In the ritualistic portion of the Vedas, God is the Supreme Intelligence, ever dynamic and potent, who observes and watches over all our actions, and who, with perfect justice dispenses to each his reward for all his actions. Here, however, the Lord, the Creator, is described not so much as what HE IS as what HIS RELATIONSHIP with the Universe is.
The Supreme Self neither creates any sense of agency nor does It sanction any action. The Supreme has no such function as marrying every action to its correct fruits. In this very assertion we can find how far the ordinary commentators, who jump to the conclusion that this passage is a description of the Vedic God-principle (Karma-phala-data), are in the wrong. Any close student of the Geeta can clearly see that there is an attempt on the part of Krishna to indicate to Arjuna the function and nature of the Self and Its relationship with the three bodies: the physical, the mental and the causal.
If the Reality, the Self, has nothing to do with the above-mentioned agency or their fruits, our life which is nothing without them, must have no relationship at all with the Self. And yet, where the Self is not there, existence and activities are not possible. Therefore, there must be some relationship between the Self and the non-Self and here this strange “CONTACTLESS-CONTACT” is being explained.
It is very well-known that my nose is a permanent fixture on my face. It has neither a voluntary nor an involuntary movement. And yet, the other day, when I was looking into a basin of water, I saw my nose and ears moving rhythmically sideways as though upon well-oiled-hinges! Even when I saw it, I knew that my nose was not moving; but, all the same, I saw what I saw. Because my reflection in the water depended entirely upon the reflecting surface, it gathered unto itself its abnormalities from the vagaries of the reflecting medium. The Self or the Atman has neither activities nor an agency, and yet when in this life I function through the equipments that are natural to me, the conditioned Self, the ego, gathers unto itself these peculiarities of agency, actions and anxieties for their fruits.
Electricity in itself is static energy. But when it is generated, stored and sent out through the distribution system, and when it reaches the terminals in my room and I plug on to it the various equipments, the same energy becomes dynamic. When the Self, pregnant with all potentialities, functions through the matter-conditionings, It assumes to Itself the ego-centric attitudes of agency, action, fruits, etc.
The ENJOYER of the fruits and the PERFORMER of actions in us is the ego and not the Atman. I do not shake or shiver but my reflection can be shaken when the reflecting medium is disturbed. The Atman becomes the performer, etc., only when It gets conditioned by “Swabhava” — Nature, or “Maya,” “THE DIVINE Maya MADE UP OF THE THREE gunas,” as the Lord Himself calls it.
IN REALITY HOWEVER, THE LORD IN HIS ABSOLUTE NATURE IS EVER-UNINVOLVED:
