 |
Chapter 18
CONCLUSION: RENUNCIATION OF THE FRUIT OF ACTIONS LEADS TO THE GRACE OF THE LORD
103. The Right Way To Extricate Oneself From Activity
11. There is a difference between karma (action) and kriya (activity). Let us take an example to explain this. Suppose there is a great commotion at a place and it is to be stopped. A policeman goes there and shouts at the top of his voice. To make the people silent, he has to do the intense action of shouting. Someone else may go, stand up and raise his finger; and that will be sufficient to quieten the people. Another person may just go there and his very presence will stop the commotion and the noise. In the first case, activity is intense; in the second case, it is gentle; and in the third case, it is subtle. But action is the same, that of quietening the people. As the mind gets purified, intensity of activity will go on diminishing. Activity will go on becoming gentler and subtler, and will altogether cease in the end. Action and activity are different things. Even grammatically, these two terms are different from each other. This must be clearly understood. A man may express his anger either by shouting or by keeping silent. He may thus resort to different activities for the sake of one and the same action. A jnani does no activity, but his karma is infinite. His very existence induces innumerable people to take to the right path. Even if he is just sitting still, he does infinite karma. As activity goes on becoming subtler and subtler, the karma goes on growing. Thus, one can infer that when the mind is completely purified, activity will cease altogether and karma will become infinite. Activity will progressively become gentler and subtler till its complete cessation in the end, and then infinite karma will take place by itself. 12. Karma cannot be got rid of by rejecting it superficially. It is possible only gradually through selfless, desireless work. There is a poem by the poet Browning wherein a man asks the Pope, ‘Why do you bedeck yourself with robes etc.? Why do you have all this paraphernalia? Why do you keep a serene face? Why this pretence?’ The Pope answers, ‘I do all this because it is possible that as I go on play-acting in this way, faith may touch me one day, without my even realising it.’ One should, therefore, go on doing desireless activity; it will finally culminate in the state of no activity. |
 |