Bhagavatgita a detailed study chapter5-yoga of renunciation

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14. na karthrthvam na karmaaNi lokasya srjathi prabhuH

na karma phalasamyogam svabhaavasthu pravarthathe

 

The Lord who is the real self of all does not cause the sense of agency, nor the action nor the result of action in the universe. The nature alone prevails.

 

The sense of agency in man is not created by the Lord but it is his own ego that makes him think that he is the doer. The actions are also either desire motivated or done as duties according to varnasramadharma for which the doer alone is responsible. The result of actions also automatically follow and they are not decided by the will of the Lord. All these are only due to the interaction of the gunas according to prakrthi. That is why it is said that one who has the view that `guNaa guNeshu varthantha,' is not affected by his actions since the karthrthvam is absent in him and hence the karma and the phala do not adhere to him.

 

But if one does everything as an offering to the Lord then is the Lord becomes responsible for the action and their fruits? The next sloka answers this.

 

 

 

 

15.na aadhatthe kasyachith paapam na chaiva sukrtham

vibhuH

 

ajnaanena aavrtham jnaanam thena muhyanthi janthavaH

 

Neither He accepts the sins or merits of the individual selves. The knowledge is covered with ignorance and so the individual souls are deluded.

 

When an action is done as the offering to the Lord the result does not accrue to the doer. So there is neither sin nor merit resulting from the action. This is what the sentence `naadhatthe kasyachith paapam na chaiva sukrtham vibhuH,' means. Even when the action is desire motivated, the result does not belong to the doer but to the action, which has already been mentioned as `karmaNyeva aDhikaarasthe maaphaleshu kadhaachana.'. (BG.2.47) So it is wrong to ascribe the result of action to the Lord and to think that He has given suffering to some and happiness to others.

 

Then why do the people think that they are the doers and act with the expectation of a specific result? It is due the ignorance , ajnana, which conceals the jnana and hence the delusion that one is the doer and which makes him act with the expectation of result.

 

16. jnaanena thu thadhajnaanm yeshaam naaSitham

aathmanaH

theshaam aadhithyavath jnaanam prakaaSayathi

thathparam

 

To those whose ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of the self, the jnana, shines like the Sun.

 

This ignorance that `I am the doer,' is destroyed on acquiring the knowledge, which Krishna told Arjuna to get from a guru by service, humility and enquiry, (sloka 34, chapter4).

 

When the Sun rises the darkness is automatically destroyed as the darkness is only the absence of light. Similarly the ignorance is only the absence of knowledge, which is the real nature of the self and at the dawn of knowledge it wholly disappears revealing the real self which was there forever.