World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 80

himself as the Unborn, as the infinite potential that has not even been manifested here. He describes this dweller within (dehin) then as unborn (aja), eternal (nitya), sempiternal (saswata) and ancient (purana), that which does not perish in the perishable body (na hanyate hanyamane sharire). This is the unconditional reality of the self that Krishna first invites Arjuna to contemplate and identify with. This unborn purusha is in all of us : it's our Infinite Reality. But in the prakritic sense, the phrase 'action cleaves not to a person' must be understood conditionally, in that if the instrumental nature, prakriti, is perfectly under the control of the Lord's will, it does not accrue consequences of action, karma. The way to this yoking of the prakriti to the Lord seated within the heart of all things is the core of the Gita's Karma Yoga. This is the injunction to desireless works, nishkama karma, action through renunciation. The Gita teaches the surrender of the fruits of action to the Lord, such fruits do not belong to the person who acts, they belong to the Lord who inhabits all things and guides them as part of a single Becoming. This same teaching is what forms the message of the first two stanzas of the Isha Upanishad.
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The transition from ignorance to knowledge born of identity with the Lord is initiated by this renunciation of the fruits of action. It achieves two things thereby: first, it puts into action, makes active, a faith in the perception of the Lord as the Being of all beings and the power of all becoming. It establishes an orientation towards the will of the Lord and makes that the basis of one's primary relation with the trasitioning world (jagat). It acknowledges that in our lives. Second, it detaches us from the sources of our compulsion to action. The instrumental (prakritic) behavior of all humans is motivated by the struggle of the ego to survive and have its separate enjoyment in the world. This separative desiring and grasping is an ignorance which exists in a tangled clash of wills and of unfulfillment and brings only suffering. The recognition of the Lord as the true knower who ordains all cosmic results, taking the universe with all its beings towards His self-revelation in them, initiates the discipline of the renunciation of results which detaches action from its prakritic compulsions. It brings us to the realization of ourselves as a witness consciousness (purusha as saksi) and the instrumental channel (prakriti as karana) of a force (shakti) that is working through us. That force is the will of the Lord (isha). This realization is the vindication of the faith we started with, that it is the Lord who acts and not we. Thus, the renunciation of the results of action leads to a change in the experience of agency, doership. One is only an instrument and an occasion of action, not a doer or cause of action. Cosmic shakti is the doer and the cause; this shakti is the energy of the Lord's will, isha. This realization liberates prakriti from karma. But to the karma yoga of the Gita as of the Isha Upanishad, there is one more step. This is the transition of purusha from its status as witness
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