FIFTH CHAPTER

RENUNCIATION AND YOGA OF WORKS

1. Arjuna said: 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.¹

2. The Blessed Lord said: Renunciation and Yoga of works both bring about the soul's salvation, but of the two the Yoga of works is distinguished above the renunciation of works.

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1: 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 evident 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.

The answer is important, for it puts the whole "distinction very clearly and indicates though it does not develop entirely the line of reconciliation.

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3. He should be known as always a Sannyasin (even when he is doing action) who neither dislikes nor desires; for free from the dualities he is released easily and happily from the bondage.

4. Children speak of Sankhya and Yoga apart from each other, not the wise; if a man applies himself integrally to one, he gets the fruit of both.

5. The status which is attained by the Sankhya, to that the men of the Yoga also arrive; who sees Sankhya and Yoga as one, he sees.

6. But renunciation, O mighty-armed, is difficult¹ to attain without Yoga; the sage² who has Yoga attains soon to the Brahman.

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1.The painful process of outward Sannyasa, 'duhkham upturn, is an unnecessary process. It is perfectly true that all actions, as well as the fruit of action, have to be given up, to be renounced, but inwardly, not outwardly, not into the inertia of Nature, but to the Lord in sacrifice, into the calm and joy of the Impersonal from whom all action proceeds without disturbing his peace. The true Sannyasa of action is the reposing of all works on the Brahman. (See sloka 10-12.)

2 He knows that the actions are not his, but Nature's and by that very knowledge he is free; he has renounced works, does no actions; though actions are done through him; he becomes the Self, the Brahman, brahmabhufa, he sees all existences as becomings (bhutani) of that self-existent Being, his own only one of them, all their actions as only the development of cosmic Nature working through their individual nature and his own actions also as a part of the same cosmic activity.

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7. He who is in Yoga, the pure soul, master of his self, who has conquered the senses, whose self becomes the self of all existences ( of all things that have become), even though he does works, he is not involved in them.

8.-9. The man who knows the principles of things thinks, his mind in Yoga (with the inactive Impersonal)., “I am doing nothing”; when he sees, hears, tastes, smells, eats, moves, sleeps, breathes, speaks, takes, ejects, opens his eyes or closes them, he holds that it is only the senses acting upon the objects of the senses.

10. He who, having abandoned attachment, acts reposing¹ (or founding) his works on the Brahman, is not stained by sin even as water clings not to the lotus-leaf.

11. Therefore the Yogins do works with the body, mind, understanding, or even merely with the organs of action, abandoning attachment, for self-purification.

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1 The Gita says that the Yoga of works is better than the physical renunciation of works (Sloka 2). That Yoga of works is, we have seen, the offering of all action to the Lord, which induces as its culmination an inner and not an outer, a spiritual, not a physical giving up of works into the Brahman, into the being of the Lord, brahmani adhaya karmani, mayi s'annyasya. When works are thus "reposed on the Brahman," the personality of the instrumental doer ceases; though he acts, he does nothing; for he has given up' not only the fruits pf his works, but the works themselves and the doing of them to the Lord. The Divine then takes the burden of works from him; the Supreme becomes the doer and the act and the result.

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12. By abandoning attachment to the fruits of works, the soul in union with Brahman attains to peace of rapt foundation in Brahman, but the soul not in union is attached to the fruit and bound by the action of desire.

13. The embodied soul perfectly controlling its nature, having renounced all its actions by the mind (inwardly, not outwardly), sits serenely in its nine-gated¹ city neither doing nor causing to be done.

14. The Lord neither creates the works of the world nor the state of the doer nor the joining of the works to the fruit; nature works out these things.

15. The all-pervading Impersonal accepts neither the sin nor the virtue of any; knowledge is enveloped by ignorance; thereby creatures are bewildered.

16. Verily, in whom ignorance is destroyed by self-knowledge, in them knowledge² lights up like a sun the supreme Self (within them).

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1 Seven gates in the upper body—the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils and the mouth, and the two gates in the lower body for ejection—these are the nine gates.

2 This knowledge of which the Gita speaks, is not an intellectual activity of the mind; it is a luminous growth into the highest state of being by the outshining of the light of the divine

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17. Turning their discerning mind to That, directing their whole conscious being to That, making That their whole aim and the sole object of their devotion, they go whence there is no return, their sins washed by the waters of knowledge.

18. Sages see with an equal eye¹ the learned and cultured Brahmin, the cow, the elephant, the dog, the outcaste.

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sun of Truth, "that Truth, the Sun lying concealed in the darkness" of our ignorance of which the Rigveda speaks, tat satyam smyam tamasi kshiyantam. The immutable Brahman is there in the spirit's skies above this troubled lower nature of the dualities, untouched either by its virtue or by its sin, accepting neither our sense of sin nor our self-righteousness, untouched by its joy and its sorrow, indifferent to our joy in success and our grief in failure, master of all, supreme, all-pervading, prabhu, vibhu, calm, strong, pure, equal in all things, the source of Nature, not the direct doer of our works, but the witness of Nature and her works, not imposing on us either the illusion of being the doer, for that illusion is the result of the ignorance of this lower Nature. But this freedom, mastery, purity we cannot see; we are bewildered by the natural ignorance which hides from us the eternal self-knowledge of the Brahman secret within our being. But knowledge comes to its persistent seeker and removes the natural self-ignorance; it shines out like a long- hidden sun and lights up to our vision that self-being supreme beyond the dualities of this lower existence.

The result is says the Gita, a perfect equality to all things and all persons; and then only can we repose our works completely in the Brahman.

1. He has at heart for all the same equal kindliness, the same divine affection. Circumstances may determine the out- ward clasp or the outward conflict, but can never affect his equal eye, his open heart, his inner embrace of all.

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19. Even here on earth they have conquered the creation whose mind is established in equality; the equal Brahman ¹ is faultless, therefore they live in the Brahman.

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20. With intelligence stable, unbewildered, the knower of Brahman, living in the Brahman, neither rejoices on obtaining what is pleasant, nor sorrows on obtaining what is unpleasant.

21. When the soul is no longer attached ² to the touches of outward things, then one finds the happiness that exists in the Self; such a one enjoys an imperishable happiness, because his self is in Yoga, yukta, by Yoga with the Brahman.

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1 The Brahman is equal, samam Brahma, and it is only when we have this perfect equality seeing with an equal eye the learned and cultured Brahmin, the cow, the elephant, the dog, the outcaste and knowing all as one Brahman, that we can, living in that oneness, see like the Brahman our works proceed^ ing from the nature freely without any fear of attachment, sin or bondage. Sin and stain then cannot be; for we have overcome that creation full of desire and its works and reactions which belongs to the ignorance, tairjitah sargah, and living in the supreme and divine nature there is no longer fault or defect m our works; for these are created by the inequalities of the ignorance. The equal Brahman is faultless, beyond the confusion of good and evil, and Jiving in the Brahman we too rise beyond good and evil; we act in that purity, stainlessly, with an equal and single purpose of fulfilling the welfare of all existences. (See sloka 25).

The Gita after speaking of the perfect equality of the Brahman-knower who has risen into the Brahman-conscious- ness, brahmavid brahmani sthitah, develops in nine verses that follow its idea of Brahmayoga and of Nirvana in the Brahman.

2 The non-attachment is essential, the Gita says, in order to be free from the attacks of desire and wrath and passion, a freedom without which true happiness is not possible. That happiness and that equality are to be gained entirely by man in

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22. The enjoyments born of the touches of things are causes of sorrow, they have a beginning and an end; therefore the sage, the man of awakened under-standing, budhah, does not place his delight in these.

23. He who can bear here in the body the velocity of wrath the desire, is the Yogin, the happy man.

24. He who has the inner happiness and the inner ease and repose and the inner light, that Yogin becomes the Brahman and reaches self-extinction in the Brahman, brahmanirvanam.¹

25. Sages with Nirvan in the Brahman, they in whom the stains of sin are effaced and the knot of doubt is cut asunder, masters of their selves, who are occupied in doing good to all creatures.

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the body: he is not to suffer any least remnant of the subjection to the troubled lower nature to remain in the idea that the perfect release, will come by a putting off of the body; a perfect spiritual freedom is to be won here upon earth and possessed ." and enjoyed in the human life.

1. Here, very clearly, Nirvana means the extinction of the ego in the higher spiritual inner Self, that which is for ever timeless, spaceless, not bound by the chain of cause and effect and the changes of the world-mutation, self-blissful, self-illumined and for ever at peace. The Yogin ceases to be the ego, the little person limited by the mind and the body; he becomes the Brahman; he is unified in consciousness with the immutable divinity of the eternal Self which is immanent in his natural being. But is this a going in into some deep sleep of samadhi away from all world-consciousness, or is it the preparatory movement for a dissolution of the natural being and the individual soul into some absolute Self who is utterly and for ever beyond Nature and her works, laya, moksha?

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is cut asunder, masters of their selves, who are occupied in doing good to all creatures.

26. Yatis (those who practise self-mastery by Yoga and austerity) who are delivered from desire and wrath and have gained self-mastery, for them Nirvana in the Brahman exists all about them, encompasses them, they already live in it because they have knowledge¹ of the Self².

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1 That is to say, to have knowledge and possession of the Self is to exist in Nirvana. This is clearly a large extension of the idea of Nirvana. Freedom from all stain of the passions, the self-mastery of the equal mind on which that freedom is founded, equality to all beings, sarvabhuteshu-, and beneficial love for all, final destruction of that doubt and obscurity of the ignorance which keeps us divided from the all-unifying Divine and the knowledge of the One Self within us and in all are evidently the conditions of Nirvana which are laid down in these verses of the Gita, go to constitute it and are its spiritual substance. Thus Nirvana is clearly compatible with world- consciousness and with action in the world. For the sages who possess it are conscious of and in intimate relation by works with the divine in the mutable universe; they are occupied with the good of all creatures, sarvabhuta-hite.

2 By Nirvana in the Brahman must be meant a destruction or extinction of the limited separative consciousness, falsifying . and dividing, which is brought into being on the surface of existence by the lower Maya of the three gunas, and entry into Nirvana is a passage into this other true unifying consciousness which is the heart of existence and its continent and its whole containing and supporting, its whole original and eternal and final truth. Nirvana when we gain it, enter into it not only within us, but all around, abhito vartate, because this is not only the Brahman-consciousness which lives secret within us, but the Brahman-consciousness in which we live. It is the Self which we are within, the supreme Self of our individual being but also the Self which we are without, the supreme Self of the universe, the Self of all existences. By living in that Self we live in all, and no longer in our egoistic being alone; by oneness with that Self a steadfast oneness with all in the universe becomes the very nature of our being and the root status of our active consciousness and root motive of all our action.

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27.-28. Having put outside of himself all outward touches and concentrated the vision between the eye-brows and made equal the prana and the apana moving within the nostrils, having controlled the senses, the mind and the understanding, the sage devoted to liberation, from whom desire and wrath and fear have passed away, is ever free.¹

29. When a man has known Me as the Enjoyer of sacrifice and tapasya (of all askesis and energisms),

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1.Here we have a process of Yoga that brings in an element which seems quite other than the Yoga of works and other even than the pure Yoga of knowledge by discrimination and contemplation; it belongs in all its characteristic features to the system, introduces the psycho-physical askesis of, Rajayoga. There is the conquest of all the movements of the mind, chittavritti-nwodha; there is the control of the breathing, Pranayama; there is the drawing in of the senses and the vision. All of them are processes which lead to the inner trance of Samadhi, the object of all of them moksha, and moksha signifies in ordinary parlance the renunciation not only of the separative ego-consciousness, but of the whole active consciousness, a dissolution of our being into the highest Brahman. Are we to suppose that the Gita gives this process in that sense as the last movement of a release by dissolution or only as a special means and a strong aid to overcome the outward-going mind ? Is this the finale, the climax, the last word ? We shall find reason to regard it as both a special means, an aid, and at least one gate of a final departure, not by dissolution, but by an uplifting to the supracosmic existence. For even here in this passage this is not the last word; the last word, the finale, the climax comes in a verse that follows and is the last couplet of the chapter.

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the mighty lord of all the worlds, the friend of all creatures, he comes by the peace.¹

Thus ends the fifth chapter entitled : The Yoga of He Renunciation of Action.

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l The power of the Karmayoga comes in again; the knowledge of the active Brahman, the cosmic supersoul, is insisted on among the conditions of the peace of Nirvana. We get back to the great idea of the Gita, the idea of the Purushottama, —though that name is not given till close upon the end, it is always that which Krishna means by his "I" and "me", the Divine who is there as the one self in our timeless immutable being, who is present too in the world, in all existences, in all activities, the master of the silence and the peace, the master of the power and the action, who is here incarnate as the divine charioteer of the stupendous conflict, the Transcendent, the Self, the AH, the master of every individual being. He is the enjoyer of all sacrifice and of all tapasya, therefore shall the seeker of liberation do works as a sacrifice and as a tapasya; he is the lord of all the worlds, manifested in Nature and in these beings, therefore shall the liberated man still do works for the right government and leading on of the peoples in these worlds, loka-sangraha; he is the friend of ali existences, therefore is the sage who has found Nirvana within him and all around, still and always occupied with the good of all creatures,-—even as the Nirvana of Mahayana Buddhism took for its highest sign the works of a universal compassion. Therefore too, even when he has found oneness with the Divine in his timeless and immutable self, is he still capable, since he embraces the relations also of the play of Nature, of divine love for man and of love for the Divine, of bhakti. 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

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