Who is a man of divine actions?
A person whose lustful desires have been burnt in the fire of knowledge, who does not get excited while doing work, and who takes to the height of accomplishment the task he undertakes, he is a Pandit, gyani (knowledgeable), and prudent – so says Lord Krishna. When a person resolves for universal welfare instead of personal welfare, he becomes desireless. Such a person becomes a true sadhaka and a real devotee. Lord calls such a person a man of divine actions in sloka 20/4 of the Gita – Having abandoned attachment to the fruits of the action, ever content, indifferent to external phenomena, he does not do anything at all despite being engaged in activities (Karmanyabhipravṛtto’pi naiva kincitkaroti saḥ). This is akarma in karma.
In fact, such people are called saints. If they see someone suffering from pain, they will try to help them. Who gets wistful? These are the persons whose desires remain unfulfilled. They see everything in worldly pleasures. Watching others happy, they wish to achieve the same status. If it is not achieved through the right means, they may go for the wrong means and land up sinning.
How to reduce the load of suffering?
A Sufi fakir, Bayazid Bistami (Bayazid Bisṭāmī), has written a beautiful story about how to tackle suffering. That fakir prayed one day – My Lord! My Master! Kindly give my grief to others. I have a big load of pain; please reduce some of it. Praying so he slept. In the dream, he sees – ‘Khuda (God) is standing near him. People from all over the world are coming to God and leaving their bundles of pain and suffering with Him. God asks Bayazid – leave your bundle of suffering with me and take away any of these accumulated bundles. Bayazid smiles and thinks God has listened to his prayer, so he leaves his bundle there and searches for the lighter one. Bayazid was surprised when he saw that there was a lot of pain and suffering in the world; even the bundle of the least pain was much heavier than his own. In the dream, he searches back his own bundle so that others may not take it from there but fails to get it back. He thought he requested to reduce his pain, but it may get doubled if someone else picked it up.’ In this uneasiness, he woke up and got a lesson about life.
If we can understand the moral of this story, we will never pray to our God to reduce our pains and sufferings. Instead, we will request Him to reduce others’ pains. The pain is for our benefit.
Making pain and suffering a means of doing tapa (penance) and pleasure as yoga is the work of gyani. A person, who gets perturbed in difficult times and becomes overjoyed by the fulfillment of his desires, is agyani (ignorant). After burning the karma in the fire of sacred knowledge, a person learns the first lesson of life that he should live for others. All his life, Pujya Gurudev taught this lesson. He said, ‘Auron ke hita jo jitä hai, auron ke hitä jo marata hai, uska hara ansu Rāmāyaṇa, pratyeka karma hi Gita hai.’ (One who lives for others and dies for others, his every tear is an epic Ramayana, and his every action. is the Gita.) This very teaching fired the hearts of many parijans who got ready to sacrifice their lives for the benefit of others, and this made a huge organization called All World Gayatri Parivar within no time.
God gives suffering so one may get rid of undue desires and passions, and gradually a person starts seeing akarma in karma. One who understands this secret crosses the ocean of worldly bondage and realizes the truth.
The Attributes of a Siddha Purusha
In sloka 21/4 of the Gita, Lord says – A person, who has controlled his mind and body including the senses, who has abandoned the greed for accumulation of objects of senses, and who is bereft of desire, such a person even doing mere bodily actions, incurs no sin.’
Now let us try to absorb the essence of this sloka. If one understands this, then only he can know what the yagyamaya karma (action done with a spirit of sacrifice) is, and how to live yagyatharta (for the yagya). In fact, what the yagya is and what its kinds are, have been explained up to the thirty-third sloka, where Lord Shri Krishna returns to his track and establishes the importance of Gyan-yagya. He says, ‘Even if one is the most sinful of all sinners, he can verily cross all sins by the boat of knowledge (śloka 36/4 given below).’
