The bird of paradise alights upon the hand that does not grasp.
—JOHN BERRY
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
—JESUS
J agdish was a famous actor working for a well-known theatrical company. A top performer, he played his roles well, whether the part was that of a beggar or a business tycoon. One evening Jagdish was playing the part of a king. It was a powerful drama and he was at his best. The hall was full, the audience clapped a number of times during the performance, and as the final scene came to a close the hundreds of people in the hall gave him a standing ovation.
After the curtain went down, Jagdish remained sitting on the throne with the crown on his head. The stagehands, the prompter, and the other players were surprised. They reminded him, "The show is over, why aren't you getting up?"
Jagdish showed his displeasure and said, "You know I am King Bingarajan. You fellows do not know how to address a king. I will send all of you to prison for your behavior."
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The workers ultimately had to use force in order to dislodge him from the throne. He completely forgot who he was, Jagdish the actor playing a role, and instead became completely identified with the role he was playing.
We All Identify with Our Role
Exactly the same thing happens to all of us in real life, and is the cause of our unhappiness and misery. We forget who we are the blissful, unbounded Self—and we identify completely with our "role” as an individual bound by time, space, and all the many aspects of our personalities and circumstances.
Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage, and all the people in it merely players." We all play many roles, in this life and in the lives we have lived and shall live in the future. Therefore we should not get attached to the role we are playing now, but the fact is that most of us do.
The actor Dennis Weaver has pointed out that when you are acting in a movie or a play, you have everything necessary to play your part—dialogue, props, the right costume and makeup, a good relationship with the director—but as you are performing, you know that it is not real. You know that when the curtain goes down, you will have to give your props to the prop man, your costume to the wardrobe lady.
It is the same with our life in this world, says Weaver, though we usually forget. The things we are using—house, car, clothing—don't really belong to us, they belong to the universe. They have been given to us as a gift, in order to help us play our part well. We ought to remember that when the final curtain comes down, we will have to give all these props back to "The Great Prop Man in the Sky."
And just as in a stage play, if we want to play our part well in real life, we need a good relationship with the Director; we have to surrender our will, our ideas and demands to the Director so that the entire play, with its many characters and scenes, will be a
success.
When a person gets unduly attached to worldly objects—the costume and props, the house, car, clothing, relationships—he desires to possess them and not to lose hold of them under any circumstances. His success and failure, loss and gain, pleasure and pain, his possessions and plans, all become extremely important.
The world of objects can smother a man who gives importance to them. It is that importance that gives power to these objects. If he feels someone is likely to take them away from him or is in the way of his possessing them, he becomes angry or afraid. The mental disturbances caused by his negative emotion cloud his intellect, and stress takes hold of him. Whether or not his fears have any basis in “external" reality— whether someone is actually playing the role of his adversary as he imagines—is irrelevant to the stressful reaction he has.
But as the Gita says, “A man of disciplined mind, who moves among the objects of sense, with the senses under control, free from attachment and aversion—he attains purity of spirit. And in that purity of spirit, there is produced for him an end of all sorrow" (2:64-65). One who has learned to live among sense- objects in a spirit of least attachment or aversion for them, attains tranquility and peace of mind.
A ship with sails up without anyone at the controls would be completely at the mercy of a storm, with its strong winds and waves, and will not reach its goal in the harbor. That is what happens to a man who has no self-control, whereas a man who is anchored and rooted in the Self is destined to live a peaceful and purposeful life with enduring success.
The sense of joy or elation is a wave, and that of pain or sorrow another wave. Both are agitations, disturbing the calm silence of the mind. A person established in the Self is not thrown about by such stormy waves. He is fully awake in the radiance of the transcendental Reality, infinite and eternal, calm and balanced in the midst of all.
The sensations of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, gain and loss are impermanent, transitory. That doesn't mean we
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should turn away from pleasure returning to us as a result of some of our actions, nor that we can somehow escape the pain we will feel as a result of other actions. What the wisdom of the Gita and other scriptures tell us is that we should not get struck in either pleasure or pain. Let the river of life flow.
The sensations of pleasure are welcome, but we should not get too attached to them: we are going to miss them and become miserable when they go away, as they certainly will. When pain comes, don't oppose it, it has to be accepted. There is no choice, it is the result of our actions in this life or lives lived earlier. This sorrow or pain, though unavoidable, is also not permanent. It will pass, and while it is there you may or may not suffer from it, depending on your attitude of mind. As someone said, “Pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional.”
The goal, then, is to accept pleasure as it comes and not oppose pain when it comes; both will come and go. No more reaching out toward pleasure (. sukha) begging it to linger, no longer resenting the pain ( dukha ). Remain unshaken, balanced, free.
It is not easy to achieve or maintain this attitude, but meditation and the direct experience of the Self, the witness, help a lot. The more you know the Self, the less power pleasure and pain have to disturb your equilibrium and play havoc with your peace of mind.
Non-Attachment and Karma Yoga
When work is done without desire for personal gain it becomes a cosmic, spiritual action. Such work is utterly different from the mechanical or instinctive action characteristic of the animal level of life, or the egocentric action of the average man and woman. With such egocentric action one may accumulate riches that buy many comforts, a big house, an air-conditioned car, a large bank account, but one feels hollow inside and is comfortably unhappy.
Ordinarily karma has a binding quality. It leaves behind subtle impressions, which at a future time, under favorable
circumstances, become the cause of new actions. The new actions likewise cause another set of impressions, which in turn become the cause of yet other actions. So the wheel of karma turns, and man performs actions impelled by the past.
How to avoid this causal law and perform action as a free man? The solution lies in karma yoga.
In describing karma yoga, the Bhagavad Gita says, "You have the right to your actions alone, never to its fruits." That is, you have to perform action to the best of your ability, but you have to accept whatever comes. This is because we can exercise quite a bit of control and direction over action, but over the results of our action we have no control at all. We just don't know how it will turn out. No matter how well we have done our part, undoubtedly our past karma will be influencing the results.
That is why the Gita says that those who are attached to the outcome, who act with their eye always on the results, are "wretched." They will never have peace, nor will they be able to act effectively.
When performing action, you need unshakable concentration and full control of your mind. It is crucial to focus your attention completely on what you are doing, not to be thinking about the results. Do the work to the best of your ability, with devotion to the task. Be "process oriented," not "goal oriented." The cause of failure in life, in undertakings both large and small, is often in our carelessness over the process, the many details involved.
Every action, following the causal laws of nature, will inevitably produce its fruits. The result will be in accordance with the laws of karma. These laws are not made by you, and they don't go wrong. Every result is the right result. So why be concerned? You have done your best. Now relax, let it go, and leave the rest to nature.
What matters most is the spirit in which we do our work. What's important is how we shoot the arrow. It really does not matter whether we hit the target or not.
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This doesn't mean you shouldn't expect results. Nonattachment doesn't mean trying to act without desiring a certain result. That wouldn't be realistic. In fact, it is good to have a clear mental picture of your ultimate goal, so you know exactly what you are striving for. Idealize the real and you will realize the ideal. But once you have a clear vision of your goal, drop it and get to work. If you drop the thoughts about the fruits of action from your mind, you will be able to pay better attention to the details of your action.
Once the action is performed, you will get what you deserve, not necessarily what you desire. The results will be based on all your past karma, not only on the present action. And where other people are involved, as they usually are, the results will also reflect their karma.
Thus, the results may not be in accordance with your expectations. In that case, you may become frustrated, disappointed, even angry. This stressful reaction will adversely affect your mind and your body. So, rather than feel angry and disappointed, why not think it over? There may be something you overlooked, something you could have done better. Maybe there is a lesson for next time. In any case, there is no need to get frustrated. Rather, accept the result as cheerfully as possible.
The more you appreciate the workings of karma, the more you realize that action never fails, it only produces results. A given expectation may be said to have "failed” to occur, but / have not failed, nor has the action failed, only the expectations have been wrong. This is because I did not know all the factors that were involved in shaping the result. And indeed we can never know them all. It is far too complex for our human mind to comprehend.
That is why the Bhagavad Gita tells us that we must work to the very best of our ability in all spheres of our lives, and then offer it to the Lord. (It is obvious that we cannot offer Him our second best.) Having done that, we must not despair if our work has disappointing results, or if it is criticized or altogether disregarded. On the other hand, we must not give way to pride
and vanity if the results of our actions are very fruitful and win popular praise. Only we know if we have done our best, and that knowledge in itself is our reward. All men of genuine greatness and integrity do their duty in this spirit.
If you want your actions to bring you happiness no matter what the result is, you have to offer your work to the Lord. You have to invoke His grace. The attitude of offering your work to the Lord and accepting the result as a blessing from Him removes all our anxieties, problems, and conflicts and brings a sense of security and a feeling of well-being.
Whether or not you belong to a conventional religion or creed, or whether you believe in a personal God or not, you can practice karma yoga by engaging in unselfish, dedicated action. This way you will gradually attain peace and freedom, like the peace that a devotee gains through meditation.
By performing selfless right action, one's mind becomes purified and one spontaneously starts to live the nobler values of life. The texture of one's emotions and thoughts changes. If there seems not to be any immediate reward, remember that good deeds are like seeds that await favorable conditions for germination.
Performing our actions while remembering our connection with the Supreme Being and invoking God's grace makes every task easier. He is always with you in your unselfish endeavors. "The breeze of His grace is always blowing," said Sri Ramakrishna. "We only have to raise our sails to catch it."
"It is not possible to detach completely from egocentric desires," said Swami Vivekananda. "The only solution to becoming as unattached as possible is to attach yourself to the Lord, the Self. This way you will be more successful."
Paramahansa Ramakrishna taught that we should play our part in the drama of life to the best of our ability, but our mind should be on God all the time. We should be reveling in divine consciousness all the time, while we are engaged in the affairs of this phenomenal world. The part, played well, will be useful to all the others around us, and we will have peace of mind.
Krishna says in the Gita that those who perform action
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without devotion to the Lord are wasting their time. When action is performed without desire for personal gain, it gives the performer of the action evenness of mind in all circumstances, favorable or unfavorable, in gain or loss, success or failure. Why? Because your ego is not involved in the result.
Detached Attachment Should Be Our Aim
Let us sum up our discussion by looking at what nonattachment both is and is not.
First of all, non-attachment is not indifference. It is not cold, deliberate shunning of everybody and everything. Vivekananda at one time wanted to spend most of his time in meditation, but his master Ramakrishna told him it was inhuman to neglect the world, with indifference to everything, for the sake of personal salvation.
Running from life and its duties, giving up one's possessions or ignoring one's relationships and responsibilities, is not renunciation or non-attachment. Nor is non-attachment a kind of fatalism. A fatalist believes that it really does not matter whether he works hard, tries hard, or not. “Whatever happens has to happen,” he says.
Action has to be performed with full dedication and devotion, but without attachment to the fruits of action. The attitude of a fatalist toward the fruits of action is not non-attachment but indifference.
Non-attachment also does not mean abstention from action. The Gita warns about this, and says that he who restrains the organs of action but continues to dwell mentally on objects of the senses deludes himself and can be called a hypocrite. Except in the deep silence of meditation, it is not possible to refrain from action; as we saw in Chapter 5, action is going on all the time; awake or asleep, we are thinking, talking, dreaming, digesting, and so on.
Non-attachment comes by discrimination. For one who has realized the Self, attachment to actions and their results naturally fades away. Such a man moves freely, without longing,
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without the sense of I or "mine," doing his work with peace of mind.
Non-attachment may seem difficult to achieve, but it is not really so. In fact, when your mind abides in the Self, nonattachment is automatic. Right from the early stages of experiencing the Self in meditation, non-attachment begins to grow, even if it grows slowly. From the beginning, it gives you a new sense of freedom and peace. By virtue of your expanded consciousness, you increasingly identify with the Self rather than your limited personality.
This attachment to a higher reality helps you to renounce "I- ness," "mine-ness," and lingering selfish desires, and to have a state of mind free from all impure tendencies. Then you can be in the world among worldly things, working happily amid them. It is the quietude and serenity of your mind that makes you happy and free and in bliss.
The deepest, most innocent and complete experience of non-attachment occurs when a person becomes Self-realized. When one is established in the blissful, expanded, peaceful state of pure consciousness, the "pairs of opposites" such as pleasure and pain, success and failure, gain and loss, fail to shake the mind. They are like candles held up to the sun.
If you are the ocean, any number of waves can rise and fall on your surface; any number of rivers can run into you, and your status as an ocean, your fullness, will remain. As it is said in the Bhagavad Gita,
Water flows continuously into the ocean
But the ocean is never disturbed.
Desire flows into the mind of the seer
But he is never disturbed.
The seer knows peace.
He knows peace who has forgotten desire.
He lives without craving
Free from ego, free from pride.
We will talk about this more in the following chapter.
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