Bhagavagd Gita - Session 7- Track 711

So, now come back again to this question of “offering of action”. Although it is true that you have to offer all actions, as you move forward, you do make a distinction between discovering your true action, and doing action according to what is being done automatically, mechanically by you. The more you offer your true action, your svabhavajaṁ, the greater will be the speed of your movement, your sacrifice will be much greater and you will enter into a greater relationship with the supreme Lord, and siddhi, the highest achievement will be quicker.

But when you reach the highest then again you find that you do not become restricted. Restriction is a law of your development during the process of development: ‘this is my work’, ‘this is his work’, ‘that is his work’; ‘this is my nature, that is his nature’. This is true only as long as we are moving from lower levels to the higher levels. But once you reach the higher levels, then these divisions become thinner and thinner. Then it is possible for you to do any work. You will become fourfold. You will become Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra at once, all the four. Therefore your Swabhava will be multiple, anantaguṇa: therefore this law is only a law of development, but it does not bind you. Therefore: sarvadharmān parityajya (XVIII, 66). This law is a law of development at a certain stage of your achievement, you give up all the bondages, all the restrictions, you throw yourself wholly to the Divine, and Divine is anantaguṇa, therefore He can pour into you any kind of Karma, you become instrument of His.

Like Sri Krishna once I have said: Sri Krishna in His Swabhava, He was a Brahmin because He was a great teacher, Bhagavad Gita itself is an example of what a great teacher He was. He was a Kshatriya because he was a great warrior; He had fought so many battles in His life. He was Vaishya because He was a greatest lover because Vaishya basic work is exchange and the most important movement of exchange is love, therefore Vaishya is basically a lover and He was a supreme lover. And He was Shudra, that is to say He could do any kind of work, even menial work. He became the charioteer in the battlefield, looking after the horses: how to give them rest, how to make water to be given to them, and how to obey Arjuna’s orders. If Arjuna said, “take me here”, He would take him there, if he said, “take me there”, He would take him there. That requires a tremendous capacity of obedience. He was a great Shudra.

So, you arrive at a point where you can’t even describe saying He is Brahmin, or Kshatriya, or Vaishya, or Shudra. He is all: all distinctions disappear, whatever Divine wills of Him, that He is able to do. And that is the highest level of Karma yoga. When you reach the acme of Karma yoga, whatever is willed by the Divine in you, you find the necessary capacity to do it.

Sri Aurobindo says his own example: when somebody wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo about philosophy, and Sri Aurobindo said, “I am not a philosopher, not a philosopher, not a philosopher, I am a poet.” That was his real, you might say, ‘Swabhava’. Then, he explains how he became a philosopher. He said at a given time, it was necessary to manifest a knowledge that was accumulated by him, as a result of the prayer of the Mother. The Mother prayed to Sri Aurobindo, “All the knowledge that you have, give it to the mankind.” So Sri Aurobindo agreed.

How to manifest that knowledge in the best possible manner for this world: this world understands that knowledge only in philosophical terms. Sri Aurobindo said that, “That was demanded of me to be a philosopher, so I became a philosopher.” And he became the greatest philosopher, and it was so simple as this, it was ‘will’ of the Divine that he should write philosophically, although he had no Swabhava of it, it manifested as a philosopher, and “The Life Divine” that He wrote is the greatest philosophical work in the world today.

Such is the possibility when we reach the highest height of Karma yoga. Then you become instrument of God, and God cleans everything, all kinds of restrictions of Swabhava, Swadharma: all is removed. That is the real meaning of sarvadharmān parityajya: all Dharmas are surrendered. So there is no obstruction at all of any kind; a perfect instrument, which is readily available to the Divine, and whatever Divine wills, the instrument is able to do it. This also answers the question whether one should do good action or bad action.

There is a third theory. The third theory is…according to this theory: Karmayoga consists of doing good actions. It is similar to Dharma and Adharma, but there is a slight difference: Swabhava, Swadharma is a much more detailed analysis, but this idea of good or bad is much simpler. According to this theory, you should do the good actions, and avoid bad actions; you should do the right action, and avoid the wrong action. As a result there is a theory that Karmayoga consists of doing your own duty. “Duty for duty’s sake” is another theory of Karmayoga. “What am I to do in life? What is my duty? What is not my duty is not my work. If I am a teacher and not the principal of the school, then I would say my work is to teach in the class, it is not my business to admit children, to see what is happening in the whole school, it’s not my duty. If I do my duty, I am doing Karmayoga. I am not supposed to do anything else”: this is the third theory. And very often it is said that the Bhagavad Gita actually gives you this doctrine of “Duty for duty’s sake”. It is also argued by many people that Bhagavad Gita is nothing but a Karmayoga, which prescribes to you that you should do your duty.

Is it really so? Is the Karmayoga of the Bhagavad Gita going down to the doctrine of “duty for duty’s sake”. And very often the answer is ‘yes’! Because Arjuna, when he came to the battlefield, he came because it was his duty to fight. And therefore he had come to the battlefield. Seeing his grandfather, and his teacher, and many other friends, and brothers standing against him, he was bewildered, he became weak and feeble, and said, “How can I fight with them?” And therefore, he said, “I will not fight”. And then, Arjuna was rebuked by Sri Krishna who said, “You have forgotten your duty, your duty is to fight.” And that was the answer, and then Arjuna began to fight, and the whole Bhagavad Gita is nothing but this. He had come as a result of his sense of duty, he forgot his duty and Sri Krishna reminded him and said: “Your duty is to fight”. And he began to fight. That is the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita: but this is a very superficial reading of the Bhagavad Gita.