Api cedasi papebhyaḥ sarvebhyaḥ papakṛattamaḥ Sarvam jñana plavenaiva vrajinam santariṣyasi
In sloka (21/4).
Lord has given the picture of a complete man, a siddha purusha doing complete karma. He says that such a man is endowed with the following virtues
1. He has full control over his inner self and the senses.
2. He is non-possessive or non-greedy (tyaktasarvaparigraḥ). He lives life as prescribed for a Brahmana. He does not believe in accumulating material wealth.
3. He lives life without expecting anything, that is, without worrying about the fruits of his actions (nirāśīḥyatcittātmā).
4. Such a man merely does work with his body to sustain life. His mind and intellect remain focused single- pointedly on his set objective. Doing such work, he does not incur any sin (na apanoti kilvişam). In fact, papa is the painful result of sensual/passionate desires that engage a person in sinful actions. As a siddha purusha is free from such desires/passions and the body is engaged in pious tasks, there is no chance of his incurring sin. Moreover, the shackles of new desires are not born.
Now we realize how important fact has emanated from the eternal voice of the Lord. After giving elaborate definitions of Papa and Punya, He is explaining the way of cutting the Papa. One who has controlled the senses, who is living a possession less and desire less life, and who works with his body only to sustain his life, never incurs any sin. His life is filled with the spirit of sacrifice.
Who is free from the bonds of the materialistic world?
Lord Shri Krishna adds one more thing in sloka (22/4) –
Yadracchalabhas amtuṣto dvandvatito vimatsaraḥ | Samaḥ siddhavasiddhau ca kṛatväpi na nibadhyate || (22/4)
Meaning: Satisfied with whatever comes by its own accord, tolerant of dualities, devoid of envy to others, and while performing is equipoised in success or failure, is never bound (that is, he is freed from the shackles of the material world, he achieves salvation).
Such an ability provides a completion to the character of a Karma yogi. That person may be of any field, a manager, farmer, teacher, laborer, or a student; whoever has given a practical shape to these revolutionary transformations relating to the inner moral values and the external world achieves completion in his karmas and gets liberated. Only such a person can become a lokasevi (a social volunteer).
In this context, Pujya Gurudev writes – “The awakening of farsighted wisdom alone is known as self-realization, God- realization, the grace of Almighty, etc. Indeed, such a man will think of self-upliftment as fast as he achieves prudence and will employ his mental and physical resources to enhance his goodwill, good thoughts, and good tendencies. It is a different world.’ He writes further, “The liberation that is considered a supreme achievement in the field of spirituality is not like settling in a different world; its simplest meaning is the liberation from the shackles of the material world. It is like breaking the labyrinth of narrow selfishness and establishing oneness with a ginormous universe. The one who attains this state does not remain dear to one or a few; everyone becomes near and dear to him…… Divinity teaches giving to others; one who has relished the taste of considering others as his kins and giving generously to the needy should be considered the gods of the earth (from Pragya Abhiyan, joint issue of Nov-Dec 1982, pp 36-27). We, the Gayatri Parijans, should imbibe this ideal.
The divine worker is a liberated soul Sri Aurobindo says, ‘The liberated soul looks beyond these conflicting standards; he sees simply what the supreme Self demands from him as needful for the maintenance or for the bringing forward of the evolving Dharma. He has no personal ends to serve, no personal loves and hatreds to satisfy, no rigidly fixed standard of action which opposes its rock line to the flexible advancing march of the progress of the human race or stands up defiant against the call of the Infinite. He has no personal enemies to be conquered or slain but sees only men who have been brought up against him by circumstances and the will in things to help by their opposition the march of destiny. Against them, he can have no wrath or hatred; for wrath and hatred are foreign to the divine nature (from: The Essays on the Gita, page 184).”
There is only one voice that is resonating in the slokas 19 to 22 of chapter 4 how can an ordinary man become a divine worker (a man of divine actions), and how to achieve the supreme goal of liberation? In fact, liberated souls are free from ego- centered reactions; they go beyond nature and become the near and dear ones of God.
