As Sankara says prior to realization of the identity of the self with Brahman, the world of senses and other things have their existential validity. As he dramatically puts it, scriptures cannot be authority against facts that can be observed.
Even if hundred vedic texts declare that fire is cold and devoid of light that cannot be authority of the fact of life. Scriptures are merely informative; they do not alter the nature of things perceived but only supply information of the things not perceived. Therefore, Sankara says prior to enlightenment of the self, performance of actions is normal and proper.
But the regrettable part, however, is that persons without comprehensive perception and sense of discrimination tends to believe that their empirical life is the real life and there is nothing besides and beyond the empirical perception.
Sages of the yore have been so strict that they have said, with vairagya is dispassion, one should show the same indifference to things temporal, which one shows to all the thoughts from the world of Brahma to the world of the mortals, treating them all as the excreta of crow.
Mundaka Upanishad says that when one sees the creator of the golden hue , the Lord, the Purusha, the source of Prajapati Brahma, then becoming a man of Wisdom, shaking all the concepts of good and evil and freed from all stains, attains the supreme similarity or absolute similarity (saamya) or non-duality.
Vairagya is not only disinterest in performance of actions with attachment to fruits thereof but also performance and non-performance of actions with the idea that he is the performer or non-performer of those actions.
It is also desiring to possess or to renounce. When one becomes aware that samasara is made of such thoughts, then his attention would not be to perform actions, even rites and rituals, worship, sacrifice, oblations in fire and charity with any desire in mind.
To the question, why such activities are encouraged by scriptures, Sankara clarifies that scriptures reveal only the means to attain the various goals by man, enjoining meditation on the naama, essence as Brahman, knowing well that the things, rites and rituals are different from Brahman.
Krishna has simple rule. Since one cannot remain even for a moment without performing actions because actions are due to the inherent power of nature, it is only ignorant person who thinks he is performer of actions.
Therefore, he should perform his actions without any expectation of the fruits of actions, performing them as and by way of sacrifice for the luminous being, accepting fully well that all actions save those for and as sacrifice are bondage, or alternatively offering the fruits of action to the divine essence with consciousness fixed in the Self, being free from desires and egoism.
So, the ongoing war is not external, but against the six-fold enemies within oneself, like ostentation, arrogance, egoism, anger, harshness and ignorance. It is easier to express hate and root out external enemies but difficult to destroy the internal ones. It is human nature to justify one’s internal faults and deficiencies than to fight and root them out completely.
The work which is prescribed without attachment is the work to be done with impassioned disinterest.
Impassioned dis-interest is not being irreverent to the things in life but being detached from them. It is a leap from the particular to the universal, being aware of the infinite beyond the restrictive finite life. It is transcendence from sense influenced intellect to the infinite possibilities of Mind.
Impassioned person is a stithaprajnya, stable in consciousness who is attuned to samadhi – equanimous intellect.
Exclusion of desire from mind brings about inner state of freedom, the delight of the self-attuned to the Self within. It is not external renunciation of gross objects but internal acceptance of the Will of the Supreme Self.
According to Gita, Nirvana is Bliss of Beatitude, the positive state of experience and not the negative state of existence. Nirvana is being without the influence or withdrawal of ‘. . the senses from the objects of senses, like the tortoise drawing its limbs within itself, his awareness is well-established . . .’.
Performance of Action becomes important when it is subservient to spiritual life. It is not neglect of the gross body and restraint from being influenced by the senses.
Thus he attains Nirvana, detachment from constraints of the body. Ignorance that body is the Self being removed, not with dissolution of the body but by awareness of super-consciousness without denying the gross body.
Therefore, one who does not rejoice on obtaining the pleasures or sorrows when unpleasant things come to him, he is firmly established in Brahman without any bewilderment.
A devotee asks Swami, Swami, You should give us that strength too. You
have immersed us in an illusion. We do not know how to maintain ourselves.
Bhagawan Baba answers: “Again the same illusion!
Do not blame maya. Even when you are in maya, do your duties. Only then you
will understand the hidden principles.
From the principles, you gain the knowledge from which you obtain peace. From peace you get sukha and that is svarga. If you do not try even a little bit, I cannot give you everything.
In a shop, unless you pay, you do not get the materials. Similarly, if you give the money of knowledge, devotion and vairagya, you get the material called spiritual power.
Think for yourself: An engineer can draw any number of plans. Only when the owner spends money and the workers build it, the building gets completed.
Your desires are like feeding less and expecting the cow to give a lot of milk. There are no shortcuts. Do sadhana, do sadhana, do sadhana. The trials and tribulations of samsara can be likened to depressions and elevations on the riverbed. These are covered when the river is flowing in spate.
By contemplating on My name and with My grace your problems and sorrows will vanish. Samsara can then be crossed easily.”
Love.
