Bg 5.12
yuktaḥ karma-phalaṁ tyaktvā śāntim āpnoti naiṣṭhikīm
ayuktaḥ kāma-kāreṇa phale sakto nibadhyate
Bg 5.13
sarva-karmāṇi manasā sannyasyāste sukhaṁ vaśī
nava-dvāre pure dehī naiva kurvan na kārayan
Bg 5.14
na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ
na karma-phala-saṁyogaṁ svabhāvas tu pravartate
Translation:
12. The united one (the well-poised or the harmonised) , having abandoned the fruit of action, attains Eternal Peace; the non-united (the unsteady or the unbalanced) , impelled by desire and attached to the fruit, is bound.
13. Mentally renouncing all actions and fully self-controlled, the "embodied" one rests happily in the nine-gate city, neither acting nor causing others (body and senses) to act.
14. Neither agency nor actions does the Lord create for the world, nor union with the fruits of actions. But it is Nature that acts.
Commentary Excerpts:
Through right actions, undertaken without any self-dissipating anxiety for the fruits of those actions, a Karma-Yogin can reach an indescribable peace, arising out of the sense of steadfastness within him. Peace is an unbroken sense of joy and it is the fragrance of an integrated personality. That, this can be brought about through selfless actions undertaken in a spirit of Yajna, is the revolutionising theory given here.
Not satisfied by this positive assertion, the Lord is re-emphasising this very same philosophical truth in the language of negation. He says that when one is not ESTABLISHED (Ayuktah) in the renunciation of "agency," and because of his desires, gets himself tied down to some expected results of his actions, he gets bound and persecuted by the reactions of his own actions. Some medicines, which, in small doses can give a complete cure, can also spell death in larger doses --- for example, the sleeping tablets. An instrument by which we can defend ourselves can itself be the instrument for our own suicide.
In the same way, when we work in the outer field unintelligently, instead of gaining a greater glow of satisfaction and joy within, we will get ourselves more and more bound, and hurled down into bottomless darkness. The cause for this has been beautifully explained by Sri Krishna. A mortal finite mind ordering a pattern for a future period of time, is in no way better equipped than the frog that tries to expand to the size of a bull.
BUT AS TO THE MAN WHO SEES THE SUPREME BEING:
Samnyasa is not a mere physical escapism but a mental withdrawal from things that are unintelligent and thoughtless. It is a mental attitude and not an external symbol. Therefore, he who is a self-controlled individual and who has brought all his sense-appetities under perfect control, and renounced all his ego-centric and desire-prompted actions, comes to experience and live in a nameless joy, contentment and peace which well up from the very depths within him. He thus remains contented and happy, in the "City-of-nine-gates."
This is a famous metaphor used in the Upanishads, to indicate the physical body of the seeker. The body is considered a fortress city, having nine main gates, which are the nine apertures in the physical structure, seven of them on the face (two eyes, two nostrils, two ears and one mouth) and the two apertures on the trunk, the genital organ and the excretory organ. Without these nine holes or at least a majority of them, life within the body is impossible. Just as the King, remaining in the fortress, rules over his kingdom through his ministers, giving them the encouragement, strength and sanction by his mere presence, so too, the Atman, within the physical structure, though Itself doing nothing, by Its mere presence, vitalises the various instruments of cognition and action, within and without and governs the "life" in them all.
This famous metaphor is used here by Sri Krishna, and he says that a self-controlled man lives within the physical body, a nameless joy of pure Divine life, ever watching over the activities of the matter-envelopments around him!! Such an individual, ever identifying with the Self, observes-on, unaffected, unattached and without agitations, all the thrilled activities in the layers of matter, but "neither does he act nor does he cause others to act."
MOREOVER:
In the ritualistic portion of the Vedas, God is the Supreme Intelligence, ever dynamic and potent, who observes and watches over all our actions, and who, with perfect justice dispenses to each his reward for all his actions. Here, however, the Lord, the Creator, is described not so much as what HE IS as what HIS RELATIONSHIP with the Universe is.
The Supreme Self neither creates any sense of agency nor does It sanction any action. The Supreme has no such function as marrying every action to its correct fruits. In this very assertion we can find how far the ordinary commentators, who jump to the conclusion that this passage is a description of the Vedic God-principle (Karma-phala-data), are in the wrong. Any close student of the Geeta can clearly see that there is an attempt on the part of Krishna to indicate to Arjuna the function and nature of the Self and Its relationship with the three bodies: the physical, the mental and the causal.
If the Reality, the Self, has nothing to do with the above-mentioned agency or their fruits, our life which is nothing without them, must have no relationship at all with the Self. And yet, where the Self is not there, existence and activities are not possible. Therefore, there must be some relationship between the Self and the non-Self and here this strange "CONTACTLESS-CONTACT" is being explained.
The Self or the Atman has neither activities nor an agency, and yet when in this life I function through the equipments that are natural to me, the conditioned Self, the ego, gathers unto itself these peculiarities of agency, actions and anxieties for their fruits.
Electricity in itself is static energy. But when it is generated, stored and sent out through the distribution system, and when it reaches the terminals in my room and I plug on to it the various equipments, the same energy becomes dynamic. When the Self, pregnant with all potentialities, functions through the matter-conditionings, It assumes to Itself the ego-centric attitudes of agency, action, fruits, etc.
