An Analysis of the Brahma Sutra - 6.3.- Swami Krishnananda.

Swami Chinmayananda :

The Rishis advice that the mind can be employed for your benefit even while you are sleeping. To make your sleep better and peaceful, do this! 

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Tuesday, March 21, 2023. 06:00. 

Chapter 6: The Controversy Over Action and Knowledge-3.

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The idea of the 'other' should be shed, first and foremost, while stepping into the spiritual path. Who are the 'other people'? Are you not one of the 'other people'? Knowing that you are one of the 'other people', how would you call anybody as 'other'? So when you say, 'I am working for others' – who are the 'others'? You yourself are included in the conglomeration of people called the 'others'. Everyone is an 'other' to someone. If this principle is borne in mind and you do not commit the mistake of isolating yourself from people in the world whom you regard as 'others' – but include yourself also among the 'others' – then working for the sake of the 'others' would mean working for the total humanity. You are not doing the work for somebody else because you are included in that 'somebody else'! This is a subtle point.

A person performs sacrifice, serves people as they call it, for the sake of other people as it is said – in social welfare circles – "you work for humanity". Who is the humanity? A person who is working also is a part of humanity. This is never borne in mind by any person. The externalising ferocity of the sense organs is so intense that it always sees things as something 'outside', and oneself as 'inside'. This is a tragic experience which everybody passes through in utter ignorance of not knowing that one is also included in the objects of perception.

Each one who seems to be perceiving objects is also an object of perception. Therefore, there is no such thing as 'objects'; there is only a total inclusiveness. This is what Bhagavan Sri Krishna instilled into the mind of Arjuna – 'Look at Me, who I am!' – all the objects were in the subject itself!

Action performed in this spirit of total objectivity is liberating. That cannot bind.

Kurvanneveha karmani jijivishet satam samah

Evam tvayi nanyathetosti no karma lipyate nare.

(Isavasya Upanishad 2)

Isavasyam idam sarvam, this is the first word of the Isavasya Upanishad. Based on the consciousness of the all-pervasiveness of Ishvara, if one starts acting, it does not become an individual action.

The first two Mantras of the Isavasya Upanishad are a prescription for the combination of jnana and karma, Knowledge and Action. These two verses or mantras of the Isavasya Upanishad, we may say, sow the seed for the whole discourse in the Bhagavad Gita. The entire Bhagavad Gita's Gospel of Karma Yoga is in these two mantras. Live a long life, for a hundred years. The doer of the action is not me, is not you or anybody else. It is the total blending together of the so-called 'perceiver' and the so-called 'object' and the divinity combined operating; it is an unthinkable majesty of the principle of Action – World-Action! There is only one thing that does everything.

When you act, when you speak, when you operate anything through the sense organs, all the three factors combine together and there is a Total Action taking place. Spiritual Action is Total Action – it is not your action or my action or anybody's action. So, karma or action is not done for 'other' people. The idea must be shed immediately. If the 'otherness' is introduced into the action performed, it will certainly bind. But if the 'otherness' is removed and it becomes a Total Action, it is liberating. Thus, there is a grand connection between action and knowledge.

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To be continued

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