Components of Action🔗

18.20 That knowledge by which one imperishable reality is seen in all

Existence, undivided in the divided, is knowledge in the state of goodness.

18.21 The knowledge by which one sees different realities of various types among all beings as separate from one another; such knowledge is in the mode of aggression.

18.22 The irrational, baseless, and worthless knowledge by which one clings to one single effect as if it is everything; such knowledge is in the mode of darkness of ignorance

18.23 Obligatory duty performed without likes and dislikes and without selfish motives and attachment to the fruit, is in the mode of goodness.

18.24 Action performed with ego, with selfish motives, and with too much effort, is in the mode of aggression.

18.25 Action that is undertaken because of delusion, disregarding consequences, loss, injury to others, as well as one's own ability, is in the mode of ignorance.

18.26 The performer who is free from attachment, non- egotistic, endowed with resolve and enthusiasm, and unperturbed in success or failure is called good.

18.27 The performer who is impassioned, who desires the fruits of work, who is greedy, violent, impure, and affected by joy and sorrow, is called aggressive.

18.28 The performer who is undisciplined, vulgar, stubborn, wicked, malicious, lazy, depressed, and procrastinating is called ignorant.

In these verses Krishna explains the nature of man, the human.

Krishna has already said that the final performer is not man, nara, but the Divine, Narayana. Even so the human is still the subject, the medium that we are dealing with. All the fragilities that we have are inbuilt into our nature. These are the guna or attributes that define our behavior. These attributes control our thoughts, words and actions. One is not all the time, from birth to death, in that one guna or attribute. No. Still, we are in one guna or another most of the time, unless we make the effort to free ourselves from that attribute.

The gunas are of three kinds: satva, rajas and tamas. Satva is defined as calm, peaceful, spiritual and good, etc. This is generally the attribute of spiritually inclined persons. Rajas is translated as aggressive, passionate and active, etc. This is the primary attribute of kings, warriors and business people. Tamas is lazy, ignorant and passive, etc. Tamas is seen as the inactive component that many of us experience at times. It is the active component of those who live to eat and sleep.

In these verses Krishna beautifully defines in detail the qualities and effects of these gunas upon us. His purpose in doing this is to make us aware of what happens within us. The majority of the time we are ignorant of why we react the way we do. As the Master explains in these words, once we understand how we react, we can move to the next level of understanding and shift to a superior attribute.

Yes, all of us must be rajasic or aggressive part of the time to accomplish things. Even so, if we can act aggressively without greed, anger or fear affecting us, as well as acting without attachment, we are in a satvic mood, although superficially we seem to be in a rajasic mode.

Krishna defines a satvic person as one who sees the Collective Consciousness, the whole, in parts. He understands that he is not alone and not an island, rather he is linked with everyone and everything in this Universe. He understands his connection with Cosmic Energy.

A satvic person is not focused on himself. He realizes that his survival and possessions, the ‘I’ and ‘mine,’ are meaningless. His activities are selfless, without expectation of praise or reward, and without attachment to the process or result. Such a person is not affected by the seeming success or failure of what he undertakes because there is no feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ involved in his actions.

It is not that difficult to move into a satvic state. True, you may not be able to stay there all the time, but once you understand how this state liberates you, you try more and more to stay there.

To be in the satvic state is to understand that past and future are mere illusions. They do not exist. Past is gone, never to return. Why worry? Future is a mirage. All you can do is to activate your present moment. That is all you can do. The present moment determines your future. Once you focus on the present, your awareness increases manifold and you drop expectations and attachment. You just do what is needed. You respond to reality. You respond to the Now. You are in satva.

You fall into a rajasic state when you distinguish between you and I, between this and that. There is no differentiation. Your mind, the ego, creates this differentiation. Your samskaras bring up this differentiation between you and others. A rajasic person does everything expecting a reward. He is selfish, aggressive and impatient. When he does not get what he wants, he is upset. Failure is a blow to his ego.

A rajasic person can never be happy. Please understand, almost all of you are driven by rajas. This is the predominant attribute in modern times. Rich or poor, intelligent or idiotic, educated or uneducated, almost everyone compares himself with the next person and wants what the other person has. As long as you are driven by your desires, and not satisfied by having what you need, you are in rajas.

Rajas corrodes you. It eats up your soul. There is no end to greed and no limit to fear. These are the driving forces of rajas. Rajas is about trying to attain what you don't have, not being happy with what you have, not being happy about where you are and not being happy when you are in the present moment. You are either constantly in the future, imagining what you would like to be and like to have, or you are in the past thinking about how you could have done better. Does it make any sense? Rajas is living in a fantasy world.

