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VerseThe Delight of Krishna

Verse 4·18

The mystery of divine action and inaction

Verse

कर्मण्यकर्म यः पश्येद् अकर्मणि च कर्म यः ।स बुद्धिमान्मनुष्येषु स युक्तः कृत्स्नकर्मकृत् ॥

karmaṇyakarma yaḥ paśyed akarmaṇi ca karma yaḥsa buddhimānmanuṣyeṣu sa yuktaḥ kṛtsnakarmakṛt

He who in action can see inaction and can see action still continuing in cessation from works, is the man of true reason and discernment among men; he is in Yoga and a many-sided universal worker (for the good of the world, for God in the world).

Gītā 4·18

This saying hinges upon the Sankhya distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, between the free inactive soul, eternally calm, pure and unmoved in the midst of works, and ever active Nature operative as much in inertia and cessation as in the overt turmoil of her visible hurry of labour. This is the knowledge which the highest effort of the discriminating reason, the buddhi, gives to us, and therefore whoever possesses it is the truly rational and discerning man, sa buddhimān manuṣyeṣu,—not the perplexed thinker who judges life and works by the external, uncertain and impermanent distinctions of the lower reason. Therefore the liberated man is not afraid of action, he is a large and universal doer of all works, kṛtsna-karma-kṛt; not as others do them in subjection to Nature, but poised in the silent calm of the soul, tranquilly in Yoga with the Divine.

CWSA 19 · Essays on the Gita · pp. 178–79

From The Delight of Krishna · Bhagavad Gītā · in the light of Sri Aurobindo · incarnateword.in