Lord, in the sixteenth sloka of the same chapter (four), has already said – ‘I will let you know that karma by knowing which you will get rid of the inauspicious.’ This inauspicious thing is material bondage. Liberation from it is the essence of the entire discourse of the Gita. Lord is interested in making Arjuna a man of divine actions. For this purpose, He is highlighting the virtues of such a man as follows –
1. A man who is devoid of ego and is established in the supreme knowledge yet does all the worldly work,
2. A man who is free from worldly desires but interested in doing the work by connecting himself with the force of God’s resolve,
3. A man who is away from individual resolve and lives a spiritual life enthusiastically, and
4. A man who is established in equanimity and is interested in living a life free from duality. Such a man is not affected by honor or dishonor done by others. He does all his assigned tasks but leaves their fruits in the hands of God. He rises above the distinction of Papa and Punya.
We should understand the significance of this message in the historic background of the Gita. Our hero, Arjuna, is living in ignorance. He thinks leaving the battlefield is a sin, but at the same time, he also thinks that bloodshed in the war is a worse sin; it must not be supported. Lord is providing him the vision of a liberated soul so that he can himself see which action is essential for protecting a progressive religion. There should be an emotion of empathy in a divine soul. From that higher state, he should be able to see everyone with an empathetic view; he should believe in life beyond the physical body and consider this body only as a means of doing God’s work. His empathy makes him engage in war but with generous equanimity.
Human life is a great privilege
Getting human life is certainly an opportunity, but this privilege can only be availed by an ideal man of divine action, who utilizes it for the welfare of the masses, struggles with the prevailing circumstances, and winning over them helps in ushering the new era of peace and harmony on earth. The entire discourse of Lord Shri Krishna is focused on this point. According to Him, how can a person, aspiring to fulfill his infinite desires from the external world, serve society? His tendency to enjoy sensual pleasures and his greed for amassing wealth will compel him to behave opposite to serving society. Wherever people are alert, they stand against such greedy leaders or so-called heroes and eject them from their vested positions. When a social worker works for the salvation of the people without expecting anything from them and remains satisfied with whatever he gets (Yadracchalabhasamtuṣṭaḥ), then it can be said that he has fully achieved the spirit of service to society. He is beyond any duality. For such a man, the loss of mental powers is stopped, and such powers are utilized to achieve higher goals. He becomes devoid of jealousy (dvandvatīto vimatsarah). This hero of the human race learns to balance efficiently minor successes and failures (Samaḥ siddhävasiddhau ca). Such a person does not get bound to the actions (kratvāpi na nibadhyate). No new desires take birth from his actions, and hence his personality remains free from greed, desire, and lust. He becomes a divine worker.
There are several examples of divine workers, but when we test them on the touchstone of virtues prescribed in slokas 19 to 22, the nearest person we find is our object of adoration, Param Pujya Gurudev (Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya). He struggled throughout his life and remained satisfied with whatever he received without asking anyone. Whatever he possessed, he sowed in the field of God and presented an example of how to live a life without jealousy. He brought the global organization ‘Gayatri Pariwar’ to a point where innumerous Arjunas are ready to take the Mission to its set goal of the transformation of the era. He showered love and motherly affection on all the parijans, but himself was not bound by anything. The life and work of such a liberated soul and a divine worker is worth following. The life of such a great hero is a live teaching for all of us.
[A description of his life and work can be found in his autobiography ‘My Life: Its Legacy and Message.’ In addition to this, a very detailed description of his life can be found in a highly absorbing book titled, ‘Odyssey of the Enlightened’ by the author.]
[To be continued]
[Note: This is the translation of the Hindi version of ‘Yug Gita’ (Part 2) by Dr. Pranav Pandya, published by Shri Vedmata Gayatri Trust, Shantikunj, Haridwar (2011)]
Source: Akhand Jyoti Magazine 2023 Jan-Feb
