It has been clearly declared that the Divine opinion of the Lord is that Arjuna should fight. The Pandava prince is not, at present, fit for the higher contemplative life of pure meditation. Action has a tendency to create new impressions which again procreate impulses to act more vigorously. In order to avoid creation of new Vasanas even while acting for the purpose of Vasana-exhaustion, Krishna had already advised the method of acting without the spirit of ego, or ego-centric desires. The same theory is explained here while expounding a technique by which this consummation can actually be brought about.
RENOUNCE ALL ACTIONS IN ME — We have already noticed that by the first-person pronoun Krishna means the Supreme Self, the Divine, the Eternal. Renouncing all activities unto Him, with a mind soaked with devoted remembrances of the Self (Adhyatma Chetasa), the Lord advises Arjuna to act on. Renunciation of action does not mean an insipid life of inactivity. Actions performed through attachment and desires are renounced the moment we take away from action the ego-centric and the selfish stink.
A serpent is dangerous only as long as its fangs are not removed. The moment these are taken out, even the most poisonous reptile becomes a tame creature incapable of harming anyone. Similarly, action gives rise to bondage only when it is performed with a heart laden with selfish-desires. Actions performed without desires are not actions at all, inasmuch as they are incapable of producing any painful reactions. Here, the renunciation of action only means the giving up of the wrong motives behind the actions.
The purification of the motives is possible only when the mind is made to sing constantly the Divine Songs praising the glories of the Self. In the song of Truth the heart begins to throb with the highest Divine impulses. Actions performed in the outer world by such an individual are no more the ordinary actions but they become expressions of the Supreme Will through that individual. When the limited ego is replaced by the constant feeling of the Lord — as “I am the Supreme” — such an individual becomes the most efficient instrument for the expression of the Divine Will.
Not only is it sufficient that we renounce thus all wrong actions, but we have also to make a few adjustments in our inner instruments in order to bring out an unobstructed flow of the Creator’s Will through us. These are indicated here by the two terms “without hope” and “without ego.”A superficial study of the stanza is sure to confuse the student and drive him to the dangerous conclusion that Hinduism preaches, not a dynamic conscious life, but an insentient existence through life in a spirit of cultivated hopeless-ness! But a closer study of the import of these two terms will make us understand clearly that, in this stanza, Krishna is hinting at a great psychological truth of life!
WITHOUT HOPE — Hope is “the expectation of a happening that is yet to manifest and mature in a FUTURE PERIOD OF TIME.” Whatever be the hope, it belongs not to the present; it refers to a period of time not yet born.
WITHOUT EGO — Our ego-centric concept of ourselves is nothing but “a bundle of happenings and achievements of ours which took place, or were gained, in the past moments.” Ego is therefore “the shadow of the past,” and it has an existent reality only with reference to THE DEAD MOMENTS OF THE PAST.
If hope is thus the child of the unborn future, ego is the lingering memory of a dead past. To revel in ego and hope is an attempt on our part to live, either with the dead moments of the past, or with the unborn moments of the future. All the while, the tragedy is that we miss the ‘present,’ the active dynamic ‘present,’ which is the only noble chance that is given to us to create, to advance, to achieve, and to enjoy. Krishna advises Arjuna, therefore, to act renouncing both hope and ego; and this is indeed a primary instruction on how to pour the best that is in us into the ‘present,’ blockading all unintelligent and thoughtless dissipation of our inner-personality-energies, in the ‘past’ and the ‘future.’
The instruction is so exhaustive in vision, and complete in its minutest details, that the stanza under review should be a surprise even to the best of our modern psychologists. Even though the technique so far advised can, and does, avoid all wastage of energy among the funeral pyres of the dead moments and in the wombs of unborn Time, yet, there is a chance for the man of action wasting his potentialities in the very ‘present.’ This generally comes through our inborn nature to get ourselves unnecessarily over-anxious during our present activities. This FEVERISH ANXIETY is indicated here by the term “fever” (Jwara). Krishna advises that Arjuna should renounce all actions unto the Lord and, getting rid of both hope and selfishness, must fight, free from all mental fever. How complete this technique is will be evident now to all students of the Geeta.
The term “fight” is to be understood here “as our individual fight with circumstances, in the silent battle of life.” Thus, the advice is not for Arjuna alone, but to all men who would like to live life fully and intelligently!
The advice contained in this stanza reads as though quite unorthodox for those who have read the Vedas, with a limited meaning for its term “Karma-Yoga.”
IN ORDER TO HAMMER THIS NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDIC TRUTH INTO THE ACCEPTANCE OF HIS GENERATION, THE LORD SAYS:
