EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER

1. THE GUNAS, MIND AND WORKS

1.. Arjuna said: I desire, 0 mighty-armed, to know the principle of Sannyasa and the principle of Tyaga, 0 Hrishikesha, and their difference,¹ 0 Keshinisudana.

2. The Blessed Lord said: Sages have known as Sannyasa² the physical depositing (or laying aside) of desirable actions; Tyaga is the name given by the wise to an entire abandonment of all attached clinging to the fruit of works.

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1 The last question of Arjuna demands a clear distinction between the outer and inner renunciation, Sannyasa and Tyaga. The frequent harping, the reiterated emphasis of the Gita on this crucial distinction has been amply justified by the subsequent history of the later Indian mind, its constant confusion of these two very different things and its strong bent towards belittling any activity of the kind taught by the Gita as at best only a preliminary to the supreme inaction of Sannyasa. As a matter of fact, when people talk of Tyaga, of renunciation, it is always the physical renunciation of the world which they understand by the word or at least on which they lay emphasis, while the Gita takes absolutely the opposite view that the real Tyaga has action and living in the world as its basis and not a flight to the monastery, the cave or the hill-top. The real Tyaga is action with a renunciation of desire and that too is the real Sannyasa.

2 Sannyasa in the standing terminology of the sages means the laying aside of desirable actions. In that sense Tyaga, not

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. 3." All action should be relinquished as an evil", declare some learned men; "acts of sacrifice, giving and askesis ought not to be renounced", say others.

4. Hear my conclusions as to renunciation (Tyaga), 0 best of the Bharatas; since renunciation of works, 0 tiger of men, has been explained as threefold.

5. Acts of sacrifice, giving and askesis ought not to be renounced at all, but should be performed, for they purify the wise.

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Sannyasa, is the better way. It is not the desirable actions that must be laid aside, but the desire which gives them that character has to be put away from us. The fruit of the action may come in the dispensation of the Master of works, but there is to be no egoistic demand for that as a reward and condition of doing works. Or the fruit may not at all come and still the work has to be performed as the thing to be done, kartavyam karma, the thing which the Master within demands of us. The success, the failure are in his hands and he will regulate them according to his omniscient will and inscrutable purpose. Action, all action has indeed to be given up in the end, not physically by abstention, by immobility, by inertia, but spiritually to the Master of our being by whose power alone can any action be accomplished. There has to be a renunciation of the false idea of ourselves as the doer; for in reality it is the universal Shakti that works through our personality and our ego. The spiritual transference of all our works to the Master and his Shakti is the real Sannyasa in the teaching of the Gita.

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6. Even these actions¹ certainly ought to be done, 0 Partha, leaving aside attachment and fruit.

7. Verily, renunciation of rightly regulated actions is not proper, to renounce them from ignorance is a tamasic renunciation.

8. He who gives up works because they bring sorrow or are a trouble to the flesh, thus doing rajasic renunciation, obtaineth not the fruit of renunciation.

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1. Some would have it that all works must be excised from our life, as if that were possible. But it is not possible so long as we are in the body and alive; nor can salvation consist in reducing our active selves by trance to the lifeless immobility of the clod and the pebble. The silence of Samadhi does not abrogate the difficulty, for as soon as the breath comes again into the body, we are once more in action and have toppled down from the heights of this salvation by spiritual slumber. But the true salvation, the release by an inner renunciation of the ego and union with the Purushottama remains steady in whatever state, persists in this world or out of it or in whatever world or out of all world, is self-existent, sarvatha vartamano'pi, and does not depend upon inaction or action. What then are
the actions to be done ? The thoroughgoing ascetic answer, not noted by the Gita—it was perhaps not altogether current at. the time—might be that solely begging, eating and meditation are to be permitted among voluntary activities and otherwise only the necessary actions of the body. But the more liberal and comprehensive solution was evidently to continue the three most sattwic activities, sacrifice, giving and askesis. And these certainly are to be done, says the Gita, for they purify the wise. But more generally, and understanding these three things in their widest sense, it is the rightly regulated action, niyatam karma, that has to be done, action regulated by the Shastra, the science and art of right knowledge, right works, right living, or regulated by the essential nature, swabhava- niyatam karma, or, finally and best of all, regulated by the will of the Divine within and above us. The last is the true and only action of the liberated man, muktasya karma.

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9. He who performs a rightly regulated action, because it has to be done, without any attachment either to the action or to the fruit of the action, that renunciation is regarded as sattwic.¹

10. The wise man with doubts cast away, who renounces in the light of the full sattwic mind, has no aversion to unpleasant action, no attachment to pleasant action.

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l. The sattwic principle of renunciation is to withdraw not from action, but from the personal demand, the ego factor behind it. It is to do works not dictated by desire but by the law of right living or by the essential nature, its knowledge, its ideal, its faith in itself and the Truth it sees, its shraddha. Or else, on a higher spiritual plane, they are dictated by the will of the Master and done with the mind in Yoga, without any personal attachment either to the action or to the fruit of the action. There must be a complete renunciation of all desire and of all self-regarding egoistic choice and impulse and finally of that much subtler egoism of the will which either says, "The work is mine, I am the doer,", or even "The work is God's, but I am the doer." There must be no attachment to pleasant, desirable, lucrative or successful work and no doing of it because it has that nature; but that kind of work too has to be done,—done totally, selflessly, with the assent of the spirit,— when it is the action demanded from above and from within us, kartavyam karma. There must be no aversion to unpleasant, undesirable or ungratifying action or work that brings or is likely to bring with it suffering, danger, harsh conditions, in- auspicious consequences; for that too has to be accepted, totally, selflessly, with a deep understanding of its need and meaning, when it is the work that should be done, kartavyam karma.

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11. Nor indeed can embodied beings renounce all works; verily he who gives up the fruit of action, he is said to be a renouncer.¹

12. The three kinds of result, pleasant, unpleasant and mixed, in this or other worlds, in this or another life are for the slaves of desire and ego; these things do not cling to the free spirit.

13. These five causes, 0 mighty-armed, learn of Me as laid down by the Sankhya for the accomplishment of all works.

14. These five are the body,² the doer, the various instruments, the many kinds of efforts, and last, the Fate.³

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1 The liberated worker who has given up his works by the inner sannyasa to a greater Power is free from Karma. Action he will do, for some kind of action, less or more, small or great, is inevitable, natural, right for the embodied soul, — action is part of the divine law of living, it is the high dynamics of the Spirit. The essence of renunciation, the true Tyaga, the true Sannyasa is not any rule of thumb of inaction but a disinterested soul, a selfless mind, the transition from ego to the free impersonal and spiritual nature. The spirit of this inner renunciation is the first mental condition of the highest culminating sattwic dicipline.

2 The frame of body, life and mind is the basis or standing- ground of the soul in nature, adhishthana.

3 Fate, daivam, that is to say, the influence of the Power or powers other than the human factors, other than the visible mechanism of Nature, that stand behind these and. modify the work and dispose its fruits in the steps of act and consequence.

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15. These five elements make up among them all the efficient causes, karana, that determine the shaping and outcome of whatever work man undertakes with mind and speech and body.

16. That being so, he verily who, owing to ignorant understanding, looketh on the pure Self as the doer, he, of perverted intelligence, seeth not.

17. He who is free from the ego-sense,¹ whose intelligence is not affected, though he slay these peoples, he slayeth not, nor is bound.

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1 The doer is ordinarily supposed to be our surface personal 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 man takes his part in the struggle and though he slay air 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

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18. Knowledge, the object of knowledge and the knower, these three things constitute the mental impulsion to work; there-are again three things, the doer, the instrument and the work done, that hold the action together and make it possible.

19.. Knowledge, work and doer are of three kinds, says the Sankhya, according to the difference in the Gunas (qualities); hear thou duly these also.

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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 lib- erated man does 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, adhisthana, 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, akushalam, 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-sangrahartham, without personal aim or desire, because it is the appointed service. It is clear then that the work is not the sole thing that matters; the knowledge in which we do works makes an immense spiritual difference,

* The cosmic order comes into question, because the triumph of the Asura in humanity means to that extent the triumph of the Asura in the balance of the world- forces.

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20. That by which one imperishable being is seen in all becoming, one indivisible whole in all these divisions, know thou that knowledge as sattwic.

21. But that knowledge which sees the multiplicity of things only in their separateness and variety of operation in all these existences, that knowledge know thou as rajasic.

22. The tamasic^l knowledge is a small and narrow way of looking at things which has no eye for the real

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1.The tamasic mind does not look for real cause and effect, but absorbs itself in one movement or one routine with an obstinate attachment to it, can see nothing but the little section of personal activity before its eyes and does not know in fact what it is doing bat blindly lets natural impulsion work out through its deed results of which it has no conception, foresight or comprehending intelligence. The rajasic knowledge is unable to discover a true principle of unity or rightly co-ordinate its will and action, but follows the bent of ego and desire, the activity of its many-branching egoistic will and various and mixed motive in response to the solicitation of internal and environing impulsions and forces. This knowing is a jumble of sections of knowledge, often inconsistent knowledge, put forcefully together by the mind in order to make some kind of pathway through the confusion of our half - knowledge and half-ignorance. Or else it is a restless kinetic multiple action with no firm governing higher ideal and self-possessed law of true light and power within it. The sattwic knowledge, on the contrary, sees existence as one indivisible whole in all these divisions, one imperishable being in all becomings ; it masters the principle of its action and the relation of the particular action to the total purpose of existence; it puts in the right place each step of the complete process. At the highest top of knowledge this seeing becomes the knowledge of the one spirit in the world, one in all these many existences, of the one Master of all works, of the forces of cosmos as expressions of the Godhead and of the work itself as the operation of his supreme will and wisdom in man and his life and essential nature.

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nature of the world; it clings to one movement or one routine as if it were the whole (without foresight or comprehending intelligence).

23. An action which is rightly regulated, performed without attachment, without liking or disliking (for its spur or its drag), done by one undesirous of fruit, that is called sattwic.¹

24. But that action which a man undertakes under the dominion of desire, or with an egoistic sense of his own personality in the action, and which is done with inordinate effort (with a great heaving and straining of the personal will to get at the object of desire), that is declared to be rajasic.

25. The action undertaken from delusion (in mechanical obedience to the instincts, impulsions and unseeing ideas), without regarding the strength or capacity, without regarding the consequences, the waste of effort or injury to others, that is declared to be tamasic.

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1. Sattwic action is that which a man does calmly in the clear light of reason and knowledge and with an impersonal sense of right or duty or the demand of an ideal, as the thing that ought to be done whatever may be the result to himself in this world or another. At the line of culmination of Sattwa it will be transformed and become a highest impersonal action dictated by the spirit within us and no longer by the intelligence, an action moved by the highest law of the nature, free from the lower ego and its light or heavy baggage and from limitation even by best opinion, noblest desire, purest personal will or loftiest mental ideal. There will be none of these impedimenta ; in their place there will stand a clear spiritual self-knowledge and illumination and an imperative intimate sense of an infallible power that acts and of the work to be done for the world and for the world's Master.

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26. Free from attachment, free from egoism, full of a fixed (impersonal) resolution and a calm rectitude of zeal, unelated by success, undepressed by failure, that doer is called sattwic.¹

27. Eagerly attached to the work, passionately desirous of fruit, greedy, impure, often violent and cruel and brutal in the means he uses, full of joy (in success) and grief (in failure) such a doer is known as rajasic.

28. One who acts with a mechanical mind (who does not put himself really into the work), is stupid, obstinate, cunning, insolent, lazy, easily depressed, procrastinating, that doer is called tamasic.

29. Reason ² as also persistence are of three kinds according to the qualities; hear them related, unreservedly and severally, 0 Dhananjaya.

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1 The sattwic doer is full of a high and pure and selfless enthusiasm in the work that has to be done. At and beyond the culmination of sattwa this resolution, zeal, enthusiasm become the spontaneous working of the spiritual Tapas and at last a highest soul-force, the direct God-power, the mighty and steadfast movement of a divine energy in the human instrument, the self-assured steps of the seer-will, the gnostic intelligence and with it the wide delight of the free spirit in the works of the liberated nature.

2 The reason armed with the intelligent will works in man in whatever manner or measure he may possess these human gifts and it is accordingly right or perverted, clouded or luminous, narrow and small or large and wide like the mind of its possessor. It is the understanding power of his nature,

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30. That which sees the law of action and tlie law of abstention from action, the thing that is to be done and the thing that is not to be done, what is to be feared and what is not to be feared, what binds the spirit of man and what sets it free, that understanding¹ is sattwic, 0 Partha.

31. That by which one knows awry right and wrong and also what should or should not be done, that understanding, 0 Partha, is rajasic.

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buddhi, that chooses the work for him or, more often, approves and sets its sanction on one or other among the many suggestions of his complex instincts, impulsions, ideas and desires. It is that which determines for him what is right or wrong, to be done or not to be done, Dharma or Adharma. And the persistence of the will is that continuous force of mental Nature which sustains the work and gives it consistence and persistence. Here again there is the incidence of the gunas.

1 The culmination of the sattwic intelligence is found by a high persistence of the aspiring buddhi when it is settled on what is beyond the ordinary reason and mental will, pointed to the summits, turned to a steady control of the senses and the life and a union by Yoga with man's highest Self, the universal Divine, the transcendent Spirit. It is there that arriving through the sattwic guna one can pass beyond the gunas, can climb beyond the limitations of the mind and its will and intelligence and sattwa itself disappear into that which is above the gunas and beyond this instrumental nature. There the soul is enshrined in light and enthroned in firm union with the Self and Spirit and Godhead. Arrived upon that summit we can leave the Highest to guide Nature in our members in the free spontaneity of a divine action: for there there is no wrong or confused working, no element of error or impotence to obscure " or distort the luminous perfection and power of the Spirit. All these lower conditions, laws, dharmas cease to have any hold on us; the Infinite acts in the liberated man and there is no law but the immortal truth and right of the free spirit, no Karma, no kind of bondage.

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32. That which, enveloped in darkness, takes what is not the true law and upholds it as the law and sees all things in a cloud of misconceptions, that understand- ing, 0 Partha, is tamasic.

3. That unwavering persistence by which, through Yoga, one controls the mind, the senses and the life, that persistence, 0 Partha, is sattwic.

34. But- that, 0 Arjuna, by which one holdeth fast right and justice (Dharma), interest (Artha) and pleasure (Kama), and with great attachment desires for the fruits, that persistence, 0 Partha, is rajasic.¹

35. That by which one from ignorance doth not abandon sleep fear, grief, depression, and also pride, that persistence, 0 Partha, is tamasic.

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1.The rajasic will fixes its persistent attention on the satisfaction of its own attached clingings and desires in its pursuit of interest and pleasure and of what it thinks or chooses to think right and justice, Dharma. Always it is apt to put on these things the construction which will most flatter and justify its desires and to uphold as right or legitimate the means which will best help it to get the coveted fruits of its work and endeavour. That is the cause of three-fourths of the falsehood and misconduct of the human reason and will. Rajas with its vehement hold on the vital ego is the great sinner and positive misleader.

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36-37. And now the threefold kinds of pleasure hear thou from Me, 0 bull of the Bharatas. That in which one by self-discipline rejoiceth and which putteth an end to pain; which at first is as poison but in the end is as nectar; that pleasure is said to be sattwic, born of the satisfaction of the higher mind and spirit.

38. That which is born from the contact of the -senses with their objects, which' at first is as nectar, but in the end is like poison, that pleasure is accounted rajasic.

39. That pleasure of which delusion is the beginning and delusion is the consequence, which arises from sleep, indolence and ignorance, that is declared tamasic.¹

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l. Happiness is indeed the one thing which is openly or indirectly the universal pursuit of our human nature,—happiness or its suggestion or some counterfeit of it, some pleasure, some enjoyment, some satisfaction of the mind, the will, the passions or the body. Pain is an experience our nature has to accept when it must, involuntarily as a necessity, an unavoidable incident of universal Nature, or voluntarily as a means to what we seek after, but not a thing desired for its own sake,—except when it is so sought in perversity or with an ardour of enthusiasm in suffering for some touch of fierce pleasure it brings or the intense strength it engenders. But there are various kinds of happiness or pleasure according to the guna which dominates in our nature. Thus the tamasic mind can remain well-pleased in its indolence and inertia, its stupor and sleep, its blindness and its error. The mind of the rajasic man drinks of a more fiery and intoxicating cup; the keen, mobile, active pleasure of the senses and the body and the sense-entangled or fierily kinetic will and intelligence are to him all the joy of life and the very significance of living. What the sattwic nature seeks is the satisfaction of the higher mind and the spirit and when it once gets this large object of its quest, there comes in a clear, pure happiness of the soul, a state of fullness, an abiding ease and peace. This happiness does not depend on outward things, but on ourselves alone and on the flowering of what is best and

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most inward within us. But it is not at first our normal possession; it has to be conquered by self-discipline, a labour of the soul, a high and arduous endeavour. At first this means much loss of habitual pleasure, much suffering and struggle, a poison born of the churning of our nature, a painful conflict of forces, much revolt and opposition to the change due to the ill-will of the members or the insistence of vital movements, but in the end the nectar of immortality rises in the place of this bitterness and as we climb to the higher spiritual nature we come. to the end of sorrow, the euthanasia of grief and pain. That is the surpassing happiness which descends upon us at the point or line of culmination of the sattwic discipline.

The self-exceeding of the sattwic nature comes when we get beyond the great but still inferior sattwic pleasure, beyond the pleasures of mental knowledge and virtue and peace to the eternal calm of the self and the spiritual ecstasy of the divine oneness. That spiritual joy is no longer the sattwic happiness, sukham, but the absolute Ananda. Ananda is the secret delight from which all things are born, by which all is sustained in existence and to which all can rise in the spiritual culmination. Only then can it be possessed when the liberated man, free from ego and its desires, lives at last one with his highest self, one with all beings and one with God in an absolute bliss of the spirit.

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