The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

But there are other actions which appear to be non-actions while they are really actions. For instance, people are often under the impression that when they can keep quiet, doing nothing, they are in an inactive state. We have referred to this matter earlier on another occasion. There is no such thing as keeping quiet. As long as we are individuals, as long as we have a feeling, a conviction that we are a body, a psycho-physical entity, the universal is far away from us, and we are cut off from the atmosphere. We have a desire of some kind or other; we are human beings and we cannot convince ourselves that we have any kind of organic connection with things outside. Under such conditions inaction is impossible. And even when we keep quiet imagining that we are doing nothing, we are doing something, because the mind is acting, and mental action is real action — that is the source of bondage as well as freedom. But, when action is performed as a yajna, or sacrifice — we have to recall to our memory what sacrifice is — then, all our efforts and movements become sacrifices of the self in the knowledge of this unity of ourselves with things, performed as an adoration of the Deity which superintends over our actions as transcendent principle existing between us and the atmosphere outside; such action is sacrifice, and such action is no action. And it melts like a piece of snow or iceball before the blazing Sun. The so-called binding noose of action breaks, as if it had not been there at all, and is burnt in the fire of knowledge. This is knowledge, wherein the individual that performs the action, the end toward which it is directed, the process of the action — all these appear to be one continuous movement of a single Reality, like the dashing of the waves in the ocean, one colliding with the other, the waves and the process of their collision and that which is connecting them together, all being one mass of water, and the very force of this water. The action is dedicated to the Absolute, and we ourselves as individuals, as the source of action, are a part of that Absolute, and the process of the offering of ourselves through the medium of action is also a working of the Absolute itself — Brahman. The aim or the objective of this action is also the Absolute. It is all a movement of the universal force of God-Being within itself as every movement of the waters in the ocean can be regarded as the single movement of the root of the ocean itself. This is the yajna described in the Fourth Chapter as compatible with action in this world. Knowledge-based action is karma yoga.

So, there is an exposition in this Chapter of the way of the combination of action with knowledge. It was told in the Second Chapter that knowledge is necessary and action has to be rooted in it. The imperative was declared there. And how actions are not our actions really was mentioned in the Third Chapter. Now, how this action can really be rooted in knowledge, how this performance has to become a practical day-to-day affair in our life, is explained in the Fourth Chapter. This particular section emphasises the necessity to behold a unity between activity and knowledge. Often we make a distinction between the two, and no one can help making this distinction. We can never believe, ordinarily, that knowing is the same as acting. And so, under a misapprehension that the two are different, we take to a way of knowledge severing ourselves from action or activity altogether; or, otherwise, we go to the other extreme and plunge into activity without proper understanding or, knowledge. Action is to be the movement of knowledge itself Again, to bring the old analogy, the waves have to be the ocean. The knowledge of the structure of things has to be not only the root, the base of our actions, but this knowledge itself has to become a movement in the form of action. What we call activity is the movement of our being, it is not something outside us, as the rays of the Sun can be said to be the movement of the power and force of the Sun itself. Our efforts, our endeavours, our conduct and behaviour and action in this world are a spatio-temporal expression of our own being. When this spatio-temporality is cut off from the movement of our being, when we do not any more regard ourselves as helpless victims at the hands of this isolatedness in space and time, we, then, become a universal being participating in the purpose of the Cosmos. Then it is that we receive the Grace of God, for God is non-spatial and non-temporal. God’s actions are not individualised movements towards some ulterior purpose. Human beings as we are today in this condition, we will find it difficult to understand what all this means. Religion is not an easy affair, and yoga is not meant for all, unless one is prepared wholly in one’s being towards this completion of one’s life’s purpose. We are, therefore, required to prepare ourselves for this arduous task in the form of yoga.

We are not to forget the messages of the earlier Chapters when we go further. The Chapters in the Bhagavadgita are not watertight compartments. There is an ascending series of thought, a connection vitally between one Chapter and another, and though it may appear often that the one repeats the idea of the other, the repetition so-called is only with a different purpose and with a special significance and not a mere tautological mention of the same idea. We have to recast our mind back to the very conditions of the First Chapter, as if we are preparing for an examination on a particular subject, wherein we go on muttering within our own minds the earlier stages of our studies when we go ahead through the further chapters of a text-book, so that we may not forget the earlier one in our absorption in the later thoughts therein. There is a continuity of thought and a wholeness of purpose motivating the entire message of the Gita throughout the eighteen chapters, even as there is a continuity and an organic wholeness in the various processes of our development from babyhood to adulthood and maturity of feeling in our own physiological personality. We do not give up our baby-body when we become adults. We have only grown into maturity in a large wholeness and knowledge and power when we become adults and grown up persons. So is the system followed in the methodology of the development of thought in the various chapters of the Gita. Thus, the Fourth Chapter gives us two important aspects of the message of yoga. Firstly, that God’s Hands move in this world as Incarnations which cannot be counted in number. It is not that there is only Incarnation historically. Every event in the world is a divine miracle beyond the understanding of the human individual. And this divine miracle is the working of the Incarnations. The Incarnations have various degrees of intensity in their workings and are in that particular shape or form which would be required under the circumstances of the case. Hence it is that we see a diversity among the messages of the prophets and the Incarnations accepted by the various religions of the world. They are not diversified really. They appear to be so on account of the diversity of the needs of the circumstances which necessitated their descent, even as various types of medical prescriptions may be required in different cases presented, before a medical practitioner. It does not mean that the prescriptions are all cut off one from the other with no relation among themselves. There is a relation, but they appear to be unconnected on account of difference in the cases. So, while there is an apparent disparity in the teachings of the leaders of religion and the Incarnations accepted by people, the so-called differences are only on the surface. The intention is the same. They come from the same source for the fulfillment of a common purpose. Finally, we may say that there is only one religion in the whole world, which manifests itself as various religions on account of the vehicles through which it functions, according to the times and climes of the world through the history of the universe. Such is the first message of the Fourth Chapter, a great and wondrous miracle of God working as Incarnation in the various events of the world, at all times, perpetually.

The other message of the Chapter is that we have to perform, perforce, action as integrated beings in the structure of the universe, basing it on a knowledge of the wholeness of things and our basic relationship with the environment in which we are, so that karma yoga becomes more and more intensive as we rise higher and higher in the level of our comprehension. When we realise God, when we enter into the being of God, when we are established in the wholeness of God’s Being which is called realisation of God, action becomes knowledge in the literal sense; so; that the two do not exist even in thought or memory; action is being, and being is action; God’s existence is the same as God’s activity, and God’s activity is the same as God’s existence, as distinguished from what it appears in our own individual level.