Talks on the Gita -Vinoba 38

Chapter 5 TWO-FOLD STATE OF AKARMA: YOGA AND SANNYASA 19. Yoga: One Aspect Of Akarma 12. What does sannyasa mean, ultimately? Does it mean renunciation of some actions, while doing others? No. Sannyasa has, in fact, been defined as renunciation of all actions, freeing oneself absolutely from all actions. But what does ‘not acting’ mean? How can we give up all action? Action is a queer thing. It has pervaded all life. Even sitting is an action: ‘To sit’ is a verb. Sitting is not only an action in a grammatical sense, but also in physical sense. If one sits for quite a long time, the legs begin to ache. There is strain in sitting also. When such is the case, how can there be renunciation of all actions? The Lord showed ‘vishwaroop’ to Arjuna. That all-encompassing vision terrified Arjuna and he closed his eyes. But even then the vision did not disappear; the vishwaroop appeared before his mind’s eye. How can one escape from a thing which continues to be visible even after closing one’s eyes? How can one avoid action when it takes place even when we are doing nothing? 13. There is a story of a man who had a lot of precious gold ornaments. He wanted to keep them safely locked up in a box. His servant got a big iron box made for them. He looked at it and said, “You idiot! Don’t you have a sense of beauty? Should these valuable ornaments be kept in this ugly iron box? Go and get a good gold box.” The servant did as he was told. The master then ordered, “Now bring a gold lock. Only a gold lock would suit the gold box.” The fellow wanted to hide his gold from other’s eyes. But what was the result? There was then no need for the thieves to search for the gold; just taking away the box would have been enough. When not doing is also a form of doing, how to renounce action which is so all-pervasive? 14. The way lies in continuing to do all actions in such an ingenuous way that they are shed as soon as you complete them. Only then sannyasa can be attained. How to do an action without letting it stick to you? Look at the sun. It is working continually; even during the night it is working in the other hemisphere. Still one can say that it does not act at all. That is why the Lord says in the Fourth Chapter, “I taught this yoga first to the Sun, and from him the thoughtful and contemplative Manu learnt it.”The sun does no work even while working all the time. This is truly a wonderful state.