श्रीभगवानुवाच
अनाश्रितः कर्मफलं कार्यं कर्म करोति यः ।स संन्यासी च योगी च न निरग्निर्न चाक्रियः ॥
anāśritaḥ karmaphalaṁ kāryaṁ karma karoti yaḥsa saṁnyāsī ca yogī ca na niragnirna cākriyaḥ
The Blessed Lord said: Whoever does the work to be done without resort to its fruits, he is the Sannyasin and the Yogin, not the man who lights not the sacrificial fire and does not the works.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
His translation
KRISHNA Who doeth the works he hath to do but dependeth [not] on the fruit of his works, he is the Sunnyasin and he is the Yogin and not he who lighteth not the daily fire and doeth not the daily ritual. Know this, O Pandava, that the thing which men call renunciation is nothing but Yoga, since no man becometh a Yogin if he hath not renounced the imaginations of the will. Of the sage who has yet to ascend the hill of Yoga, works are the medium, but calm is the medium of him who sitteth already on the hilltops. For when a man has renounced all the imaginings of the will and his heart clings not to his works and clings not to the objects of the senses, that is the true Sunnyasin, that is the sitter on the hilltop of Yoga. Let a man deliver his soul by its own strength & let him not afflict his spirit to weaken it; for a man’s self is its own & only friend and its own & only enemy. To that man his self is a friend who has conquered self by the Self, but when he is not in touch with his self, it worketh enmity against him like an outward foe. Now when he has mastered self and is at peace, then the Self of him is utterly at its ease, unaffected by heat & cold, pleasure or pain, imperturbable in honour & disgrace. The Yogi whose soul is satisfied with wisdom and discernment, the immovable sitter on his hilltop and victor over his senses, is called the Yogin who hath the Yoga; and gold and gravel, sand or stone is all to him one substance. He who hath one heart for his lover and his friend and foeman and those who care not for him, who stand midway between liking & hating, for men he should love and men he should hate, yea & even his soul maketh no difference between the saint & the sinner, he is the truly great among men.
Essays on the Gita
That this is the drift of the meaning, becomes clearer when we have fathomed the sense of the sixth chapter which is a large comment on and a full development of the idea of these closing verses of the fifth, — that shows the importance which the Gita attaches to them. We shall therefore run as briefly as possible through the substance of this sixth chapter. First the Teacher emphasises — and this is very significant — his often repeated asseveration about the real essence of Sannyasa, that it is an inward, not an outward renunciation. “Whoever does the work to be done without resort to its fruits, he is the Sannyasin and the6·1–2 Yogin, not the man who lights not the sacrificial fire and does not the works. What they have called renunciation (Sannyasa), know to be in truth Yoga; for none becomes a Yogin who has not renounced the desire-will in the mind.” Works are to be done, but with what purpose and in what order? They are first to be done while ascending the hill of Yoga, for then works are the cause, kāraṇam. The cause of what? The cause of6·3 self-perfection, of liberation, of nirvana in the Brahman; for by doing works with a steady practice of the inner renunciation this perfection, this liberation, this conquest of the desire-mind and the ego-self and the lower nature are easily accomplished.
The Synthesis of Yoga
The first result will not be the creation of the true supermind, but the organisation of a predominantly or even a completely intuitive mentality sufficiently developed to take the place of the ordinary mentality and of the logical reasoning intellect of the developed human being. The most prominent change will be the transmutation of the thought heightened and filled by that substance of concentrated light, concentrated power, concentrated joy of the light and the power and that direct accuracy which are the marks of a true intuitive thinking. It is not only primary suggestions or rapid conclusions that this mind will give, but it will conduct too with the same light, power, joy of sureness and direct spontaneous seeing of the truth the connecting and developing operations now conducted by the intellectual reason. The will also will be changed into this intuitive character, proceed directly with light and power to the thing to be done, kartavyaṁ karma, and dispose with a rapid sight of possibilities and actualities the combinations necessary to its action and its purpose. The feelings also will be intuitive, seizing upon right relations, acting with a new light and power and a glad sureness, retaining only right and spontaneous desires and emotions, so long as these things endure, and, when they pass away, replacing them by a luminous and spontaneous love and an Ananda that knows and seizes at once on the right rasa of its objects. All the other mental movements will be similarly enlightened and even too the pranic and sense movements and the consciousness of the body. And usually there will be some development also of the psychic faculties, powers and perceptions of the inner mind and its senses not dependent on the outer sense and the reason. The intuitive mentality will be not only a stronger and a more luminous thing, but usually capable of a much more extensive operation than the ordinary mind of the same man before this development of the Yoga.
Record of Yoga
Today the siddhi is being reconstituted with a surer basis for the shuddhi & mukti, founded this time in dasyam & shamanvita karma & not in dasyam & shama. Sortilege अनाश्रितः कर्मफलं कार्यं कर्म करोति यः । स सन्न्यासी च योगी च न निरग्निर्न चाक्रियः ।। There was still an oscillation between imperfect tejasic action and karmahin udasinata. This has now been expelled by associating the Mahakali bhava with the karma.
Evening talks
Sri Aurobindo: Kartavyam Karma does not mean duty. Duty is a western notion. It is a wrong interpretation of the text of the Gita. It means: that which should be done, that which is ordained.
