Question 2

QUESTIONER: WE ARE GRATEFUL TO YOU FOR YOUR SUPERB EXPOSITION OF ACTION, INACTION AND NON-ACTION. YOU HAD EXPLAINED TO THE FOREIGN DISCIPLES OF MAHESH YOGI WHEN THEY MET YOU IN KASHMIR LAST YEAR ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INACTION IN ACHIEVING SELF-KNOWLEDGE, AND WE HAVE NOW NO CONFUSION ABOUT IT. BUT SOME CONFUSION SURELY ARISES FROM KRISHNA'S EXPOSITION OF INACTION IN THE GEETA. HE EMPHASIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF INACTION, BUT IT SEEMS TO BE CONFUSING, BECAUSE IT HAS MORE THAN ONE MEANING. HE SAYS THAT A YOGI IS ONE WHO, HAVING ACTED DOES NOT THINK HE HAS ACTED, AND A SANNYASIN IS ONE WHO DOES NOT ACT AND YET ACTION HAPPENS. THERE IS YET ANOTHER SIDE TO THIS QUESTION WHICH SEEMS IMPORTANT. SHANKARACHARYA SAYS IN HIS COMMENTARIES ON THE GEETA, THAT A WISE MAN DOES NOT NEED TO ACT, BECAUSE ACTION BELONGS TO THE DOER. AND YOU SAY THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO ACT, BECAUSE ACTION HAPPENS ON ITS OWN. BUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ARJUNA'S INDIVIDUALITY IF HE CONSENTS TO BE JUST AN INSTRUMENT IN THE HANDS OF EXISTENCE?

Krishna says that when one acts as if he does not act at all, it is yoga. Yoga means action through inaction. To become a non-doer is yoga. The other thing he says is that when one does not do a thing and yet knows he has done everything, it is sannyas. This is another side of the same coin. Doing nothing, everything is done.

Sannyas and yoga are two sides of the same coin. Of course, they are two opposite sides of the coin, but they are inseparable. It is difficult to say where the one side ends and the other begins. It is true that the one side is the opposite of the other, but they are so inextricably joined that one cannot be without the other. In fact, there cannot be a coin with only one side, it has to have two sides -- one opposite to the other. They really complement each other, they are not at all contradictory. Its front and back together make up a coin.

There is no contradiction whatsoever in the two statements of Krishna, and there is no room for confusion either. If you look at a wise man from his front side he will look a yogi, and the same wise man will look a sannyasin if you view him from the rear. And Krishna's definition of the two sides is absolutely right. He defines a wise man, who is both yogi and sannyasin, as one who is actively inactive and inactively active. And remember, these two sides are simultaneously present in one who knows the truth, it is not possible to separate one of his sides from the other. One who acts through inaction can also be non-acting through action. These are two sides of the same coin. And there can be no coin with a single side; up to now it has not been minted anywhere. It is a different thing that we look at it from a single side. It depends on us. Krishna looks at it from both sides.

Krishna is trying to explain truth from all of its sides. He says to Arjuna, "If you are interested in yoga then you should know what yoga is. Yoga means that one can attain to inaction through action. And if you are not interested in yoga, if you do not want to take part in the war, in bloody fighting, if you want to renounce the world and take sannyas, then you know from me what sannyas is. Sannyas means one does not do a thing and yet everything is done. A sannyasin is established in the center of inaction and allows nature to take its course. He gives non-action -- which is a kind of action -- a free hand."

Krishna is just trying to rope Arjuna in from every possible side. That's all. For this very reason his statements appear many times to be contradictory. I find myself exactly in the same space in relation to you. I am trying to surround you from every possible direction. If you refuse to move in one direction, I immediately try to persuade you to move in another direction, so you consent to go along with me from wherever you can. And the beauty is that once you get going from anywhere you will come across the same space in which you first refused to move. Krishna is trying to persuade Arjuna in every way. If Arjuna wants to follow the yogic path, Krishna says okay, because he knows yoga is one side of the same coin with sannyas as its other side. Take a coin from any side, front or back, you will have the whole coin in your hand.

There is a beautiful Taoist story which will help you to understand this point very easily. Sages in the line of Lao Tzu have gifted us with some of the most extraordinary stories of the world. They are rare.

A sage lives in a forest. He has raised a number of pets -- all monkeys. One morning a seeker comes with a question like the one you have just now put to me. He says to the Taoist sage that his statements are often contradictory and they only confuse him. The sage grins and says to the visitor, "Just wait and see what happens." And he calls his monkeys to his side and tells them, "Listen, I am going to make some changes in your menu." The monkeys look surprised. For so long they were being given four breads in the morning and three in the evening. The sage Says, "From now on you will receive three breads in the morning and four in the evening."

Hearing about this change the monkeys became wild with rage. They fret and fume and even threaten to revolt against the proposed change. They insist on the old system being continued. But the sage is equally insistent on his proposal. So his pets prepare themselves to attack and harm their Master. The sage grins again and says to them, "Wait another minute. You w ill continue to have four breads in the morning as ever." It calms down the monkeys instantly.

The Taoist sage now turns his face to his visitor and says, "Do you get it? The monkeys were to receive seven breads in all, even after the slight change I had proposed. But they refused to accept three breads in place of four in the morning. Does it make a difference if they receive four in the morning or in the evening? Yet they are happy to know that no change is being made."

This is how Krishna tries to hem in a reluctant Arjuna. He now tells him to accept three breads and Arjuna refuses vehemently. Then he tells him to take four breads instead of three. He is to receive only seven breads in all, but Krishna leaves the distribution of breads between the morning and evening meals in Arjuna's hands. It is for this reason that the GEETA runs into eighteen long chapters. Time and again Krishna changes his offers. Now he persuades him to take up devotion, and if Arjuna does not agree he persuades him to take up yoga. He gives him a wide range of choices from yoga to knowledge to action to devotion. But in every case the total number of breads remains seven. And it is towards the end of the GEETA that Arjuna comes to know the truth, that in every case the number of breads is the same and Krishna is not going to budge from this fixed number.

Now I come to the other part of the question. Shankara's definition of action is a partisan's definition. He makes a choice that agrees with him. He is against action; he believes that action binds. He says action is ignorance, it stems from ignorance. To attain to knowledge, to know the truth there is no way but to renounce action. He interprets Krishna's non action as renunciation of action. For him, action belongs to the world of the doers, the worldly people, and a seeker has to run away from the relationships that action entails. His emphasis is on renunciation of the world of action.

It is true that for one established in wisdom there is no action, he does not do a thing. But Shankara's interpretation is partial and wrong. There is no action for a wise man because he has ceased to be a doer, an ego. Krishna's emphasis is on the absence of the doer, not on the absence of action itself. Shankara changes the emphasis from the non-doer to non-doing. And his emphasis on inaction is wrong.

There are two sides of action one is the doer and the other the deed. Krishna wants to emphasize that the doer should go and only doing remain. We cannot do away with action. Never mind the doer, the ignorant worldly person -- even God cannot do without action. This universe is his work, his handicraft. Without God working on it this universe would not survive for a split second. How does the universe keep going? The energy behind it keeps it going. So let alone the wise, even God cannot give up action. Krishna's whole emphasis is on the cessation of the doer. But an escapist sannyasin, one who runs away from the world emphasizes inaction.

This is the reason Shankara has to declare the world to be maya, an illusion. He means to say that the world is not real, not the work of God; it is an illusion, it does not really exist. It is difficult for Shankara to accept the world as real. If all these suns and stars, mountains and rivers, trees and flowers, animals and insects, are His handiwork then He is also a workman, and not a renunciate. Then why ask human beings alone to take sannyas? And Shankara is a sannyasini he does not want to get embroiled in the validity of action.

In fact, logic has its own difficulty. If you get hold of a particular line of argument, then you have to pursue it to its logical end. And it has its corollaries which cannot be bypassed. Logic is a hard taskmaster; once you get involved in it you have to follow it to its end. Having once accepted that action is ignorance and bondage and that there is no action for a wise man, Shankara has no choice but to declare the world an illusion, a dream. Because there is an immense world of action all around us; it is action and action all down the road. So to escape it Shankara calls it maya, an appearance which is not real. He says the world is magic, magical. It is like a magician sows a mango seed and instantly it grows into a mango tree with branches and foliage. In fact it only appears to be there, there is neither seed nor tree, it is just a hypnotic trick. But the irony is that even if the tree is a magical phenomenon for the spectators, it is real work for the magician. It is through his concrete action that the tree takes on an appearance. After all, hypnotizing the spectators is an act in itself.

This is the dilemma in which Shankara finds himself by denying action. To deny action he denies the whole world and calls it maya -- a dream. But how to explain the illusion? Even if it is an illusion of our own making, it is God who allows us to create and see it as such. How can it be there without his implicit consent? Maybe the world is false, but what about our perception of it? Perception should be real. And perception in itself is action. What does he say about it?

Shankara is an accomplished logician, and he works hard to make his point. He asserts that action is false and there is no action for a wise man. His difficulty is that rather than denying the doer he is out to deny action itself. But don't go away with the impression that I mean that Shankara has not known the truth, I am not saying that. Shankara has known the truth. The moment you deny action, you have denied the doer in the same stroke. Without action there cannot be an actor; it is just unthinkable. It is action that creates the actor, although the latter is false, the actor is an illusion.

So Shankara's logic is absurd, but his experience of truth is not wrong. He arrived at the temple of truth through a long and devious path. He had to wander long around the temple, but ultimately he made it. And he arrived at the goal for a very different reason. If someone denies action totally, even if the denial is an imagination, then there is no room for the doer to be. The doer depends for his existence on the idea of action; deny action and the doer disappears.

Shankara arrived at truth, although he began his journey from altogether the wrong place. He did not touch the place that belongs to Krishna.

Krishna says let the doer go first, and the mo ment he goes action is bound to go. Action and the actor, as generally understood, are two ends of the same string. But I am willing to choose Krishna against Shankara, and there is a reason for my preference. In the ultimate analysis Shankara's whole interpretation of the GEETA turns out to be escapist; he becomes the leader of all escapists. But the irony is that all his escapist sannyasins have to depend on those people who don't escape, who remain in the world. If the whole world agrees with Shankara's philosophy, it will not last a day longer. Then there is no way for it but to die. That is why the world is not going to accept Shankara's definition. No matter how hard Shankara tries to prove action as illusory, it remains action even as an illusion. Even Shankara goes out to beg from the same world of illusion; he accepts alms from the same world. He goes into the world to explain his philosophy of maya and tries to convince it that it is not.

Shankara's opponents mock him saying, "If everything is illusory then why do you go about explaining your philosophy to a world that does not exist in reality? Why do you preach? And to whom? Why do you go to a place whose existence is illusory? and what about your begging bowl, your begging, your hunger and your thirst? Are they real?"

I am going to tell you a beautiful story.

Once a Buddhist monk who believes that the world is false, an illusion, visits a king's court. With the help of cogent and irrefutable arguments he proves before the court that the world is unreal. Logic has a great advantage; it cannot establish what truth is, but it can easily prove falsehood. Logic cannot say what is, but it can very well say what is not. Logic is like a sword which can kill something but cannot revive it; it can destroy but it cannot create. Logic is as destructive as a sword, but it cannot construct anything. So the Buddhist monk concludes his arguments with an air of triumph proclaiming that the world is not real.

But the king is not going to be defeated by arguments. He says, "Maybe every thing is false, but I have something in my possession which cannot be false. And I am soon going to confront you with this reality." The king has a mad elephant among his animals and he immediately sends for it. The roads of the town are cleared, and the mad elephant let loose on the defenseless monk. The king and his courtiers go to the roof of the palace to watch the play from there. The elephant rushes at the monk with fury, and the monk starts running away in panic. He yells and screams, "O King, please save me from being killed by this mad elephant!" But the king and his courtiers and the whole town are enjoying the fun. After a long chase the monk collapses and the elephant grabs him and is about to kill him when the king's men suddenly appear on the scene and rescue him from the elephant's deadly clutches.

The next day the monk is called to the court, and the king asks of him, "How about the elephant? Is it false?"

The monk promptly says, "Yes; the elephant is illusory."

"And what about your screams?" the king asked.

The monk says again, "They were illusory too." When the king looks puzzled the monk says, "You are deluded about the whole thing. The elephant was unreal, its attack on me was unreal. I was unreal and my screams were unreal. My prayers were unreal and you too, to whom they were addressed were unreal."

This monk is incorrigible; he defeats even a mad elephant. But he is consistent; he says, "If everything is false, how can my escape from the elephant and my screams and prayers be true?" You cannot argue with a person who believes the whole existence is unreal.

Shankara's opponents made fun of him, but it made no difference for him. He said to them, "Even your perception of me and my going about arguing with people is illusory. There is no one who argues, and there is no one who listens to these arguments. Even your taunts are unreal." How can you argue with a person like Shankara?

No matter how powerfully Shankara supports his belief that the world is maya, even maya has its existence. He cannot deny maya, or can he? We dream in our sleep; this dream is unreal, but dreaming itself is not unreal. You cannot deny the existence of the state of dreaming as part of man's consciousness. A beggar dreams that he is a king, which is not a fact, but his dreaming is a fact. I take a rope for a snake, which is false, but what about my deluded perception itself? Even as delusion it is very much there. Granted that there is no snake, but what about the rope? The rope exists. And even if you deny the perception as real, you cannot deny the one who perceives.

We cannot deny existence totally. In the ultimate analysis it is there. Descartes is right when he says that we can negate everything, but we cannot negate the one who negates. We can negate everything, but how can we negate Shankara? Shankara is. Shankara has to survive in order for his negation to survive. Therefore Shankara's interpretation is partial and incomplete. He emphasizes one side of the coin and is unaware of its other side. His denial of the other side is wrong; a coin has to have two sides.

It is true, however, that Shankara is less confusing that Krishna. For this reason he created a large following, and a self-confident following at that. Krishna could not do that. The truth is that in India, Shankara alone has the largest group of followers -- all self-confident, assertive sannyasins. It is so because Shankara's approach is simplistic, he speaks about only one side of the coin without worrying that another side exists as well. Presentation of both sides together is difficult, so subtle and complex that it needs great intelligence to understand it. That explains why most of Shankara's sannyasins are stupid, It is true that sannyas in India came with Shankara, but it is also true that it is lackluster and stupid at the same time.

It takes great intelligence to stand alongside Krishna. Such an intelligence refuses to be confused by contradictions, because contradictions are inherent in life. Most of us get confused and bogged down by contradictions. Because Shankara denies all contradictions, his commentary on the GEETA has achieved immense popularity in this country. He was the first man who eliminated all contradictions, all confusions from the GEETA and presented a simplistic and monotonous interpretation of Krishna's superb philosophy. But I say that no one has done so much injustice to Krishna as Shankara has, although it is just possible that if he had not commented on it the GEETA would have been lost to the world. It is because of Shankara's commentary that the GEETA became known throughout the world.