Verses 3.26–3.29
न बुद्धिभेदं जनयेदज्ञानां कर्मसङ्गिनाम् | जोषयेत्सर्वकर्माणि विद्वान्युक्त: समाचरन्
na buddhi bhedaṁ janayedajñānāṁ karmasaginām / joṣayetsarvakarmāṇi vidvānyuktaḥ samācaran / / 3.26
Let not the wise disturb the minds of the ignorant who are attached to the results of work. They should encourage them to act without attachment.
प्रकृते: क्रियमाणानि गुणै: कर्माणि सर्वश: | अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते
prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ / ahakāravimūdhātmā kartāhamiti manyate / / 3.27
People, confused by ego, think they are the doers of all kinds of work while it is being done by the energy of nature.
तत्ववित्तु महाबाहो गुणकर्मविभागयो: | गुणा गुणेषु वर्तन्त इति मत्वा न सज्जते
tattvavittu mahābāho guṇakarmavibhāgayoḥ / guṇā guṇeṣu vartanta iti matvā na sajjate / / 3.28
One who knows the Truth, O mighty-armed one, knows the differences between the attributes of nature and work. Knowing well about the attributes and sense gratification, he never becomes attached.
प्रकृतेर्गुणसम्मूढा: सज्जन्ते गुणकर्मसु | तानकृत्स्नविदो मन्दान्कृत्स्नविन्न विचालयेत्
prakṛterguṇasaṁmūḍhāḥ sajjante guṇa karmasu / tānakṛtsnavido mandānkṛtsnavinna vicālayet / / 3.29
Fooled by the attributes of nature, those people with less wisdom or who are lazy become engaged in actions driven by these attributes. But, the wise should not unsettle them.
An ignorant man says to himself, ‘I shall do this action and thereby enjoy its result.’ A wise man should not unsettle this belief. Instead, he himself should set an example by performing his responsibilities diligently from the space of leadership, but without attachment. If the wise man condemns the actions performed with attachment, the ignorant person may simply decide to neglect his responsibilities. It is like this. Can you explain to a child that his toys are not precious? No! The child will never be able to understand that. It has to grow and automatically its attachment to toys will drop when maturity happens. Similarly, the ignorant person can first do the action only with attachment.
But upon seeing the wise person being unaffected by his own actions and being always blissful, naturally, the ignorant one will get curious to know the secret behind happiness. The example of the wise man will automatically pull him towards work with detachment. Take the example of relating to God. Most of us pray to God to get something. All our prayers to God are asking Him to fulfill some desire or to protect us from something. It is perfectly all right to start a relationship with God like this. When you get what you asked for, your trust towards Him grows. This is important. If you ask a person who has not eaten food for three days to meditate, will he be able to?
You will be foolish to tell this person to meditate. What he needs now is some means to get food and then he can be told about meditation. When a person is doing work and expecting certain results, the wise person should not disturb him, even though he knows that work should not be done with attachment. At least the person is working and not sitting idle! He is in rajas (aggressive activity), which is better than tamas (laziness). Of course, he needs to be guided from rajas to satva, a state of calmness, a space of detached action, action without expectations. That is the job of a Master. We are all governed by our basic nature, attributes, or guṇa.
The mental set-up, patterns from previous births, called vāsana determines what we are, whatwedointhisbirth,andalsowhathappenstousinourfuturebirths.The desires born out of vāsana carry their own energy for fulfillment. If you are conscious, you will be able to fulfill them. Once fulfilled, these vāsana and karma get dissolved. One who reaches this state of completion with desires also realizes that he is not the doer. The potter’s wheel goes on turning around even after the potter has ceased to turn it. The vāsana or desires with which you took this body and mind will make the body-mind go through whatever activities it was made for. But the wise person goes through all these activities without the inadequate cognition that he is the doer of them.
Actually, your desire to lead life in a particular way is what creates the corresponding mental set-up or pattern. Once you choose to live life in a particular way, your body supports this decision and acts accordingly. You create a vāsana or seed of karma to aid you in living life the way you desire. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 243 Karma is nothing but the unfulfilled or incomplete patterns and desires, which are inside your being, that constantly make you travel in thesamepathagainandagain,tryingtogivetheexperienceofcompletion in your inner space. You are the one who chooses and acts, but any choice comes with effects and side effects. On seeing the side effects, you feel powerless and blame your fateordestiny.Actually,youaretheonewhochoseitinthefirstplace.Youare responsible for the cause and effect, as you are source of everything!
A small story: Once a man went to a restaurant and ordered various items: pasta, drinks, sweets, and so on. He had a hearty meal and relaxed. The waiter brought the bill. The man took a look at the long bill and exclaimed, ‘But I didn’t order this bill!’ When you eat, you don’t think about the bill, but the bill comes only as a result of all that you ate. Similarly, in life, all that you undergo are the effects of your own incomplete actions. Due to lack of integrity and authenticity, you are not aware of what those effects can be and therefore you perform the actions unconsciously.
Then when you do not take responsibility for these actions, the very actions and their effects bind you into further incomplete actions or desires. Please listen! Any karma left incomplete, any action done out of incompletion is pravritti—incompletion leading to more incompletion. It is more and more dangerous, and makes you more and more powerless. You Are Not the Doer To understand, ‘I am not the doer,’ this concept of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ needs to be understood. Śiva says that the concept of ‘I’ itself comes from the concept of ‘mine.’ We think, when the sense of ‘I’ happens, the sense of ‘mine’ happens. But if you look deeply, our idea of what we think of as ‘ours’ is what defines what we think of as ourselves.
Just imagine, if your possessions, your status, your wealth, your relations all are taken away from you, what will you think of as you? How will you define yourself? Your idea of ‘I’ is also relative, is it not? Many devotees feel they are touching a soft pillow or even feel nothing when I initiate them during energy darśan (transfer of bliss energy). Basically, enlightened beings are just energy. In this plane, in these dimensions of space-time, you see them in this six-foot form and say ‘Nithyananda,’ but in truth, this ‘Nithyananda’ does not exist. It is just energy. There is no ‘I.’ When you get attached to anything, you start creating suffering for yourself.
When you understand that it is the mind and the senses doing what is in their nature, you become detached from your bodymind and do things with the clear understanding that just the mind, body and senses are doing their job. When you don’t understand this, you get caught in what you are doing, you get emotionally attached to incidents and people, and you start living without awareness. Do As I Teach With Authenticity