The Deceptive Notion Of Inaction
Nature is abuzz with action, always. The individual's choice of withdrawing from action, either in the tamasic sense of inertial stupor, or in the sattvic sense of stepping back from life-activity, are not decisions of non-action but certain forms of action. Even if he does not do, he thinks, feels, emotes – that is action. Even if he stops all movements of thought and feeling, he still breathes, and that is action. Even if he is absolutely still in every sense of the term, by dint of his very presence of being, he is in communion with nature, and hence squarely in the middle of action.
The individual's choice of non-action does not prevent Nature's ongoing action around him, straddling the spectrum between the superconscious and the unconscious. His refusal of personal action is also a form of action, i.e. that of his perceived non-participation in Nature's action. Understood from the standpoint of him being inextricably connected to all that is, his choice of non-action changes nothing, or changes everything, depending on one's vantage.
The choice, then, is not between action and non-action, but between appropriate action or inappropriate action, between right action or wrong action, between sovereign mastery and helpless subjection. It is either Soul over Nature, or Nature over Soul. There is no third alternative.
The individual's choice of non-action does not prevent Nature's ongoing action around him, straddling the spectrum between the superconscious and the unconscious. His refusal of personal action is also a form of action, i.e. that of his perceived non-participation in Nature's action. Understood from the standpoint of him being inextricably connected to all that is, his choice of non-action changes nothing, or changes everything, depending on one's vantage.
The choice, then, is not between action and non-action, but between appropriate action or inappropriate action, between right action or wrong action, between sovereign mastery and helpless subjection. It is either Soul over Nature, or Nature over Soul. There is no third alternative.
- Neelesh Marik (Kolkata, India)
Keywords: Individual action, Nature's action, Karmayoga, Spirituality, Integral yoga
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ReplyDeleteFrom Synthesis of Yoga: "[We can learn to see] all egos as deformations of the one and sole real "I" in existence. In him we no longer stand separate, but lose our active ego in the universal movement, even as by the Witness who is without qualities and for ever unattached and unentangled, we lose our static ego in the universal peace."
DeleteTaking in-action to be non-action (Synthesis, page 83) Even when we become aware of all as the working of one cosmic Force and of the Divine behind it, that too need not liberate. If the egoism of the worker disappears, the egoism of the instrument may replace it or else prolong it in a disguise. The life of the world has been full of instances of egoism of this kind and it can be more engrossing and enormous than any other; there is the same danger in Yoga.
ReplyDeleteWe are never the doer of action; whether in Ignorance or fully realized (psychic being, Self or Supramental) we have never done any action in this or any lifetime. From Synthesis, page 98: "Always indeed it is the higher Power that acts. Our sense of personal effort and aspiration comes from the attempt of the egoistic mind to identify itself in a wrong and imperfect way with the workings of the divine Force. It persists in applying to experience on a supernormal plane the ordinary terms of mentality which it applies to its normal experiences in the world. In the world we act with the sense of egoism; we claim the universal forces that work in us as our own; we claim as the effect of our personal will, wisdom, force, virtue the selective, formative, progressive action of the Transcendent in this frame of mind, life and body. Enlightenment brings to us the knowledge that the ego is only an instrument; we begin to perceive and feel that these things are our own in the sense that they belong to our supreme and integral Self, one with the Transcendent, not to the instrumental ego. Our limitations and distortions are our contribution to the working; the true power in it is the Divine's. When the human ego realises that its will is a tool, its wisdom ignorance and childishness, its power an infant's groping, its virtue a pretentious impurity, and learns to trust itself to that which transcends it, that is its salvation. The apparent freedom and self-assertion of our personal being to which we are so profoundly attached, conceal a most pitiable subjection to a thousand suggestions, impulsions, forces which we have made extraneous to our little person. Our ego, boasting of freedom, is at every moment the slave, toy and puppet of countless beings, powers, forces, influences in universal Nature. The self-abnegation of the ego in the Divine is its self-fulfilment; its surrender to that which transcends it is its liberation from bonds and limits and its perfect freedom."
ReplyDeleteFrom the Mother, Letter #5:
ReplyDelete"You must grow in the divine consciousness till there is no difference between your will and hers, no motive except her impulsion in you, no action that is not her conscious action in you and through you."
"... a time will come when you will feel more and more that you are the instrument and not the worker. For first by the force of your devotion your contact with the Divine Mother will become so intimate that at all times you will have only to concentrate and to put everything into her hands to have her present guidance, her direct command or impulse, the sure indication of the thing to be done and the way to do it and the result. And afterwards you will realise that the divine Shakti not only inspires and guides, but initiates and carries out your works;"
Soul over Nature, Nature over Soul, or inaction in action?
ReplyDeleteAgain from the Mother, letter #5: "The last stage of this perfection will come when you are completely identified with the Divine Mother and feel yourself to be no longer another and separate being, instrument, servant or worker but truly a child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force"
ReplyDeleteFrom Essays on the Gita, page 82
ReplyDelete"In answer Krishna affirms that the Sankhya goes by knowl- edge and renunciation, the Yoga by works; but the real renun- ciation is impossible without Yoga, without works done as a sacrifice, done with equality and without desire of the fruit, with the perception that it is Nature which does the actions and not the soul; but immediately afterwards he declares that the sacrifice of knowledge is the highest, all work finds its consummation in knowledge, by the fire of knowledge all works are burnt up; therefore by Yoga works are renounced and their bondage overcome for the man who is in possession of his Self. Again Arjuna is perplexed; here are desireless works, the principle of Yoga, and renunciation of works, the principle of Sankhya, put together side by side as if part of one method, yet there is no evi- dent reconciliation between them. For the kind of reconciliation which the Teacher has already given, — in outward inaction to see action still persisting and in apparent action to see a real inaction since the soul has renounced its illusion of the worker and given up works into the hands of the Master of sacrifice, — is for the practical mind of Arjuna too slight, too subtle and expressed almost in riddling words; he has not caught their sense or at least not penetrated into their spirit and reality. Therefore he asks again, “Thou declarest to me the renunciation of works, O Krishna, and again thou declarest to me Yoga; which one of these is the better way, that tell me with a clear decisiveness.”
Here's a very different way of making this point. I just saw a sweet little children's book from Auroville, in which the theme is becoming aware OF the psychic being.
ReplyDeleteIf "I" am to become aware OF the psychic being, what is the "I" that becomes aware OF it?
This is another way of questioning what it is that is the "doer" of action.
(from don). This may be the clearest statement of all. From The Message of the Gita
ReplyDeleteAction will still be done in you because Nature is always at work; but you must learn and feel that your self is not the doer of the action. Observe simply, observe unmoved the working of Nature and the play of her qualities and the magic of the gunas. Observe unmoved this action in yourself; look on all that is being done around you and see that it is the same working in others. Observe that the result of your works and theirs is constantly other than you or they desired or intended, not theirs, not yours, but omnipotently fixed by a greater Power that wills and acts here in universal Nature. Observe too that even the will in your works is not yours but Nature’s. It is the will of the ego sense in you and is determined by the predominant quality in your composition which she has developed in the past or else brings forward at the moment. It depends on the play of your natural personality and that formation of Nature is not your true person. Draw back from this external formation to your inner silent self; you will see that you the Purusha are inactive, but Nature continues to do always her works according to her gunas. Fix yourself in this inner inactivity and stillness: no longer regard yourself as the doer. Remain seated in yourself above the play, free from the perturbed action of the gunas. Live secure in the purity of an impersonal spirit, live untroubled by the mortal
waves that persist in your members.