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1100
GITĀ-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
who support solely the Path of Devotion, that is, those, who say that no Karma or Action other than Devotion should be performed, cannot tolerate Abandonment of the Fruit of Action being considered superior to Meditation, that is, Devotion. The practice of Karma-Yoga, which includes Devotion, which (path) is advocated by the Gitā, and which is different from the Pātañjala-Yoga, the Jñāna-Yoga, and the Path of Devotion, is at present practically non-existent; and therefore, there is no more any commentator available supporting that doctrine. Therefore, in the now extant commentaries on the Gītā, the praise of Abandonment of the Fruit of Action has been stated to be mere "fallow praise". But, in my opinion, that is wrong. If one accedes that the Gītā advocates the Desireless Karma-Yoga, no difficulty remains about the meaning of this stanza. When once it is admitted that one cannot give up Action, and that Desireless Action must be performed, the Path of Knowledge ( jîūna-mārga), which advocates the 'literal' Abandonment of Action, the Pātañjala-Yoga, which advocates only the acrobatics of the organs, and the Path of Devotion, which gives the go-bye to all Actions, all naturally become inferior to Karma-Yoga. When the Desireless KarmaYoga has thus been proved to be superior, the only question which remains is: what are the means for acquiring the Equability which is necessary in that path. These means are three in number, namely, continued practice (abhyāsa), Spiritual Knowledge (jñāna) and Meditation (dhyāna). Out of these, if some one cannot perform continued practice, he should adopt either of the two other means, namely, jñāna and dhyāna (Knowledge, and Meditation). The Gītā says that these means are easy of acquiring in the order in which they have been mentioned. But, if the man cannot do even this, then stanza 12 says that he should begin the practice of Karma-Yoga at once. Now, here a question arises, namely, how can a man, who cannot either perform continued practice or acquire Spiritual Knowledge or Meditation, carry on the Karma-Yoga ? Therefore, some commentators have considered calling Karma-Yoga the easiest path as meaningless. But, if one considers
