Swami Dhayanandaji's Gita Home-study Discussion Notes on Karma Yoga - Part IV

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Swami Dhayanandaji's Gita Home-study Discussion Notes on Karma Yoga - Part IV

 

THE USE OF ONE'S FREE WILL

 

You have a free will, just as there is a free wheel in a car. You can only go

by that. Whether the brakes will work or not is anyone's guess. You can check

them, but at any time they can give way. That is why they have special ramps

every few miles on the highways for runaway trucks whose brakes have failed.

It is not that every truck-driver takes to the road without first having

checked the brakes, but that anything can go wrong at any time. This is

because when things are put together, their tendency is to fall apart. Since

their tendency is to fall apart, you have to keep them together. Whether it is

a human system or any other system, the tendency is always the same. This

tendency to fall apart applies to relationships and houses also. In fact, we

often spend more time maintaining our house than living in it!

 

Therefore, here, you can only go by your free will. There is nothing else you

can do. What the result will be depends on so many unknown factors that it is

always a question mark. Whether what you want from a particular karma will

come to pass as you expected is anyone*s guess. Since you do not have a

complete choice over the results of action, you had better recognize this

limitation. Limitation here not helplessness. Helplessness is felt only when

you do not accept the limitation and, therefore, it has a negative

connotation, whereas acknowledging limitation is being objective. Therefore,

dismissing the concept of helplessness from our minds', we recognize our

limitations as individuals.

 

Because there is a limitation in knowledge and power, I cannot figure out

exactly what I want. Nor do I know exactly what any given action will produce.

When I understand this limitation, I can respond to the results of action in

terms of samatva, evenness of mind. Any result can be responded to in either

of two ways: dispassionately (samatva) or like a yo-yo, elated because I got

what I wanted or suicidal because I did not. And if someone saves me from

suicide, I will respond again like a yo-yo, feeling that I could not even

commit suicide successfully, thereby developing yet another complex! This

yo-yo response is because I think that I am the author of every result of

action when, in fact, I am only the author of action.

 

Depression is created by some onerous responsibility you have assumed, one

that is absolutely not legitimate. You take what does not belong to you and

then smart under it because you cannot always produce what you want. This is a

fact. Then why do you not just accept the fact? All that is required is to

accept it objectively, to accept that this is how the creation is. This is

what you are made up of and no one else, even a swami, is made any

differently. All human beings have the same types of limitations. According to

the sastra, even the devatas have the same limitations, albeit with some small

differences between them just as there are between human beings. Similarly,

while the President of the United States definitely has more power than other

people, still he cannot appoint whatever judge -he pleases. Once he realizes

that he does not have a majority, he begins to withdraw quietly, proving that

even presidential power is also limited. Everyone's thumb has its size! Even

if it swells, it can only become so big.

 

THE CAUSE OF ONE'S SENSE OF FAILURE

 

Similarly, everyone has power only to a limited extent. You can improve your

power, but only to a limited degree. Knowledge also is limited and can be

improved upon in a limited way. Skills, health, longevity, your environment,

any system-all are limited and can be improved upon, but no more. Any

limitation can be improved upon, but the improvement is always limited. Thus,

there can only be an improved limitation. If this fact is understood clearly,

then you do not take up the responsibility of authoring the results of action

as you like. If you think you are the author of the results of action, you

cannot but have a sense of failure. Is it not true?

 

What is being discussed here is yoga; it is not jnana. It is simply an

empirical, pragmatic attitude and has nothing to do with atmaa and anatmaa,

the reality, Brahman, and so on. It is simply looking at yourself as you are

in the world, seeing how the world is and your own position in the scheme of

things. To convey this attitude to Arjuna, Krsna said: "Do not be the cause of

the result of action (maa karmaphalahetuh bhuh) because you are not."

 

Then what are you? You are the cause of action (karma-hetu) only, not the

cause of the result of action (karma-phala-hetu). You are the author of karma,

but not of the result thereof. Given this fact, the most appropriate thing to

do is to take whatever result comes with an even attitude (samatva). By not

getting what you want, you become wiser. Not getting what you want does not

mean you have become a failure. It means only that your limited knowledge has

improved somewhat. You have become wiser. Or, if the result is more than you

expected, you are also wiser. And if you try again, thinking you will again

get more, and the result is not as you expected, you say, "What luck!" Still,

you have become wiser. Whether you gain or do not gain, there is always wisdom

to gain. There is definitely something to learn. To know that you are the

author of the action, but not of the result thereof, produces samatva.

 

In this context, samatva is nothing more than a pragmatic attitude. To make it

karma-yoga, we have to go one step further because karma-yoga implies the

acceptance of Isvara. Unless you accept 1svara, there is no karma-yoga. There

are a lot of people who are pragmatic and who take whatever happens in their

stride and then proceed because they know, it is all in the game of living and

doing. They are more or less pragmatic, more or less objective, because, of

course, they have their bad days. This is simple samatva.