यस्य नाहङ्कृतो भावो बुद्धिर्यस्य न लिप्यते ।हत्वापि स इमाँल्लोकान् न हन्ति न निबध्यते ॥
yasya nāhaṅkṛto bhāvo buddhiryasya na lipyatehatvāpi sa imām̐llokān na hanti na nibadhyate
He who is free from the ego-sense, whose intelligence is not affected, though he slay these peoples, he slayeth not, nor is bound.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
AI translation
Essays on the Gita
The doer is ordinarily supposed to be our surface personal18·16 ego, but that is the false idea of the understanding that has not arrived at knowledge. The ego is the ostensible doer, but the ego and its will are creations and instruments of Nature with which the ignorant understanding wrongly identifies our self and they are not the only determinants even of human action, much less of its turn and consequence. When we are liberated from ego, our real self behind comes forward, impersonal and universal, and it sees in its self-vision of unity with the universal Spirit universal Nature as the doer of the work and the Divine Will behind as the master of universal Nature. Only so long as we have not this knowledge, are we bound by the character of the ego and its will as the doer and do good and evil and have the satisfaction of our tamasic, rajasic or sattwic nature. But once we live in this greater knowledge, the character and consequences of the work can make no difference to the freedom of the spirit. The work may be outwardly a terrible action like this great battle and slaughter of Kurukshetra; but although the liberated man18·17 takes his part in the struggle and though he slay all these peoples, he slays no man and he is not bound by his work, because the work is that of the Master of the Worlds and it is he who has already slain in his hidden omnipotent will all these armies. This work of destruction was needed that humanity might move forward to another creation and a new purpose, might get rid as in a fire of its past karma of unrighteousness and oppression and injustice and move towards a kingdom of the Dharma. The liberated man does all his appointed work as the living instrument one in spirit with the universal Spirit. And knowing that all this must be and looking beyond the outward appearance he acts not for self but for God and man and the human and cosmic order,* not in fact himself acting, but conscious of the presence and power of the divine Force in his deeds and their issue. He knows that the supreme Shakti is doing in his mental, vital and physical body, adhiṣṭhāna, as the sole doer the thing appointed by a Fate which is in truth not Fate, not a mechanical dispensation, but the wise and all-seeing Will that is at work behind human Karma. This “terrible work” on which the whole teaching of the Gita turns, is an extreme example of action inauspicious in appearance,18·10 akuśalam, though a great good lies beyond the appearance. Impersonally has it to be done by the divinely appointed man for the holding together of the world purpose, loka-saṅgrahārtham, without personal aim or desire, because it is the appointed service.
The crux of the spiritual problem, the character of this transition of which it is so difficult for the normal mind of man to get a true apprehension, turns altogether upon the capital distinction between the ignorant life of the ego in the lower nature and the large and luminous existence of the liberated Jiva in his own true spiritual nature. The renunciation of the first must be complete, the transition to the second absolute. This is the distinction on which the Gita dwells here with all possible emphasis. On the one side is this poor, trepidant, braggart egoistic condition of18·17 consciousness, ahaṅkṛta bhāva, the crippling narrowness of this little helpless separative personality according to whose view-point we ordinarily think and act, feel and respond to the touches of existence. On the other are the vast spiritual reaches of immortal fullness, bliss and knowledge into which we are admitted through union with the divine Being, of whom we are then a manifestation and expression in the eternal light and no longer a disguise in the darkness of the ego-nature. It is the completeness of this union which is indicated by the Gita’s18·57 satataṁ mac-cittaḥ. The life of the ego is founded on a construction of the apparent mental, vital and physical truth of existence, on a nexus of pragmatic relations between the individual soul and Nature, on an intellectual, emotional and sensational interpretation of things used by the little limited I in us to maintain and satisfy the ideas and desires of its bounded separate personality amid the vast action of the universe. All our dharmas, all the ordinary standards by which we determine our view of things and our knowledge and our action, proceed upon this narrow and limiting basis, and to follow them even in the widest wheelings round our ego centre does not carry us out of this petty circle. It is a circle in which the soul is a contented or struggling prisoner, for ever subject to the mixed compulsions of Nature.
