KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION
The path of knowledge is an absolutely indispensable must. It is the absence of knowledge
that is the root cause of all sorrow. It is the failure to perceive the imperishable nature of the human
spirit that is the cause of all attachment, grief and delusion. Without knowledge you will make a
total mess of your whole life and reduce yourself to a miserable predicament.
But then, the acquiring of this right knowledge is not incompatible with engaging in right
activity. They are not mutually opposed to each other; they are not mutually exclusive of each other.
On the contrary, in truth, they have to go hand in hand. Knowledge has to support and supplement
action and all activity should be full of knowledge.
Knowledge-filled activity and action-oriented knowledge is the message and the sadhana
of the second chapter of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita. If in ignorance you engage in action, you are
finished. You are heading for trouble, inviting trouble. And having theoretical knowledge, if you
neglect right action, you will put a stop to your evolution. Action is God’s plan for man for moving
towards perfection. Action constitutes the inner dynamics of human evolution, collective as well as
individual.
There is a trite but very wise saying: “To rest is to rust.” Action is like honing something to
keep it sharp, incisive. Knowledge blooms forth into experience only when it is transferred into
action, when it is practised. Knowledge is meant to be practised. And, therefore, if you are not to get
caught in the circle of action and reaction, then action is as necessary for knowledge as knowledge
is necessary for right action. Being in the midst of activity, if you do not want to be bound by
activity, knowledge is the only way. It is the key.
Therefore, Sankhya Yoga and Karma Yoga are not opposed to each other. They are
mutually supportive; they are not incompatible. On the contrary, they are two facets of the one
process of the progressive evolution of the human soul towards the fullest unfoldment of
knowledge through knowledge-infilled activity. The Yogi who thus synthesises within himself
both Sankhya Yoga and Karma Yoga is the real daksha (expert). He is the one who will succeed.
For, such a Yogi, by elevating normal secular activity into a higher dimension of the Spirit
and transforming it into sublime spiritual activity, thus synthesising karma and jnana, has learned
the art and science of making life itself a process of liberation. Just as the subdual of all mental
vrittis while practising a technique is termed Yoga, the same Yoga becomes defined as yogah
karmasu kausalam (Yoga is skill in action) when one is in the field of active day-to-day living. You
act with the awareness that the three gunas are doing their dharma; whereas I, the trigunatita atma
tattva (Self beyond the three gunas), am really nishkriya (actionless). “I am the silent, detached,
unaffected witness of all activity. How can action bind me! But I am not a passive witness. I shine
my wisdom upon all the limbs, all thoughts, and thus illumined with wisdom, they engage in
action.”