Bhagavad Gita Commentary–Twenty-six
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
The Real “Doers”
Krishna is not at all finished with instruction about action–especially the question of who is the true doer of action.
“Every action is really performed by the gunas. Man, deluded by his egoism, thinks: ‘I am the doer.’”
Every action is really performed by the gunas
The atman, the spirit-self, is pure consciousness, and as such has only one function: witness of the movements of prakriti, the creative life energies. The mechanics of this situation are virtually as incomprehensible as the atman itself. In the Bhagavad Gita the energies are spoken of as surrounding or encompassing the atman which experiences being at the core of them, but they are also declared to be utterly apart from the atman, which witnesses them as totally outside it. The Gita speaks of both the atman and the Paramatman as being simultaneously immanent and transcendent.
However that may be, Krishna is saying that all action is merely the movement–the combining, separation, and recombining in ever-changing patterns–of the three modes of energy behavior, the three gunas. Just as there are three primary colors from which all colors originate, in the same way the three gunas are the origin of all activity.
Man, deluded by his egoism, thinks: “I am the doer”
The witnesses of a motion picture, knowing full well that it is only a play of light on the screen, yet respond to it as being real. Each of us is even more enthralled than that within the “motion picture” of our daily experience, actually believing that we are acting and producing its changing movements.
Sankhya philosophy, the philosophy expounded by Krishna in the Gita, tells us that although we do not literally act within prakriti, the appearance of action caused by the movements of the gunas is produced by us–by our mere proximity to prakriti. We can understand this by the simile of modern gadgetry. There are devices which are activated just by someone approaching them–all the way from talking and moving figures to doors that open at our approach. In the same way prakriti is stimulated into motion by our approaching it in our awareness. It literally is the way we look at it that matters. Those who can look upon prakriti as detached witnesses will find themselves no longer part of the whirling movement that comprises the drama of “life.” This is really beyond the comprehension of the ordinary intellect, but the yogi who has clarified and stabilized his mind will understand to a great degree, for his outer life is seen to be an extension of his inner life. Meditation is the most viable School of Life.
Understanding the gunas
The gunas are not only three modes of material energy behavior, they are also three forms of material (matter-oriented) consciousness. So Krishna continues: “But he who has the true insight into the operations of the gunas and their various functions, knows that when senses attach themselves to objects, gunas are merely attaching themselves to gunas. Knowing this, he does not become attached to his actions.” Krishna is not just giving us interesting facts about phenomenal existence; his intention is to bring us to detachment from that to which we never have been nor ever can be “attached.” All attachment is only an illusion of the ignorant heart. He calls us to simple reality, not to some high-flown mystical state.
A serious responsibility
“The illumined soul must not create confusion in the minds of the ignorant by refraining from work. The ignorant, in their delusion, identify the Atman with the gunas. They become tied to the senses and the action of the senses.”
This is almost universally disregarded in India, where the monastics have glorified inaction as wisdom (jnana) and action as ignorance. The result has been a shameful stagnation and idlemindedness in themselves and those they influence. No one can count the number of wandering idlers falsely called sannyasis. The only thing they have renounced is responsibility.
“The ignorant, in their delusion, identify the Atman with the gunas. They become tied to the senses and the action of the senses.” Why, then, would you not wean them from external involvements, from constant action? Because it is a matter of maturity. Just as the fruit should ripen before taken from the tree, in the same way each individual must evolve to the point where he sees for himself the truth of things–not blindly believing in what others tell him about reality. Until then, just as with a child or mentally impaired adult, we have to speak to him on his level in his terms. The wise must engage in right action so as to teach by example and incite even the ignorant to emulation. At such a stage actions certainly do speak louder than words. The infant must grow and learn to walk, talk, feed himself, and think objectively before we educate him and speak philosophically to him. It is the same way in practical life. Only those who learn the right way to act can learn the right way to withdraw from action.
Read the Bhagavad Gita online: The English text of the Gita posted on this Web Site is arranged according to the meter of the original Sanskrit text so it can be sung–as it is done every morning in our ashram and in most of the ashrams of India.
1) Bhagavad Gita 3:27 [Go back]
2) “I am the Atman that dwells in the heart of every mortal creature: I am the beginning, the life-span, and the end of all” (Bhagavad Gita 10:20; see also 13:17, 15:15, 18:61). [Go back]
3) “You must know that whatever belongs to the states of sattwa, rajas and tamas, proceeds from me. They are contained in me, but I am not in them. The entire world is deluded by the moods and mental states which are the expression of these three gunas. That is why the world fails to recognize me as I really am. I stand apart from them all, supreme and deathless. (Bhagavad Gita 7:12, 13; see also 9:9, and 13:14-17) [Go back]
4) Bhagavad Gita 3:28 [Go back]
5) Bhagavad Gita 3:29 [Go back]
