Such an individual, who has gone beyond his own ego, can thereafter commence no desire-prompted activity with any definite fruit-motive. Naturally he will feel quite contented and happy in whatever gain spontaneously rises out of his actions. The state-of-egolessness indicates a condition of perfect conquest over the mind and intellect. Naturally therefore, the pairs-of-opposites — heat and cold, success and failure, good and bad, joy and sorrow, etc. — cannot affect him, they being always the interpretations of the world-of-objects by the mind.

Where the mind has ended, the intellect too can no more bring its own affections and prejudices, or its spirit of competitions and jealousies. We generally get agitated due to the pulls of success and failure. On the rising tide of success our ego dances in a vain joy, while in the hollows of failures it feels miserable and crushed. But when the ego is completely divinised, the individual will, thereafter, automatically remain equanimous in both success and failure. Such an individual who has thus conquered his ego-centric misconceptions about himself, “THOUGH ACTING, IS NOT FETTERED” by the natural consequences of the actions performed (Karma-phala).

When such a Perfect-Master-of-Realisation lives amidst us he is generally seen to act in no way different from an ordinary sensible man, and yet, all the same, his activities show an extra dynamic capacity to carve out a more complete and enduring success. According to the Lord’s words, the activities of a man-of-Knowledge do not, in any sense of the term, affect him. Naturally, it becomes a little difficult for an ordinary man to know readily how this is accomplished by the sage.

TO EXPLAIN THE DIVINE MOTIVE AND ATTITUDE WITH WHICH MEN-OF-PERFECTION ACT IN THE WORLD, THE FOLLOWING NINE STANZAS ARE DECLARED BY THE LORD:

Yadrccha-labha-santustah, remaining satisfied with what comes unasked for-yadrccha-labha means coming to possess something without having prayed for it; feeling contented with that-. Dvandva-atitah,having transcended the dualities-one is said to be beyond dualities when his mind is not distressed even when afflicted by such opposites as heat and cold, etc.-. Vimatsarah, being free from spite, from the idea of enmity; and samah, equipoised; siddhau ca asiddhau, is success and failure, with regard to things that come unasked for-. The monk who is such, who is equipoised, not delighted or sorrowful in getting or not getting food etc. for the sustenance of the body, who sees inaction etc. in action etc., who is ever poised in the realization of the Self as It is, who, with regard to the activities accomplished by the body etc. in the course of going about for alms etc. for the bare maintenance of the body, is ever clearly conscious of the fact, ‘I certainly do not anything; the organs act on the objects of the organs’ (see 5.8; 3.28), he, realizing the absence of agentship in the Self, certainly does not do any actions like going about for alms etc. But when, abserving similarly with common human behaviour, agentship is attributed to him by ordinary poeple, then he (apparently) becomes an agent with regard to such actions as moving about for alms etc. However, from the standpoint of his own realization which has arisen from the valid means of knowledge presented in the scriptures, he is surely not an agent. He, to whom is thus ascribed agentship by others, na nibadhyate, is not bound; api, even; krtva, by performing such actions as moving about for alms merely for the maintenance of the body, because action which is a source of bondage has been burnt away along with its cause by the fire of wisdom. Thus, this is only a restatement of what has been said earilier. When a person who has already started works becomes endowed with the realization of the identity of the Self with the actionless Brahman, then it follows that in the case of that man, who has experienced the absence of agentship, actions and purposes in the Self, actions become relinquished. But if this becomes impossible for some reason and he continues to be engaged in those acitons as before, still he certainly does not do anything. This absence of action has been shown in the verse, ‘Having given up attachment to the results of action…’ (20). Of that very person with regard to whom has been shown the absence of aciton-