the whole process of right action. In religious parlance, the performance of worship to gods, deities, angels, or whatever we call them, implies an inward attunement of ourselves with a transcendent principle which lies between the subject and the object, ourselves and the end which we are aiming at. God Himself is descended, as it were, in one degree of reality in the context of our existence, in the level of reality in which we are, and to be ignorant of this fact is to be ignorant of the existence of God Himself. In one degree, in one form of intensity, God is present between us and that which we are aiming at through our performances. But we are ignorant of this secret. As we are involved in space and time, we are phenomenal individuals, and our consciousness is not resting in itself, but is moving through the apertures of the senses externally towards the objects located in space and time, we are unable to be conscious of the presence of this spiritual element as a transcendent reality between us and the end of our actions.

We cannot see God with our eyes because of the fact that God is Absolute-Consciousness and ‘our' consciousness is thrown out of ourselves with the force of desire which rushes with a tremendous velocity towards the object of desire. Desire is our bondage; action is not the bondage. Any desireful action is binding; desireless action is free. To be desireless, again, is not an easy thing, because even as every finite entity is inseparably involved in some kind of activity, it is also involved in some sort of desire. The desire of the finite is engendered by the incapacity of the finite to rest in finitude.

We ask for freedom from finitude; that is our desire, and we have no other desire. Even when we ask for small things—it may be a cup of tea—what we are asking for is not that little drink but a freedom from the agony of finitude, the sorrow in which we are sunk by the limitations of our personality. That we cannot tolerate. We want to overcome the limitation by some means. So we run to shops, go on trekking, climb mountains, go to the circus and the cinema, and we do all sorts of things not for their own sake—to think so is a mistake in our minds—but for the sake of achieving an illusory freedom from finitude. It is illusory because we are here following a wrong course of action, and even this illusion of the little transcendence of finitude gives us a titillation of satisfaction. That is why we are running after the things of the world. We are fools of the first water. And so we are after the things of the world, and we obey the orders of the senses.

But we cannot be conscious of what we are really intending at the base, at the root of our personality. We are not asking for the objects of the world. That is not our intention; that is not our desire. Our desire is infinitude, nothing short of that, but the senses cannot allow us to think in this manner. They are dupers of a very strong type, dacoits who pull us in erroneous directions. And the consciousness is caught up in this vehement activity of the dacoity of the senses; and that is the source of bondage, not action.

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To be continued

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