CHAPTER FIVE

urjoona

“Thou declarest the renunciation of works, O Krishna, and again thou declares! Yoga in works. Which one alone of these twain is the better, this tell me clearly, leaving no doubt behind.”

krishna

“Renunciation of works, or Yoga in works, both of them make for the soul’s highest welfare, but of these two Yoga in works is distinguished above renunciation of works. Know him for the perpetual Sannyasin, who neither hates nor desires aught, for the mind that rises above the dualities, O strong-armed, is easily and happily released from its bondage. It is children who talk of Sankhya and Yoga as distinct and different, and not the learned; he who cleaveth wholly to even one of these findeth the fruit of both. To the high heaven whereto the Sankhyas win, the men of Yoga go also, and he who seeth Sankhya and Yoga as one seeth indeed. But renun­ciation, without Yoga, O great of arm, is very difficult to arrive at; and the sage that hath Yoga travelleth quickly to God. When a man hath Yoga, the Self of him is purified from obscuration, he is master of the Self and vic­tor over the senses; he whose Self has become one with the self of all created things, though he do works, can receive no defilement. The Yogin sees the reality of things and thinks, “Truly I do nothing at all”; yea, when he sees or hears or touches, when he smells and when he tastes, in his going and in his sleeping and in his breathing, whether he talk, whether he put out or take in, whether he close his eyes or open them, still he holds, “Lo, ‘tis but the senses that move in the fields of the senses.” When a man doeth, reposing all his works on the Eternal and abandoning attachment, sin cannot stay in his soul even as water on the leaf of a lotus. With their body, mind and understanding self and with pure and unaffected senses the Yogins, relinquishing attachment, do works for the cleansing of the Self. The soul that has Yoga abandons the fruit of its works, and gains instead a confident and utter peace; but the soul that has not Yoga clings to the fruit of its works, and by the working of desire it falleth into bondage. When a man is master of his self, and has renounced all works in his heart, then the embodied spirit sitteth at ease in his nine-gated city, neither doing nor causing to be done. The Lord createth not works nor the author­ship of works for His people, neither yoketh He them to the fruits of their works; ‘tis the nature in a man that is busy and taketh its own course.

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 The Lord taketh to himself the sin of none, neither accepteth He the righteousness of any; but the wisdom of living beings is clouded over with Nescience and ‘tis by this that these are bewildered. Of those who by Know­ledge have destroyed the nescience of the Self, Wisdom riseth like the sun and lighteth up that Self of all. Then they perceive Him alone and are Self of Him, and to Him consecrated in faith and all for Him; the revolving wheel clutches them not any more because Wisdom has washed them pure of all stain. The Brahmin endowed with learning and modest culture, the cow, the elephant and the very dog and the Pariah none touches, all these the wise regard with equal eyes. Even in their human life they have con­quered this creation whose minds have taken root in that divine Equality, for the Eternal also is without a defect and looketh on all his creatures with equal eyes; therefore in the Eternal they have their root. He is not over­joyed when he getteth what is of pleasant growth, nor is he troubled when he tasteth of bitterness; his reason is steadfast and he subjects not himself to delusion but knoweth the Eternal and in him abideth. His soul clings not to the touches of outward things but what happiness he finds in the Self; therefore his soul is made one in Yoga with Eternal Brahman, the happiness he tastes does not cease or perish. For the enjoyments that are born of touch and contact are very wombs of misery, they begin and they end; the wise man taketh no delight in these. For he who even on this earth and before his release from this mortal body hath strength to stand up in the speed and rush of wrath and lust, he is the happy man. That man is the Yogin whose bliss is within and his delight and ease are inward; him an inner light illumines, and he goeth to cessation in the Brahman for he becometh Brahman. Rishis from whom all stain and darkness have faded away, who have cut Doubt away from their hearts and are masters of Self, whose whole delight and work is to do good to all created things — these win to cessation in the Eternal. The strivers after perfection, the governed souls who are delivered from the grip of wrath and desire, lo, the Paradise of cessation in Brahman liveth all about them, for they have know­ledge of the Self within. Keeping the touches of outward things from his soul and concentrating sight between his eyebrows, making equal the outbreath and the inbreath as they move within the nostrils, master of his senses and mind and reason, who utterly desireth salvation, desire and wrath and fear have departed from him for ever; verily, he is already a released and delivered soul. He knows me for the One that feasteth on man’s sacrifice and his austerities, the mighty Lord of all the worlds and the heart’s friend of all creatures, and knowing, he travelleth to the Peace,” 

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