Bhagavagd Gita - Session 6- Track 602

Let us concentrate upon this very important sentence because it is suppose to be the mahāvākya of the Gita, although it is not, it is you might say the first part of the mahāvākya. The full mahāvākya can be said into three basic statements. The first is this one: “To the fruits of action you have no right”. The second statement is that: “All works is done by Prakriti”, this is the second mahāvākya: all work is done by Prakriti. In the first sentence karmaṇy evādhikāras te means: “You have the right to action, only to fruits you have no rights.” But now the second statement says: “Even with regard to action, all action is done by Prakriti”. Even to say that, “You have the right to action”, is also based upon some kind of ignorance: as a starting point it is a good statement, but not as a final statement.

As you proceed further, as you begin to watch the movements of Prakriti, you will find that this Prakriti, which is in you only a small portion, is a vast movement in the whole world, spread over the whole universe; and everything is done by that Prakriti. Even what you think you are doing is only a partial view, a very limited view, a very narrow view. Everything is moving in the whole cosmos and you are a part of the cosmos. How can you therefore be doing something which emerges from you? Everything is emerging from the vast movement of Prakriti. If there is a big engine in which there is a small little machinery that which itself is moving because of this vast machine, then how can that small machinery inside the engine can claim that it is acting? That whole movement of that machinery is because of this large movement of the whole machine: such is the case of all of us. And therefore, when you see that when Prakriti is doing everything, Sri Krishna says that, “‘I am doing’, ‘I am doing’ is itself an ignorance”: all work is done by Prakriti. This is the second mahāvākya of the Bhagavad Gita.

The third mahāvākya of the Bhagavad Gita is that: “Even Prakriti is not an independent movement”: this is where the ordinary Sankhya is transcended. According to Sankhya there are only two principles: Purusha which is immobile, and Prakriti which is active. Now, Sri Krishna says that even Prakriti is not original. Prakriti itself is nothing but a movement of the will of the Supreme Lord. That is: beyond Purusha and Prakriti, there is a still higher principle, the higher Reality and that is Purushottama (puruṣottama), the supreme Lord. Actually speaking, all actions proceed from the Supreme Lord. This is the third mahāvākya.

The first is: “To the fruits of action you have no right; only to action you have a right”. The second proposition is: “All work is done by Prakriti”. Third proposition is that, “Even Prakriti is not the final doer; it is the supreme Lord who is the doer of everything”. And since the Supreme Lord, even while doing action, He is not bound, therefore if you become like the Supreme Lord, He will also be doing works and yet you will not be bound. This, in substance, is the basic teaching of the Bhagavad Gita: “Be like the Lord”. And the famous word which will come latter on in the Bhagavad Gita is: madbhāvaḥ, mad means myself; bhāva means becoming; “Become like Me”, madbhāvaḥ. “Just as I am doing, so you be”. “If I can be free from work, even when I do works, similarly, in that state of consciousness, if you become as vast as I am, if you become as transcendental as I am, then, even while doing works, you will not be bound, you will be free”. You will be free because the Supreme Lord has a very special kind of nature.