In the previous stanza, we were advised to act in the world outside, renouncing totally our ego, or the sense of a separate, individualised existence. To the strongly egoistic and self-opinionated one, this is not an easy task. Such a man is extremely agitated (rajasic), with the force of low impulses (tamas) poisoning his personality-structure. Even to such seekers, belonging to the lowest conceivable type, the Geeta has a ‘path’ of advise. Ordinarily, such persons would have been a despair to all religions. Even such chronic cases are taken up by the Geeta, treated considerately, with simple methods, and finally elevated to the highest personality-lustre and efficiency.
If self-dedication unto the Lord, in all activities, is impossible, such individuals are advised here an equally powerful alternative, viz., at least to “ABANDON THE FRUITS-OF-ACTIONS, AND, TAKING REFUGE IN ME, BE SELF-CONTROLLED” in all actions.
Lord Krishna seems to hate all those who are MERE wage-earners. This is not the Bourgeois-contempt for the labourer, or the higher-class vanity that makes some look down upon the sweating wage-earners. In a socialistic pattern of society, especially in an era of the welfare State, any educated man must entertain this Krishna-impatience with every worker in the nation who works only for his wage or profit. In such a socialistic scheme of national life, a worker, who works only for “higher wages, with less hours of work, and with maximum inefficiency” is a criminal who deserves to be punished, in any society. It is this modern attitude, which we see reflected in Krishna’s condemnation of all those who work in the world “merely for-the-fruit” — meaning pay or wages.
The “fruit-of-an-action” is the action of the present-moment maturing itself in a future-period of time. Today, if I plough and sow the seeds, the profit in my harvest will come only after a couple of months. And supposing a farmer broods over the amount of profit that he is to get out of the cultivation and thus wastes his time and energy in dreaming over the possibilities of a success or a failure of the crops, he will surely be an utter failure. Even though this fact is very well known, the majority of us waste our PRESENT chances, opportunities and time in brooding over the FUTURE. All our energies get wasted in our anxieties and fears of a horrid future which has not yet come — and which may not at all materialise! Krishna urges us here only to curb these wasteful imaginations and to live vitally, sincerely, fully and dynamically in the PRESENT, shutting off all negative imaginations regarding the FUTURE. Even this act can integrate our personality and make it single-pointed and strong.
The above three verses give us three alternatives which are in fact only three different types of mental medicines to cure the mind of its various distractions. All of us are, to a certain extent, extrovert. We differ from each other only in the thickness of the Vasana-layers that we entertain in our inner-equipment. When a brass vessel is slightly dim, an ‘ash-treatment’ is sufficient to polish it; if it is with a thicker layer of oxide, some ‘acid-dipping’ will be needed. Similarly, here, if the mind is thinly coated with Vasanas, the slight distractions created by them can be controlled by the Yoga-of-practice. But if the layer of Vasanas is thick, then it can be treated with the Yoga-of action performed in a spirit of Divine dedication. If the mind is shackled with still thicker layers of Vasanas, then the seeker is advised ‘to curb his imagination’ and act in the world (Karma-phala-tyaga). As I said earlier, nowhere in the world’s spiritual literature do we see such an exhaustive treatment of the different ‘Paths’ for self-development, as in the Geeta.
BUT THEY MUST BE PERFORMED SERIALLY, TO INDICATE THAT THESE ARE NOT TO BE PURSUED TOGETHER. NOW THE LORD EXTOLSTHE ABANDONING-OF-THE-FRUITS OF ALL ACTIONS:
