by Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL No. 51
May : 2005

UNDERSTANDING DEATHLESSNESS OR AMRITATTVA Part4 - (The role of Niskama karma)

"Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty"

One can acquire knowledge only being engaged in action. Those who while away time without being active do not gather knowledge and not being in action is as good as being dead. Life is characterized by action and death is characterized by inaction. That is how knowledge- the true knowledge of essential truth of things- and action are linked to life and not death. This is equally applicable to spiritual life as well.

The importance of karma or action in spiritual life is so great that in sanatan philosophy, karma has been lifted up as a path in itself for Brahman realization and has been identified for its own right as karmayoga. Not many philosophies outside sanatan dharma give this status to karma.

But do all actions lead to truth consciousness? The answer is obviously negative. The orientation of our actions must be rightly aimed at truth. If God is equated with truth, then all actions need to be God oriented and God-possessed so that God is revealed through them. If the connection with the divine is constantly remembered, and the divine purpose is sought out to be the purpose behind all our actions, then the quality of all our actions shall acquire a much higher plane of satisfaction. Gita says yogastha kuru karmani. When we are yogastha i.e. established in yoga or in other words yukta or linked with God, our actions are not likely to go wrong and meet failure. Done with a sense of Yoga, the actions automatically attain refinement and astuteness (kaushalya as Gita puts it). When performed with astuteness and crowned with success, the true knowledge dawns.

In success and failure, in pain and pleasure, in comfort and adversity, God has to be the central focus. God has to be the recipient of all the service that we put in life. A poet put it quite nicely: In times of happiness, let the happiness in me be like the ‘shiuli’ flower in winter mornings, falling down gladly at the feet of you my Lord with sincere gratefulness. In times of misery let my misery be like the wick in the candle burning itself out so that by its own burning, the light reveals your face.

The Lord leaves no scope for doubt at all in this regard, when he advises to Arjuna:

Yat karosi, yat asnAsi yat juhosi dadAsi yat

Yat tapasyasi kaunteya tat kurusva madArpanam

What so ever you do, whatever you take or whatever you offer or give away, even your very sAdhanA ought to be performed with me, the Lord as the recipient.

‘All for God in every way’- and that is the key behind all success.

That is the concept of tyaga or sacrifice in sanAtan philosophy. Everything has to be for the Lord, offered to the Lord. My own personal desires, my own attachment to the fruits of my actions should not contaminate the action itself. If an iota of self expectation is mixed with the action, it will entangle me more and more. It will bind me in knots after knots because I do not know, no one has ever been able to fathom, the limits of one’s expectations. And with that kind of load in the mind how can the clarity of knowledge be expected?

So our ancient seers gave us the solution. If Brahman is what you want to know and if Brahman is He, who holds the door to knowledge, then offer your actions to Him only. Do not mix any of your own demands. As greater gifts await you, detach yourself from expectations of minor benefits. That is niskAma karma or action without attachment. That is the underlying principle of tyaga or sacrifice.

To orient one’s mind to this kind of attitude to action, is within the capability of every individual, in small or large measure. One need not be a recluse, need not run to forests nor close one’s eyes to the happenings around. A true Yogi, a true tyagi, simply has a different attitude towards living life. That is all there is to it.

There is an important point here which is often misunderstood by common thinking. Our scriptures- on the face of it- dictate us to engage in action with a sense of renunciation or tyaga, to have no desire whatsoever towards fruitive results. The true meaning of desireless action is often misunderstood and we are often told to simply kill all your desires.

Is that possible? Is that practical? It is worth revisiting here our earlier discussion about understanding what is phalaprepsA- the desire for the fruits of our actions.

Can one even engage in sAdhanA, the spiritual journey without motivation? Without the desire of bliss or ananda that one craves for, what for all that effort is worth? Will any of us be here if we are not expecting something?

Let us not have any mistakes about it. Our scriptures should not be wrongly interpreted that desire has no place in action.

After all, at the very root of this creation of the Lord is not the desire to create prominent? What do we learn from the Rig Veda itself about the creation?

kamastadaghre samavartatadhi manaso retam prathamam yadasit |

The Desire arose in the beginning, The Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.

Without the Divine desire this dynamic state of cosmos would have remained unmanifested as it was in the beginning.

Even at the mortal level, everyone is motivated to action only by the carrot that one sees in the front. If one has no expectation, no longing in the heart, none will ever budge an inch. Even when The Lord Krishna urges Arjuna to action, He promises him the sovereignty of the earth if he wins and heavenly bliss even if he dies fighting. He holds the chariot all the way.

So what does killing of desires really mean? How is Arjuna’s confusion removed? The answer is given in that oft repeated sloka, of The Gita:

Karmani eva adhikAraste mA phalesu kadAcana

Generally people understand this as a total denial to the fruits of one’s labour. That is why, their confusion lasts all their lives making them move round and round.

