Someone may come to give up his individual obligatory duties “BECAUSE THEY ARE PAINFUL” or “THROUGH FEAR OF BODILY SUFFERING.” The ‘relinquishment’ thus practised falls under the “passionate” type (Rajasic). This clearly shows in its unsaid suggestions that a man of action and passion (Rajas) will readily undertake to act and fulfil his obligatory duties if they are not painful, and are not too fatiguing. To become a man of action, fulfilling all obligations and performing all duties without sacrificing one’s own personal comforts, is no heroic life at all. Such actions have no special reward. In fact, Krishna says: “HE SHALL ATTAIN NO FRUIT WHATSOEVER OF HIS ABANDONMENT.”
Performance of one’s obligatory duties is itself the most glorious of all forms of “Tyaaga,” and it can be considered doubly so, when it involves a certain amount of sacrifice of one’s own personal convenience and bodily comfort. Arjuna himself was hesitating to fight the battle which was his obligatory duty. Arjuna’s ‘relinguishment’ of this duty could be considered as falling under this category of Rajasic Tyaaga.
Real abandonment should always lead us on to the ampler fields of self-expression, push us into the fuller ways of living, and introduce us to the greater experiences of joy. A bud ABANDONS itself to become a flower, the flower GIVES UP its soft petals and its enchanting fragrance and gains for itself the richer status of a fruit. Every real ABANDONMENT should haul us up into a nobler status of fulfilment.
WHAT THEN IS THE SATTWIC ABANDONMENT?