Other writings
It is an error, we repeat, to think that spirituality is a thing divorced from life. “Abandon all” says the Isha Upanishad “that thou mayst enjoy all, neither covet any man’s possession. But verily do thy deeds in this world and wish to live thy hundred years; no other way is given thee than this to escape the bondage of thy acts.” It is an error to think that the heights of religion are above the struggles of this world. The recurrent cry of Sri Krishna to Arjuna insists on the struggle; “Fight and overthrow thy opponents!” “Remember me and fight!” “Give up all thy works to me with a heart full of spirituality, and free from craving, free from selfish claims, fight! let the fever of thy soul pass from thee.” It is an error to imagine that even when the religious man does not give up his ordinary activities, he yet becomes too sattwic, too saintly, too loving or too passionless for the rough work of the world. Nothing can be more extreme and uncompromising than the reply of the Gita in the opposite sense, “Whosoever has his temperament purged from egoism, whosoever suffers not his soul to receive the impress of the deed, though he slay the whole world yet he slays not and is not bound.” The Charioteer of Kurukshetra driving the car of Arjuna over that field of ruin is the image and description of Karmayoga; for the body is the chariot and the senses are the horses of the driving and it is through the bloodstained and mire-sunk ways of the world that Sri Krishna pilots the soul of man to Vaicuntha.
यस्य नाहंकृतो भावो बुद्धिर्यस्य न लिप्यते ।
“One whose state of being is free from egoism and whose understanding receives no stain.” This is the surrender of action to which Sri Krishna gives so much importance.
But in that case we are eternally bound by the chain of our works, nailed helplessly to the wheel of karma? Not so; for the wheel of karma is an error and the chain of our works is a grand illusion. “Action clingeth not to a man.” Bondage is not the result of works, & liberation is not the result of cessation of works. Bondage is a state of the mind; liberation is another state of the mind. When through the principle of desire in the mind the soul, the Ish, the lord, mixes himself up in the whirl of Prakriti, he sees himself in mental consciousness as if carried forward in the stream of causality; he seems to the mind in him to be bound by the effects of his works; when he relinquishes desire, then he recovers his lordship—which in his higher being he has never lost—and appears to himself what he has always been in reality, free in his being, swarat, samrat. It follows then that the way to liberate oneself is not to renounce works but to rise from mind to Supra-mind, from the consciousness of mental being, sambhava, to the consciousness of self-being, swayambhava or asambhuti. It is necessary to remember oneself, but it is not necessary to forget phenomena. For action is the movement of Prakriti and the chain of action is nothing more terrible or mystic than the relation of cause & effect. That chain does not bind the Master; action leaves no stain on the soul. The works of the liberated man produce an effect indeed, but on the stream of Prakriti, not on the soul which is above its action and not under it, uses action & is not victimised by it, determines action & is not determined by it. But if action in its nature bound the soul, then freedom here would be impossible. It does not & cannot; the soul allows mind to mix itself up with its works, buddhir lipyate, but the action does not adhere to the soul, na karma lipyate nare. The fear of action is Maya; the impossibility of combining action with calm & renunciation is a false sanskara. Nivritti or calm is the eternal state & very nature of the soul, pravritti is in manifestation the eternal state and very nature of Prakriti. Their coexistence & harmony is not only possible, but it is the secret of the world obscured only by ignorance in the mind. The enemy therefore is not action, but ignorance; not works bind us, but works done in the state of ignorance give us the illusion of bondage. The idea of separateness, of limitation with its fruit of desire, internal struggle, disappointment, grief, pain,—this alone is our stumbling block. Abolish it, see God alone everywhere & all difficulty disappears. Nivritti & Pravritti, tyaga & bhoga move harmoniously to the perfect fulfilment of the divine purpose.
Writings in Bengali
yasya nāhaṁkṛto bhāvo buddhiryasya na lipyate
hatvā’pi sa imāṃl lokān na hanti na nibadhyate
কর্ম্মসন্ন্যাস জগতের পক্ষে অনিষ্টকর এবং ত্যাগহীন সন্ন্যাস বিড়ম্বনা মাত্র। সন্ন্যাসে যে ফললাভ হয়, ত্যাগেও সেই ফললাভ হয়, অর্থাৎ অজ্ঞান হইতে মুক্তি, সমতা, শক্তিলাভ, আনন্দলাভ, শ্রীকৃষ্ণলাভ। সর্ব্বজনপূজিত ব্যক্তি যাহা করেন, লোকে তাহাই আদর্শ করিয়া আচরণ করে, অতএব তুমি যদি কর্ম্মসন্ন্যাস কর, সকলে সেই পথের পথিক হইয়া ধর্ম্মসঙ্কর ও অধর্ম্মপ্রাধান্য সৃষ্টি করিবে। তুমি কর্ম্মফলস্পৃহা ত্যাগ করিয়া মানুষের সাধারণ ধর্ম্ম আচরণ কর, আদর্শস্বরূপ হইয়া সকলকে নিজ নিজ কর্ম্মপথে অগ্রসর হইবার প্রেরণা দাও, তাহা হইলেই আমার সাধর্ম্ম্যপ্রাপ্ত ও প্রিয়তম সুহৃদ হইবে। তাহার পরে তিনি বুঝাইয়াছেন যে, কর্ম্মদ্বারা শ্রেয়ঃপথে আরূঢ় হইয়া সেই পথে শেষ অবস্থায় শম অর্থাৎ সর্ব্ব-আরম্ভ-ত্যাগই বিহিত। ইহাও কর্ম্মসন্ন্যাস নহে, অহঙ্কার বর্জ্জনপূর্ব্বক বহুলায়াসপূর্ণ রাজসিক চেষ্টাত্যাগে ভগবানের সহিত যুক্ত হইয়া, গুণাতীত হইয়া তাঁহার শক্তিচালিত যন্ত্রের ন্যায় কর্ম্ম করা। সেই অবস্থায় জীবের এই স্থায়ী জ্ঞান হয় যে, আমি কর্ত্তা নহি, আমি দ্রষ্টা, আমি ভগবানের অংশ, আমার স্বভাবরচিত এই দেহরূপ কর্ম্মময় আধারে ভগবানের শক্তিই লীলার কার্য্য করে। জীব সাক্ষী ও ভোক্তা, প্রকৃতি কর্ত্তা, পরমেশ্বর অনুমন্তা। এই জ্ঞানপ্রাপ্ত পুরুষ শক্তির কোনও কার্য্যারম্ভে কামনা-রূপ সাহায্য বা বাধা দিতে ইচ্ছুক হন না। শক্তির অধীন হইয়া দেহ-মন-বুদ্ধি ঈশ্বরাদিষ্ট কর্ম্মে প্রবৃত্ত হয়। কুরুক্ষেত্রের ভীষণ হত্যাকাণ্ডও যদি ভগবানের অনুমত হয় এবং স্বধর্ম্মপথে যদি তাহাই ঘটে, তাহাতেও অলিপ্তবুদ্ধি কামনারহিত জ্ঞানপ্রাপ্ত জীবের পাপস্পর্শ হয় না। কিন্তু ইহা অতি অল্পলোকের লভ্য জ্ঞান ও আদর্শ, ইহা সাধারণ ধর্ম্ম হইতে পারে না। তবে এই পথের সাধারণ পথিকের কর্ত্তব্য কর্ম্ম কি? তাঁহারও এই জ্ঞান কতক পরিমাণে প্রাপ্য যে, তিনি যন্ত্রী আমি যন্ত্র। সেই জ্ঞানের বলে ভগবানকে স্মরণ করিয়া স্বধর্ম্মসেবাই তাঁহার পক্ষে আদিষ্ট।
যস্য নাহংকৃতো ভাবো বুদ্ধির্যস্য ন লিপ্যতে।
হত্বাপি স ইমাঁল্লোকান্ ন হন্তি ন নিবধ্যতে॥
