Naishkarmya no doubt is the ultimate spiritual state. But, to take to total inactivity in its name is neither proper nor beneficial for a sadhaka. Krishna makes this truth very clear by explaining the laws of Nature underlying material existence.
Whenever Krishna presents a proposition, he puts forward ample reasoning to support it. In fact, it is this abundant reasoning or rationality that distinguishes Vedantic thoughts from the rest. Scriptures occupy a paramount place in our land. Equally so is reason. Even to understand the true import of scriptural statements, reasoning and rationality are indispensable. Thus you will find Bhagavad gita as much a rational presentation as it is an inspired outflow.
Sri Krishna disapproves Arjuna’s sudden fascination for naishkarmya:
कार्यते ह्यवश: कर्म सर्व: प्रकृतिजैर्गुणै: ।।
None ever remains inactive even for a second. All indeed are compelled to be active by dint of the forces of Nature.
Prakrti – the aggregate complex Nature comprising the elements earth, water, fire, air and space, together with all their evolutes – is in a state of incessant vibration and flux. Days and nights, the different seasons, innumerable cycles - big and small - manifest as a result. The basic characteristic qualities (guna) of Nature are satva, rajas and tamas. Satva represents and manifests as taintlessness, brilliance, knowledge and happiness. Rajas results in activity, desire and attachment. Tamas causes ignorance, delusion, laziness and sleep. These three gunas, constituting the whole Nature, are inexorable and have their reign over sentient and insentient creation.
Everything existing in Nature is subject to the play and effects of these three gunas. Being so, Krishna says, nothing in the world can remain inactive even for a moment. Earth and planets revolve constantly; sun radiates without any break; within each atom there is incessant activity of the elementary particles. Is there anything absolutely inactive then ? Man’s body, organs and mind are also meant to be active. The food will be digested only when the alimentary system is active. The nourishment will be distributed only when the blood is circulating. The mind thrives only when the thought process is ceaselessly on.
“Arjuna” says Krishna, “it is wrong and fruitless to strive to do anything against this law. Why then foster the ambition of actionlessness or inactivity in the physical plane ?” Nature does not provide any scope for it at all. Even to think of avoiding action on any ground whatsoever is a result of sheer ignorance. Krishna in the next verse (3.6), strongly condemns such inaction as hypocrisy : “A seeker who takes to renunciation of external physical action but is not able to leave the thoughts of worldly action and enjoyment, is but a hypocrite”. Such pretension of actionlessness is dangerous, and must be eschewed.
So, activity cannot be shunned, but involvement in activity poses its problems. Then, wherein lies the redress ? Krishna says :
कर्मेन्द्रियै: कर्मयोगमसक्त: स विशिष्यते ।।
Restraining the jnaanendriyas with the discriminating mind, one who performs all the activities with his karmendriyas, nevertheless remaining unattached, begins the karmayoga.
So the solution lies in beginning karmayoga. Let the body, mind and senses remain actively involved in objective pursuits. But while doing so, the discriminating mind should restrain the senses so that they are not overwhelmed by the objects. The mind guided by spiritual introspection will do the magic of Karmayoga. Everyday of performance will result in more and more mental purity and intelligential sublimity. Such purity and sublimity conduce to real spiritual progress. Action never interferes with this process; rather, it helps.
Yajna – an Attitude of the Mind
Krishna at this point brings in the concept of Yajna with a new dimension. He introduces this religious term with a very wide philosophical import. He says that all sentient as well as insentient creation around us is pulsating with activity, and man’s activity also comes under this compulsion. But the problem for man is that he gets afflicted and bound by his actions. The only way to avoid bondage and torment is to transform every action into Yajna. Not only that, if any act is not transformed into Yajna, that will bind the performer.
What does this mean ? How can one transform all activities into Yajna? Is not Yajna a sacred religious act where one sits in front of an altar and offers oblations to the fire, chanting various mantras ?
Isavasya Upanishad in its first mantra pronounces renunciation (tyaga) as the right way of living :
तेन त्यक्त्तेन भुञ्जिथा मा गृधः कस्य स्विद्धनम् ।।
Whatever is here in the world, perishable and fleeting, all that is permeated by Divinity. Therefore, one should take to the enjoyments and experiences of life only after renouncing the sense of possession with regard to anything. Never covet. Whose is the wealth ?
The upanishad advises that one should enjoy or experience the world only after identifying everything in creation as subsisting in God, Brahman, and as such belonging to God. As all the fleeting waves belong to the Ocean and are Ocean itself, so too the fleeting creation subsists in Brahman and is nothing other than Brahman. Everything belongs to and is a display of Brahman. Why then bring in ideas like “my body, my son, my house, my property”? To feel possessive about anything including one’s own body, will be to dislodge the creation from its very base !
But this renunciation is purely in the mind. It implies leaving the ego and the sense of possessiveness. To be spiritual, to be wise, is to take away the feeling of possession from the mind. Be rid of attachment while interacting in the world, says the Upanishad. The sublime spirit of detachment that graces one’s mind while pursuing activities, is the tyaga factor that makes all actions a Yajna.
In the ritual Yajna, the articles like rice, ghee, pulses, fruits, gold, cloth, etc, are acquired and offered either to the fire or to the poor and the Brahmanas. Whether the offerings are to the fire or to individuals, for the offerer it means ‘tyaga’ or renunciation. Yajna is to make the performer dispossessed. Even the great kings used to become poor after performing the legendary yajnas or sacrifices. The yajna was regarded meaningful only when the king’s treasury became empty after the performance.
Is it possible for all to take to such yajnas ? Moreover, such a yajna is only a material-based time bound ceremony. What about all the other actions throughout one’s life ? Krishna extends the concept of yajna to all actions performed by a karmayogi. He emphasizes that it is the yajna attitude of the mind, the sublime note of dispossession, that matters. He says that any action will surely stain, agitate and bind the performer if it is not purified by the note of dispossession, note of yajna. So the only way is not to attempt inaction, but to make one’s whole life a yajna.
Any action performed without the attitude of yajna will cause bondage to the performer. Therefore, O Kuntiputra, do everything being mukta-sanga, free of attachment.
The latter half of the verse gives the golden formula. How to transform all actions into yajna ? By becoming mukta-sanga while performing. Attachment, possessiveness, alone makes the mind constricted, vitiated and bound. Attachment is the result of ignorance and lack of introspection. Detachment does not mean abhorrence. Detachment is the lightness, freedom, born of introspection, born of wisdom.
Sanga and mukti from it are the words to be specially borne in mind. Sanga (attachment) is inborn in man. Getting rid of it lies within man’s understanding and effort. Once sanga is shed, the mind becomes pure and sublime, making all actions a comprehensive yajna. Freedom from sanga comes from the understanding and realization of Divinity in everything.
With the realization of the all-permeating Divinity, the creational activity becomes a huge yajna, and our life and activities become a part in this comprehensive yajna of Nature. With the dawning of this wholesome vision, sanga resulting from partial divisional point of view, resulting from our preference for the desired and abhorrence for the undesired, naturally vanishes. We become mukta-sanga. Our whole life becomes a Yajna. All our actions become pure and Divine.
Activities are an external expression. Yajna is an internal attitude.
(From the Series Essential Concepts In Bhagavad Gita)
* * *