The ENJOYER of the fruits and the PERFORMER of actions in us is the ego and not the Atman. I do not shake or shiver but my reflection can be shaken when the reflecting medium is disturbed. The Atman becomes the performer, etc., only when It gets conditioned by "Swabhava" --- Nature, or "Maya," "THE DIVINE Maya MADE UP OF THE THREE gunas," as the Lord Himself calls it.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
yuktaḥ karma-phalaṁ tyaktvā śāntim āpnoti naiṣṭhikīm
ayuktaḥ kāma-kāreṇa phale sakto nibadhyate
Bg 5.13
sarva-karmāṇi manasā sannyasyāste sukhaṁ vaśī
nava-dvāre pure dehī naiva kurvan na kārayan
Bg 5.14
na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ
na karma-phala-saṁyogaṁ svabhāvas tu pravartate
Translation:
12. The united one (the well-poised or the harmonised) , having abandoned the fruit of action, attains Eternal Peace; the non-united (the unsteady or the unbalanced) , impelled by desire and attached to the fruit, is bound.
13. Mentally renouncing all actions and fully self-controlled, the "embodied" one rests happily in the nine-gate city, neither acting nor causing others (body and senses) to act.
14. Neither agency nor actions does the Lord create for the world, nor union with the fruits of actions. But it is Nature that acts.
Commentary Excerpts:
Through right actions, undertaken without any self-dissipating anxiety for the fruits of those actions, a Karma-Yogin can reach an indescribable peace, arising out of the sense of steadfastness within him. Peace is an unbroken sense of joy and it is the fragrance of an integrated personality. That, this can be brought about through selfless actions undertaken in a spirit of Yajna, is the revolutionising theory given here.
Not satisfied by this positive assertion, the Lord is re-emphasising this very same philosophical truth in the language of negation. He says that when one is not ESTABLISHED (Ayuktah) in the renunciation of "agency," and because of his desires, gets himself tied down to some expected results of his actions, he gets bound and persecuted by the reactions of his own actions. Some medicines, which, in small doses can give a complete cure, can also spell death in larger doses --- for example, the sleeping tablets. An instrument by which we can defend ourselves can itself be the instrument for our own suicide.
In the same way, when we work in the outer field unintelligently, instead of gaining a greater glow of satisfaction and joy within, we will get ourselves more and more bound, and hurled down into bottomless darkness. The cause for this has been beautifully explained by Sri Krishna. A mortal finite mind ordering a pattern for a future period of time, is in no way better equipped than the frog that tries to expand to the size of a bull.
BUT AS TO THE MAN WHO SEES THE SUPREME BEING:
Samnyasa is not a mere physical escapism but a mental withdrawal from things that are unintelligent and thoughtless. It is a mental attitude and not an external symbol. Therefore, he who is a self-controlled individual and who has brought all his sense-appetities under perfect control, and renounced all his ego-centric and desire-prompted actions, comes to experience and live in a nameless joy, contentment and peace which well up from the very depths within him. He thus remains contented and happy, in the "City-of-nine-gates."
This is a famous metaphor used in the Upanishads, to indicate the physical body of the seeker. The body is considered a fortress city, having nine main gates, which are the nine apertures in the physical structure, seven of them on the face (two eyes, two nostrils, two ears and one mouth) and the two apertures on the trunk, the genital organ and the excretory organ. Without these nine holes or at least a majority of them, life within the body is impossible. Just as the King, remaining in the fortress, rules over his kingdom through his ministers, giving them the encouragement, strength and sanction by his mere presence, so too, the Atman, within the physical structure, though Itself doing nothing, by Its mere presence, vitalises the various instruments of cognition and action, within and without and governs the "life" in them all.
This famous metaphor is used here by Sri Krishna, and he says that a self-controlled man lives within the physical body, a nameless joy of pure Divine life, ever watching over the activities of the matter-envelopments around him!! Such an individual, ever identifying with the Self, observes-on, unaffected, unattached and without agitations, all the thrilled activities in the layers of matter, but "neither does he act nor does he cause others to act."
MOREOVER:
In the ritualistic portion of the Vedas, God is the Supreme Intelligence, ever dynamic and potent, who observes and watches over all our actions, and who, with perfect justice dispenses to each his reward for all his actions. Here, however, the Lord, the Creator, is described not so much as what HE IS as what HIS RELATIONSHIP with the Universe is.
The Supreme Self neither creates any sense of agency nor does It sanction any action. The Supreme has no such function as marrying every action to its correct fruits. In this very assertion we can find how far the ordinary commentators, who jump to the conclusion that this passage is a description of the Vedic God-principle (Karma-phala-data), are in the wrong. Any close student of the Geeta can clearly see that there is an attempt on the part of Krishna to indicate to Arjuna the function and nature of the Self and Its relationship with the three bodies: the physical, the mental and the causal.
If the Reality, the Self, has nothing to do with the above-mentioned agency or their fruits, our life which is nothing without them, must have no relationship at all with the Self. And yet, where the Self is not there, existence and activities are not possible. Therefore, there must be some relationship between the Self and the non-Self and here this strange "CONTACTLESS-CONTACT" is being explained.
The Self or the Atman has neither activities nor an agency, and yet when in this life I function through the equipments that are natural to me, the conditioned Self, the ego, gathers unto itself these peculiarities of agency, actions and anxieties for their fruits.
Electricity in itself is static energy. But when it is generated, stored and sent out through the distribution system, and when it reaches the terminals in my room and I plug on to it the various equipments, the same energy becomes dynamic. When the Self, pregnant with all potentialities, functions through the matter-conditionings, It assumes to Itself the ego-centric attitudes of agency, action, fruits, etc.
The ENJOYER of the fruits and the PERFORMER of actions in us is the ego and not the Atman. I do not shake or shiver but my reflection can be shaken when the reflecting medium is disturbed. The Atman becomes the performer, etc., only when It gets conditioned by "Swabhava" --- Nature, or "Maya," "THE DIVINE Maya MADE UP OF THE THREE gunas," as the Lord Himself calls it.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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