ACTION CANNOT BE AVOIDED

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

ACTION CANNOT BE AVOIDED
This second stage in the unfoldment of the Gita upadesa brings to us another great home
truth: “Look here, O jivatma, no matter what you do, you cannot avoid action, because you are part
of prakriti and prakriti has an excessive share of rajo guna. She will drive you to activity. You
cannot escape it. Even if you think, ‘I am not doing any action,’ even if you seemingly sit quietly,
thousands of processes are constantly going on within your own anatomy and physiology. Cells are
dying and being eliminated and new cells are being formed. Blood is coursing through your arteries
and veins. Your heart is pumping this blood and your lungs are ever supplying fresh oxygen to
purify it. Every internal mechanism is actively engaged in doing its function—your liver, spleen,
kidneys, bladder, stomach, all your organs. Without action you will not even be able to keep alive.
“When you think you are not acting, you are breathing. Breathing is also action. When you
think you are not acting, the mind is busy thinking a hundred things, remembering a hundred things,
planning and scheming a hundred things, imagining a hundred things. How can you say that you are
not acting? You are acting in so many ways. You deny activity only when it comes to action that
you have to engage in as part of your kartavya karma (duty). This is either foolishness or hypocrisy.
Therefore, realise this fact well: As long as you are in this universe of prakriti, you cannot avoid
action. It is better, therefore, to act wisely than to act foolishly.”
There is in prakriti iccha sakti, kriya sakti and jnana sakti. If jnana is kept out and only
iccha (desire) is the impelling force behind your kriya (action), then you get into trouble, you make
all manner of mistakes and act foolishly. It is only alter you bring in jnana and purify your iccha that
your kriya becomes a liberating force.
Action, purushartha, is never undesirable. The whole of the voluminous advice and
admonition given by the great Brahmarishi Vasishtha to Maryada Purushottama Bhagavan Sri
Ramachandra in the great treatise Yoga Vasishtha ultimately declares the supremacy of
purushartha, right action, engaged in with knowledge which gives it a proper direction.
“Therefore, O Arjuna, engage in action, but not with folly. Engage in action with
wisdom—unattached, recognising all things, yet not becoming involved in delusion with them.”
Thus is the message of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita for each and every individual soul engaged in
working out its karma and moving towards the great goal of God-realisation upon this earth plane.
Act you must, willy-nilly. But, if you do not invoke wisdom and act wisely, you will get
caught. Therefore, unfold the wisdom within and, infilled with this wisdom, engage in activity. Let
wisdom purify your desires, make them all dharmic. Purified desires are not obstacles on the way to
God-realisation. Let all your desires be dharmic, spiritual, divine, God-oriented desires. Thus
purifying your antahkarana (inner being) by wisdom, with the fire of wisdom, engage in
wisdom-filled activity. Perform all activities with wisdom, with expertise and rise above the
binding force of action, being detached within, anasakta.
In this way, Arjuna is gradually made to realise that behind his apparent words of rationality
and logic, there was really the weakness of silly sentiment, not any great knowledge much less
wisdom. He is made to come to his senses and recognise his inadequacy. Consequently, he begins to
ask questions which are more rational and sane, more appropriate and suitable. And then Krishna
takes a real interest in leading him on to an increasingly higher awareness of knowledge. Until that,
Krishna brushes aside all his queries. Krishna tells him: “You are ignorant, yet speaking seemingly
high words of wisdom.”
After that correction, Arjuna comes to his senses, realises that his feelings have carried him
away and that his thinking was neither logical nor rational. He then requests Krishna: “Please teach
me. I have been deluded. I have been overcome by karpanya dosha (weakness of heart). My chitta
has become completely dharmasammudha (confused about dharma). Now, please teach me.”
Thus, in the first chapter, the situation prepared the ground for the Gita jnana-upadesa. In
the second chapter, Arjuna himself prepares the ground. He makes himself receptive. He now wants
to listen.
Thus the way is prepared for further wisdom teaching by Lord Krishna.