Is Desireless Action (Nishkama Karma) Possible

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 8 – The Philosophy of The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda

It was stated earlier in the Second Chapter of Bhagavadgita that action should be grounded in understanding. Now, what does it mean? How is it possible to root activity in understanding? This is expounded in the Third Chapter.

We can withdraw ourselves from action as such, and remain inactive and do nothing. There are occasions in life when people feel like doing nothing. And the Bhagavadgita’s answer is that this is an impossibility. There is no such thing as doing nothing, because of a very important reason, viz., the activity of the universe. The universe is ever active, and it can never be inactive.

The universe is not separable from the individual, and vice versa. Inasmuch as there is nothing inactive in the universe and no individual can be inactive, there is no chance of any person maintaining a silence in regard to activity. The idea of inaction arises on account of a misunderstanding of the nature of action. We feel that, if our hands and feet do not move, or if we do not speak a word, we are inactive. But action does not necessarily mean the movement of the physical limbs. It is a vibration that we set up in ourselves and in our atmosphere by the process in which the constituents of our individuality conduct themselves. Every cell of the body is active, and our mind is never inactive. To think is to act.

Every finite entity is active on account of the very finitude of itself. Action is the necessary consequence of the finitude of entities.

Why is it that the whole universe is evolving and moving towards something?

The finite struggles to overcome its limitations, because the essential nature of the finite is not finitude. We are not finite entities, really speaking, and the consciousness of finitude is attempted to be overcome by the activity so-called, involving what we know as evolution. No action can be isolated from finitude.

To be thinking actively and to be inactive physically is condemned vehemently in the very beginning of the Third Chapter. Mental action is real action. Our bondage or our freedom is in the way in which our mind works, and not in the manner of the movement of the physical body, merely. So, the substance of this essential point about action is that everyone is active, and everyone has to be active, on account of the very structure of the universe.

Or have we some freedom?  If bondage in the form of this compulsive activity cannot be escaped under any circumstance, what for is any endeavour? To this the answer is the principle of karma yoga. While karma or action binds and can bind, karma yoga which is transmuted action cannot bind and will not bind. An action which shall not bind  is designated in the Bhagavadgita as ‘yajna karma’, action performed as a sacrifice.

Individuals were created together with the principle of yajna, or sacrifice. The obligation to perform a duty is a call to sacrifice. And action performed as a sacrifice becomes a divine worship, and it shall not bind. Any action which is performed without the spirit of sacrifice involved in it but with the selfish intention of the fulfilment of an individual or personal motive shall bind and bring sorrow to the individual.

Desire is our bondage, action is not the bondage. Any desireful action is binding, desireless action is free. To be desireless, again, is not an easy thing, because even as every finite entity is inseparably involved in some kind of activity, it is also involved in some sort of desire. We ask for freedom from finitude, that is our desire, and we have no other desire even when we ask for small things. We run to shops, go on trekking, climb mountains, go to circus and cinema, and we do all sorts of things not for their own sake—to think so is a mistake in our minds—but for the sake of achieving an illusory freedom from finitude.

Krishna enlightens the mind of Arjuna, “You are mistaken, my dear friend, in saying ‘I shall not act.” What does poor action do to you? It cannot harm you. It is an impersonal requisition of the law of the cosmos and in the obedience of yours in respect of it, you shall not be bound, you shall be rather liberated, because the activity of the cosmos is towards the liberation of the spirit. It is not intended for binding you, for the whole of creation moves towards Self-realisation, finally. We may call it the realisation of the Absolute; towards that end the universe is evolving and we are dragged on as when we are in a railway train which is moving. The whole cosmos is a vehicle rushing in a tremendous speed towards Universal Selfhood, the great Atman of the Cosmos, the God of Creation, the Absolute, Brahman. Hence, perform action with this consciousness of its being a sacrifice of your individuality, gradually, by degrees towards the larger purpose of the consciousness of the Deity that is transcending both you as an agent and the end as the limited object outside. This synthesis between the subject and the object is the Deity.

If action is selfishly performed the fruit thereof shall be a reaction, and every such reaction of action is unpleasant in the end, for every selfish action is an interference with the balance of things, the harmony that exists amongst the objects. And Nature as a whole tries to maintain its equilibrium; it cannot tolerate any kind of interference from its parts; it resents all interference, and the moment we touch it in the form of an action selfishly motivated, it expresses its resentment in the form of a reaction that recoils upon us as the karma-phala or the fruit of the action, which, is grief and rebirth. We suffer due to our own deeds.

Our actions, our activities, our deities, whatever they are, are not really our actions, our duties, our performances. They are the performance of the Cosmic Powers, sattva, rajas and tamas. They are doing all things in an impersonal manner for a universal purpose. And we, unnecessarily, ask for a credit for this impersonal activity of someone else! We are a result of the commingling or the permutation and combination of sattva, rajas and tamas in some degree, and all the objects of the senses also are of a similar nature. Thus, the whole universe is working without any sense of individuality within itself.

One who knows this secret cannot be bound by action. But people have no awareness of the inner meaning of action. In the verses of the Third Chapter we have the basic principles of karma yoga stated; how we have to conduct ourselves in this world. Our existence in this world is teleologically conditioned by the purpose of the cosmos and we are here for the fulfillment of this great purpose, the divine design that is behind the entire panorama of Nature. I do not exist for myself and you do not exist for yourself. Nothing exists for itself. Everything exists for everything else. This consciousness of the fact that we exist for everyone and that everyone exists for everything else is perhaps the height of the consciousness of the democratic administration prevailing in the universe. When everything is for everything else, and nothing, is only for itself, where, then, comes the binding character of activity? The question does not arise. Neither is it possible for one to sit inactive, doing nothing, for the reasons already mentioned, nor can action bind one if one is truly awakened and has an insight into the meaning of existence.

Excerpts from: Is Desireless Action (Nishkama Karma) Possible? - Chapter 8 – The Philosophy of The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda