Bhagavadgita -Radhakrishnan 52

The Bhagavadgita -S. Radhakrishnan

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 12. The Way of Action: Karma-marga Samkara, who upholds the method of jnana as a means of salvation, argues that Arjuna was a madhyamadhikari for whom renunciation was dangerous and so he was advised to take to action. But the Gita adopts the view developed in the Bhagavata religion which has the twofold purpose of helping us to obtain complete release and do work in the world. In two places, Vyasa tells 8uka that the most ancient method of the Brahmin is to obtain release by knowledge and perform actions. Iga Up. adopts a similar view. It is incorrect to assume that Hindu thought strained excessively after the unattainable and was guilty of indifference to the problems of the world. We cannot lose ourselves in inner piety when the poor die at our doors, naked and hungry. The Gita asks us to live in the world and save it. The teacher of the Gita points out the extreme subtlety of the problem of action, gahana karmano gatih. It is not possible for us to abstain from action. Nature is ever at work and we are deluded if we fancy that its process can be held up. Nor is cessation from action desirable. Inertia is not freedom. Again, the binding quality of an action does not lie in its mere performance but in the motive or desire that prompts it. Renunciation refers, not to the act itself but to the frame of mind behind the act. Renunciation means absence of desire. So long as action is based on false premises, it binds the individual soul. If our life is based on ignorance, however altruistic our conduct may be, it will be binding. The Gita advocates detachment from desires and not cessation from work. When Krsna advises Arjuna to fight, it does not follow that he is supporting the validity of warfare. War happens to be the occasion which the teacher uses to indicate the spirit in which all work including warfare will have to be performed.