In tamas one is fully in delusion. One sticks to embedded beliefs, knowledge or conditions without making an effort to verify whether they are right or wrong, appropriate or not, harmful or not. Religious zealots and gangsters are in tamas. There is no difference between them; only their end objectives are different. Both are dogmatic, violent and totally selfish. They adopt any means, even criminal, to achieve their objectives.

Tamas does not just mean inactivity, laziness and procrastination. Yes, it is all that; however, it also includes mindless action without realizing that one is part of a whole. The ego is so enlarged that it believes it is the whole. It believes nothing else of significance exists; others are of no consequence. A Hitler who destroyed millions of people believing that they were inferior was in deep tamas. Tamas is an animal at its worst when it stops heeding the laws of nature. And only a human can be in tamas. An animal can never be in tamas because it is directed by the intelligence of nature. It is an insult to a buffalo or a pig when people compare tamasic people to these animals!

Q: I am a Nithya healer and I meditate regularly. Along with detachment, I find that I become disinclined to do anything. Then I become afraid that I am falling into laziness. What is happening?

You are in the right path. Do not worry. What is happening is what needs to happen.

Society, in the form of political or religious institutions, tries to control you through fear and greed.

These institutions believe that unless you are prodded by fear and greed, you cannot be effective, productive and valuable. To whom are you productive effective and valuable? It is certainly not an advantage to your own Self. Perhaps it benefits these institutions.

Fear and greed make you seek the external world for fulfillment. You seek to act on your thoughts and words. These can never be fulfilled. The same fear and same greed reappear no matter how many times you have experienced them before.

You are in rajas, the mode of aggression, when you act on your thoughts. People ask, 'How can I live without acting on my thoughts? Who will pay my bills?'

Please understand that if Nature provided you with a built-in a system that converts bread to blood, can it not take care of providing you with bread as well? Nature does not trust you with anything that is critical to your living. That is why essential activities such as breathing, growing and digesting, etc., happen without your involvement.

Stop acting on your thoughts. Stop looking for their meaning. Instead seek the source of thoughts. For instance, if you feel hungry, ignore that thought. When your body feels that desperate hunger, it will by itself seek and procure the food to fulfill its needs.

When you do this, when you stop acting on the meaning of words, you fall into tamas, into inaction. That is what you fear. There is nothing to fear. You will stay in that inaction until your hatred against your restlessness and greed get worked out. Once that happens, you come out of that inaction that tamasic state, purified.

Please understand you do not move from tamas into rajas and then into satva as you may think. You do not move from inaction to aggression and then to peace. You start with rajas, which is the state of your day-to-day activity, when you are in the mode of doership, seeking to fulfill the meaning of your thoughts and words.

When you stop seeking meaning, you fall into inaction, tamas, for a brief period, until you start seeking the source of your thoughts and move into satva. You will feel the effect of inner healing and understand that the universe does take care of you.

Your being is always centered. Your mind is always at the periphery.

Your mind constantly seeks the outer and is led by the senses. Your being stays centered at the core and is directed inwards. You are constantly tugged between the center and the perimeter. When you are at the periphery, you are truly mad. You are overcome with fear and greed. You are consumed by lust, the desire for power and wealth.

When you are at the center, you are Shiva. You are in Cosmic Consciousness.

Over time, you develop the capability to stay somewhere in between. You have no choice. You must choose madness because your mind will not let you stay at the center. You become eccentric, moving briefly back and forth between the bliss of your core and the illusions of your periphery.

At the periphery your senses control you. They make merry. Once in awhile, if you are intelligent, you realize that you are getting nowhere. You go wherever your senses lead you and try to enjoy the sense objects presented to you. Over time the enjoyment decreases. You need more and more of the same object whereas enjoyment becomes less and less. You are about to become addicted. Some bit of intelligence in you warns you to get out.

You move away from the periphery and try to move towards the center where you have experienced brief moments of great peace and happiness. Your awareness does not last long. Your mind becomes restless and you return to your old ways. You move back towards the periphery.

Please understand that at the peripheral level, you are in the grip of the need to survive and possess. You are governed by ego, or 'I-based' survival needs and 'mine,' the need to possess. Two strong forces keep you tethered to the periphery: fear of losing your identity and greed to possess more and more.

Your ego reduces when you realize your connectivity with others and understand that you can collaborate with them more effectively than if you compete. Your need to possess more and more decreases when you develop awareness to enjoy what you have instead of rushing to acquire more.

As you move from being eccentric to the center, you move from past and future to the present moment. You move from suffering to bliss.