Talks on the Gita -Vinoba 35

Chapter 5 TWO-FOLD STATE OF AKARMA: YOGA AND SANNYASA 18. The Nature Of The State Of Akarma 7. Let us take a familiar example to understand the naturalness of an action. When a child first learns to walk, how much effort he puts into it! We encourage him, appreciate his efforts. ‘Hey, he has learnt to walk!’, we say with pride. But later, walking becomes natural; the child can then walk and talk at the same time. It is the same with eating. When a child is given solid food for the first time, we celebrate the occasion, as if the act of eating is something great. But in the course of time, it becomes quite natural. How hard it is to learn swimming! In the beginning, one finds it tiring; but later one goes for swimming to relax, to shake off fatigue. Swimming is then no longer a tiring activity; the body floats over water effortlessly. The mind is in the habit of getting tired; it gets tired when it is consciously engaged in work. But when actions flow naturally, no strain is felt. Karma then becomes akarma. It is then a matter of joy. 8. Such transformation of karma into akarma is what we want to achieve. It is for this purpose that we should perform karma in accordance with our swadharma. In doing so, our defects will come to light. To remove them, we should take recourse to vikarma. If all this is constantly practised, the mind reaches a stage where it is no longer perturbed by actions. It remains calm and clear even though we are doing thousands of actions. If we ask the sky whether it gets scorched by the sun and drenched in the rain and shivers with the cold in winter, what reply will we get? Will it not say, “You can settle what happens to me; I know nothing.”पिसें नेसलें कां नागवें। हें लोकीं येऊनि जाणावें ।’—It is for others to see whether a mad man is naked or clad; he is totally unaware of it. In short, when we go on performing actions in the pursuit of swadharma with the help of vikarma, they gradually become detached and purified, and eventually become natural and effortless. Such actions then become second nature. Even the most trying situations are not then felt to be daunting. This is the key to karmayoga. Our hands will simply get bruised in trying to force open a lock without a key; with the key we can open in no time. The key to karmayoga makes all the actions light and of no bother. This key can be secured by conquering the mind. There should, therefore, be continuous efforts to subdue desires and passions in the mind. Whenever we become aware of any impurities in the mind in the course of action, we should try to cleanse the mind. Outward actions then cease to be troublesome. The egoistic feeling that ‘I am the doer’ vanishes. The powerful forces of desires, passions and anger subside. There is then no feeling of anguish. Even the awareness of performing an action is no longer there.