Every Action is a Total Action

Divine Life Society Publication: The Universality of Being by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Every action is a total action. Nobody does anything anywhere, and anybody who thinks that he or she is doing something is a fool because somebody else is operating in a total fashion at the back of this so-called individuality.

“Everything has been done by Me,” Lord Krishna told Arjuna in the Bhagavadgita. “I have already done what you are trying to do now.”

Here again is the question of relativity. Even before the Mahabharata war took place, Lord Krishna said, “I have already destroyed these people.”

“How is it possible, why they are still here?” asked Arjuna.

“The war has yet to take place, but I have already destroyed them. The very root of these warriors’ existence in another space-time was plucked out by the universal power, and they exist only as phantoms, pantomimes. Your attacking them in war is only an instrument of action. They do not exist, really speaking. I have already withdrawn their souls. The whole Mahabharata war is only a pantomime show. Actually, nothing is happening. I have done everything,” Lord Krishna replied.

This is the Ultimate Reality speaking to everyone involved in space and time. Here is the Bhagavadgita. Nobody reads the Bhagavadgita with this kind of insight. They go on chanting it again and again, but why has the Lord said that? He says that something that has not taken place as yet has already been done.

This is the foundation through which you have to operate your mind. After hearing this, you cannot get attached to anything. The very word ‘attached’ will look like a foolish description because that to which you are attached exists only because of your relation to yourself, and the meaning that you see in the object to which you are attached is due to your existing in one particular form. Unless both are there, parallelly acting, one action cannot take place in respect of another. Neither can you love a thing nor hate a thing unless there is an action and reaction between both on a common level.

The perception of this or that in any manner whatsoever is an interaction taking place, and actually it is not your work. Therefore, you can possess nothing in this world. There is bereavement everywhere. You lose everything. Whoever has possessed anything will lose it one day or the other. Whoever was born will also die. The whole misery of life is due to the wrong belief that there are permanent things, solidly existing like a stone wall. There are no stone walls here. They are all like mist appearing as a pillar, which will melt into nothing by the rise of the sun of knowledge.

This is a great subject for meditation, and cannot be forgotten by anyone. If you miss the import of what I have told you, you have missed the entire meaning of life. You may be busy in your own way, but do not be so busy that you do not know the reason why you are busy. Highly penetrating understanding coupled with true dispassion must be behind it. You do japa any number of times, but nothing will come out of it because the foundation itself is wrong. You think you are doing japa or achieving something else, but neither are you doing anything nor are you achieving something else. It is a total action taking place by the operation of space and time, of which you have no knowledge because, as I mentioned, you are in a concentration camp and are completely controlled by forces which you cannot know because you yourself are subject to these operations. You are brainwashed totally, which is why you cannot understand anything, and if you do all this activity, all this work, service and meditation with a confused mind, it will bring a confused result.

That is why it is insisted that before you start anything, you must have a clear understanding, viveka. Viveka means clear understanding of the nature of things—the capacity to discriminate between what is really there and what is not there. If this is known, if this story has enlightened you, you will know that you cannot have any kind of inward longing for anything in this world. Vairagya automatically follows, as sunlight is automatically followed by the departure of the darkness of night. Detachment and desirelessness need not be exercised with effort; they automatically go when the structure of the whole universe is understood. Therefore, viveka and vairagya are considered to be primary qualifications. They are not two things, just as space and time are not two things. They are one only. This is rational conviction, which consists of the illumined perception of things through viveka and an automatic detachment from all conditions which cause attachment.

Your feelings, longings, and the operation of your emotions should be harmonised with what you have concluded by your reasoning and understanding. Then this combination of reason and feeling, like a chemical action of two substances, bursts forth into what is called intuition. Intuition is nothing but the blend of understanding and emotion. When they are two different operations, you can neither know what you are doing through emotion, nor can you know what you are thinking. On both sides you are making mistakes. When they are blended together into a coherent totality, there is a bursting of the intuition directly into the nature of things.

Who likes to be in bondage? If you have intense longing for liberation, you have done your duty. That longing itself will take you to moksha.

Excerpts from: Every Action is a Total Action - The Universality of Being by Sri Swami Krishnananda