The word ‘adhikAra’ explains it. AdhikAra means and implies mastery and controlling authority. The Lord says: you carry on your actions, but how it will finally end you can not preconceive it nor mould it absolutely to an iron clad specification as you may fancy. A result for you will always be there. All actions invariably produce results. But shape of that result is dependant on thousand other influencing factors, about which a mortal with limited horizon has no knowledge or control. Thousands of things contribute to any outcome. Directly or indirectly, some are obvious and some not so obvious, physical or subtle, proximit or distant, all the past build up based on our own previous activities, the interaction of actors other than us in the script, all elements in the ever interacting matrix have contributed to any outcome whatsoever.

The jiva, or the individual, which is characterized by his limitations has no means of either knowing all the contributing reasons and therefore can not control and shape. He just does not know all the inputs. Then how can he correctly predict the output? He is not the AdhikAri, the master of everything or controller of everything. Only God who is described as omnipotent and omniscient, knows and controls. He has knowledge of all the inputs and therefore, only He can predict the final output. The Lord knew what will be the outcome of every activity in the war of mahabharat, and even when needed controlled its course, but not any one else, neither the Kaurava commander Bhishma nor the Pandava commander Arjuna.

So what he tells Arjuna is the universal instruction – the sanAtan dharma- for the mankind. ‘ Trust me and have faith. I am here precisely to re-establish what is right and remove obstacles. ( dharma sansthApanArthAya vinAsAya ca duskrtAm).’

‘So try to keep your mind linked with me and engage in action. Since the final objective of mine is ‘good’, good will accrue to you as well, if you follow my path.’

In the chariot of the man that carries him across the road of life, the Lord as the driver is always sitting in the front as Krishna the parthasarathi sat in the front of Arjuna’s chariot. Do not take your eyes off him. Observe the divine all around the cosmos, in all levels of your existence from physical, vital, mental, consciousness and bliss (the deha, prana, mana, jnAna, and ananda) and remain in action. The fruit of your action will always come. The greatest reward, the immortal existence of union with satchidAnanda- the truth, its awareness and the ensuing bliss, is your birthright. With union, you become immortal as He with whom you unite is the immortal.

But if my mind is clouded and possessed by my own self, my own gratification, , if I keep myself obsessed with my misunderstood benefits instead of being linked to the Lord and what He is capable of giving me , then I shall only lose sight of the greater good. So the practical advice is, fix your sight, hitch your cart to the divine only, and you are on the right path.

The Lord drives home the point:

Yogastha kuru karmAni sangam tyaktvA dhananjaya.

Let your trust be hitched to the Lord and detach yourself from the obsession of what the outcome shall be, and engage in action.

yogakshemam vahaamyaham. I shall ensure the outcome of your action carried out while you are in yoga.

The divine Lord is within us. But His presence is hidden deep behind layers of ego centred desires. The scriptures ask us to bring that divine to the forefront and that will naturally push the obsession with ego and the demands of the ego into the back. Tyaga means turning away from these desires. Not forcefully but by a gradual and natural process of reorienting the priorities. Constant worshipping, singing, remembering etc are only psychological aspects of our efforts towards this reorientation.

This obsession with fruit of our actions, is what our limited and defective understanding would like to hold us in its grip. But turning away from this attachment in favour of the fruit of satchidAnanda is what niskAmatA is all about. Practice of this niskAmatA or detachment is TyAga. That is the practical approach to sadhana and not running away to the forest out of fear of this world.

Vedanta vijnAna sunischitArthAh sanyAsayogAt yatayah shuddha satvAh

Te brahmalokeshu parAntakAle parAmrtAt parimucyanti sarve

We are talking now of the Vedantic knowledge – veda means the knowledge and anta mans final i.e the ultimate knowledge which is Brahman. That is Vedanta vijnAna. There has to be a clear understanding- sunischitArthAh. This is to be acquired through practice of non attachment to all worldly distractions, and purity of purpose- sanyAsayogAt shuddha satvAh. This then allows the seekers the entry finally to the domain of Brahman, which is immortality at its highest.

This sloka for its profound importance is repeated often. The Kaivalya Upanishad reminds us. And again it is repeated in Mundaka Upanishad- never to be forgotten.

Then again:

Sa eva sarvam yad bhutam yat ca bhavyam sanAtanam.

JnAtvA tam mrtyum atyeti nAnya panthA vimuktaye

That knowledge transcends beyond time. It is timeless and knowing that, the individual souls overcome the death cycle, For liberation there is no other prescription- nAnya panthA vimuktaye

(CONCLUDED)