The results of all actions depend, it is said, upon the quality of the actions. Abandonment (tyaga) has already been described as belonging to three different categories. Here we have a discussion of the different types of reactions that would accrue when the different types of tyaga are practised.
Projection of a wilful desire in the world outside is an action, and according to the purity of the motive and the serenity of composure of the actor, a psychological reaction is left behind at the end of every activity. The mind has an instinctive habit of repeating itself. Future thoughts faithfully follow the foot-prints left by the past thoughts. Thus, actions in the world determine the “thought tendencies” of the human mind, and these tendencies (vasanas) condition the mental equipment and order our reactions to the things that are happening around.
The fruit-of-action, in philosophy, is not only its manifested results in the material world, but also the subtle constitutional changes it leaves in the thought-personality of man.
The total reactions gained by the mind’s working in the world, according to Lord Krishna, fall under three distinct types: (1) the disagreeable or the calamitous — meaning those that are positively bad; (2) agreeable or non-calamitous — meaning positively good; (3) the mixed type of balanced or average — wherein the tendencies are balanced equally between the good and the bad.
In the constant flow of time, the PRESENT determines the immediate FUTURE, and therefore, these tendencies, in their different textures, must necessarily determine our reactions to our environments in the IMMEDIATE future. If we extend this theory to the very last moment of our days in this embodiment, it becomes amply evident that, after the departure from here through death, our next embodiment and the general type of environment that we will find ourselves in, would be determined by the type of tendencies produced by our actions. This is what is called the “reincarnation theory” in the Sanatana Dharma.
If the vasanas are good (Sattwic), then a joyous field of prosperity and happiness would be the only realm wherein such a mind would discover its destiny. Those who are entertaining and deliberately cultivating the low animal-vasanas in themselves will find for themselves a complete fulfilment only by appearing in the lower strata of life. When the ‘tendencies’ for good and bad are almost equal (mishram), then we enter into this world-of-action — the world in which we are now living — the world of the intelligent man. No doubt, in each of us there is a call of the “higher” constantly leading us towards an undetermined and indeterminable ideal, but there are also the barkings and the brayings, the hissings and the roars, of the “lower” in us, constantly confusing and systematically distracting our vision of the ideal.
If an individual were to identify himself with the higher and live up to the ideal as best as he can, the “higher” vasanas will multiply and ultimately silence the “lower” completely. If, one the other hand, as is the fashion in the modern world, we allow ourselves to be tempted by the “lower” and identify with the animal-impulses in us, they will multiply and make us a caricature of the Divine that we really are. In short, in the tug-of-war between the ‘higher’ and the ‘lower,’ the determining factor is the individual’s own personality.
Both these vasanas grow, be they good or bad, and in either case, there is still a manifestation as birth in the realm of pangs and perils. The transcendence of the experiencer — personality is possible only when the conditionings have totally ended and the vasanas are rendered powerless to hold the Pure Spirit, seemingly, at ransom.
To explain further the difference between ‘abandonment’ (Tyaaga) and ‘renunciation’ (Samnyasa), the Lord says here that for a man-of-renunciation there is no reaction either to the actions done in the PAST or to actions undertaken by him in the PRESENT.
This idea clearly brings out the subtle difference that the Geeta makes between Tyaaga and Sanyasa. Earlier we found that tyaaga is that capacity in us with which, from moment to moment, we withdraw ourselves from the impulses of our mind; while Samnyasa is the total renunciation of the entire “tendencies,” both good and bad — from their crystallisation as the “ego.”
The Geeta-technique for the rehabilitation of man’s personality, so beautifully elaborated and exhaustively discussed, when briefly put would be: (a) the seeker first gets detached from the lower sensuous cravings and passions by identifying himself with the nobler ideals of self-control and moral-perfection; (b) a mind so conditioned becomes tamer than a mind goaded by sensuality. This purified mind develops in itself the required amount of subtle powers of thinking, of consistent self-application and of steady contemplation; (c) on realising the Pure ‘Be’-ness, all becomings end. To the pure Self there is no becoming; the “tendencies” of the mind (vasanas) cannot shackle the Spirit. Its subtle Presence cannot but be ever Immaculate and Unconditioned.
The “pleasant,” the “unpleasant” and the “mixed” types of reaction (Karma Phala) reach only those who have an ego-centric sense of identification with the actions as well as their resultant reactions. Those who abandon (tyaagee) both the sense of ego and the anxiety for the action-results are not caught in the clutches of ‘reactions’-actions. Memories of the past are the fertile fields where desires are cultivated and it is only in the future that the fruits are borne by the trees of actions. Renouncing our indulgence with the inheritance of the past and leaving all our anxieties for the future, to serve the world as a service to the Lord is abandonment — tyaaga.
AFTER THUS HANDLING THE THEME OF ‘ABANDONMENT’ IN GENERAL, KRISHNA NOW TAKES UP A CLOSER EXAMINATION OF IT, DISSECTING THE VERY COMPONENT PARTS THAT CONSTITUTE WORK:
