Date: June 3, 2025
Part 6: Karmayoga – The Yoga of Works
Continued from Part 5
Arjuna seems perplexed after listening to the deep metaphysical truths given by Sri Krishna regarding the permanence of the Atman, the way of being of the yogin stationed in the true self-knowledge, and the Yoga of the Intelligent Will.
Seeking a more definitive guidance he asks Krishna if the pursuit of Knowledge or buddhi-yoga is higher than works why must he engage in a terrible action such as war. He is looking for a “strenuously single road by which the human intelligence can move straight and trenchantly to the supreme good.” (Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, CWSA, Vol. 19, p. 105). Sri Krishna then teaches him and the humanity the true Yoga of the Works.
Sri Krishna explains that most aspirants and seekers understand the way of Sānkhya as the path of knowledge and intelligence, and see the Yoga as a path of works and the transformation of the dynamic consciousness. As a result of this ordinarily understood distinction the path of Sānkhya leads them to entire passivity and the renunciation of works.
The path of Yoga holds the inner renunciation of desire to be quite sufficient and emphasises the “purification of the subjective principle which leads to action and the turning of works Godwards, towards the divine existence and towards liberation.” (p. 81). Sri Krishna explains that action-less-ness is not enjoyed by abstention from works nor by mere renunciation of works, nor does such renunciation or abstention leads one to perfection.
One may control one’s senses and refuse to give them their natural play, but if one’s mind continues to remember and dwell upon the objects of sense it is only a false notion of self-discipline. Controlling one’s senses by the mind, without attachment or clinging to the objects of the senses, and engaging with the organs of action with no clinging to the work or the fruit of the works, one pursues action as Yoga, Karmayoga.
The Gita teaches us that complete inaction is not only an impossibility, – since everyone is being made to act helplessly by the modes born of Prakriti – but also an error, a confusion, a self-delusion. Desireless and unattached action, niṣkāmakarma, controlled by the liberated buddhi, done without subjection to sense and passion is the first secret of perfection, says Sri Krishna. The Gita thus speaks of the Yoga of the self-liberating intelligent will finding its full meaning by the Yoga of desireless works.
In the next few verses, Sri Krishna speaks of the nature and significance of the sacrifice, one of the key Vedic teachings1. But sacrifice when performed in Ignorance (avidya) by one who mistakes ego-self as the cause of all action, with a desire for material gains is not the true sacrifice. Sri Aurobindo summarises this eloquently:
“The egoistic soul in a world of sacrifice is as if a thief or robber who takes what these Powers bring to him and has no mind to give in return. He misses the true meaning of life and, since he does not use life and works for the enlargement and elevation of his being through sacrifice, he lives in vain.”
~ ibid., p. 127
The one who abides in the Self, who puts away the lower self that desires and enjoys, gives up his personal sense of doer-ship, and knows Prakriti to be the true executrix of all works, sacrifices all works to the all-pervading Divine. Finding his sole satisfaction, complete and pure delight in the real Self and not in any personal enjoyment, having nothing to gain by action or inaction, he depends neither on gods nor men for anything nor does he seek any profit from anyone. He does all his works only for the sake of the Divine, as a pure sacrifice, and without any attachment or desire.
To emphasise the truth of niṣkāmakarma, Sri Krishna gives his own example and sets up his own standard for Arjuna and the humanity. He says,
“I abide in the path of action… the path that all men follow; thou too must abide in action. In the way I act, in that way thou too must act. I am above the necessity of works, for I have nothing to gain by them; I am the Divine who possess all things and all beings in the world and I am myself beyond the world as well as in it and I do not depend upon anything or anyone in all the three worlds for any object; yet I act. This too must be thy manner and spirit of working.”
~ ibid., p. 138
Sri Aurobindo helps us gain a deeper significance of why Sri Krishna, the Avatar, gives his own example. He says that by doing this, Sri Krishna reveals the whole basis of the Gita’s philosophy of divine works. “The liberated man is he who has exalted himself into the divine nature and according to that divine nature must be his actions.” (p. 139).
The next few verses give us a brief insight into how Prakriti works by the perpetual collision, intermixture and mutation of her three modes, gunas. Through her function of the ego-mind, Prakriti gets the Purusha, the conscious witness, to identify himself with all this working. This is what leads to the sense of “active, mutable, temporal personality in the silent eternity of the Self.” (p. 216).
Sri Krishna tells Arjuna that by knowing the true principles of the divisions of the modes and of works, one realises that it is the modes which are acting and reacting on each other, and is, therefore, not caught in them by attachment. Those who are bewildered by the modes and attached to the actions of the modes are disturbed in their mental standpoint.
Fixing one’s consciousness in the Self, becoming free from desire and egoism, one must perform all works in the spirit of sacrifice to the Lord. An assurance is given that with a firm and sincere faith in the Supreme Self, the Purushottama, and constantly following this path of Works one is released from the bondage of works.
At this point the Gita also teaches us about the significance of pursuing the works according to one’s truer inner nature, one’s law of being, swadharma. Instead of coercing and suppressing one’s true inner nature, which eventually depresses the natural powers of the being, one must practice the path of self-control with right use and right guidance, which is the control of the lower by the higher self.
Such self-control successfully gives to one’s natural powers their right action and their maximum efficiency. Sri Krishna gives Arjuna a concrete advice: “Better is one’s own law of works, swadharma, though in itself faulty, than an alien law well-wrought out; death in one’s own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law.”
“Death in one’s own law of nature is better for a man than victory in an alien movement. To follow the law of another’s nature is dangerous to the soul, contradictory, … to the natural way of his evolution, a thing mechanically imposed and therefore imported, artificial and sterilising to one’s growth towards the true stature of the spirit. What comes out of the being is the right and healthful thing, the authentic movement, not what is imposed on it from outside or laid on it by life’s compulsions or the mind’s error.”
~ ibid., p. 509
Arjuna is now curious to know that if one must follow one’s nature, what makes one act wrongly, in sin, even against one’s own struggling will. To this, Sri Krishna replies that the insatiable fire of desire and its companion wrath, the offspring of the Nature’s guna of Rajas, is the soul’s great enemy. This eternal enemy of knowledge, seated in senses, mind and intellect, envelops the knowledge and bewilders the embodied soul and leads the person to commit wrong action.
By controlling one’s senses and slaying this destroyer of knowledge, one proceeds to live in the calm, clear, luminous truth of the Spirit. By awakening to the Highest, the Purusha in him, which is beyond the discerning mind, putting force on the self by the self to make it firm and still, Arjuna must slay the enemy in the form of desire and act.
Notes
- The key to the secret of Vedic Yoga lies in a clear understanding of the significance of the Vedic vision of sacrifice and the system of symbols used by the Vedic sages to describe the process and the results of the sacrifice. Yajña, sacrifice is used in the symbolic sense for all action, whether internal or external, that is consecrated to the gods or to the Supreme. It is preeminently esoteric not exoteric, psychological and not ritualistic in its conception. In all its aspects and details Vedic sacrifice is purely symbolic.
For example, yajña is works, internal or external, consecrated to the gods; the yajamana is the soul or the personality as the doer; the officiating priests, hotā, rtvij, purohita, adhvaryu etc. in the external figure represent in the internal activities a non-human power or energy or an element of our personality. The two chief fruits of the Vedic sacrifice, wealth of cows and wealth of horses, are symbolic of richness of mental illumination and abundance of vital energy. Mutual sacrifice of men and gods culminating in the ascent of the human consciousness towards the consciousness of the gods, and the descent and formation of the gods in human nature is the essence or the ultimate aim/goal of the Vedic Yoga. ↩︎