Sharing Sanjivani (Sanjivani - Life Saving Herb)

Chapter (51)Can we avoid doing any karma and remain 'Akarma'?

(51) Can we avoid doing any karma and remain ‘Akarma’?

Lord Krishna explains Arjun that a person can control his senses forcefully and stop all the actions-kriya-karma and think that he remains ‘Akarma’ –without doing any karma. But ‘Sahajavastha’ or attaining ‘Samadhi’ in meditation is done naturally by Sadhak .it could not be gained by abandoning kriya or karma forcefully. Because ‘Sahajavastha’ is attained by the form of soul not by body because body is attached to five elements and changing nature and body is bound to do kriya and karma beyond ones wish or desire; automatically. None can stop the cycle of nature forcefully. Every karma has its beginning and process, end and decay, reprocess and rebirth because it is related with law of nature but soul is free from ‘karma’ and hence it is a question of choice whether soul is involved with illusive world or not .Soul has no birth and growth or death and decay in physical sense. Soul is eternal and a part of eternity. If our soul is not attached with worldly affairs and free from desire, wishes, attachments ,pride and ego any karma of physical body could not affect it or consequences of any karma can make it feel joy or sorrow, pain or gain. A person is free to choose his path of salvation.

A person has his Karmendriya’ -five senses through which he does his karma as his speech, hands, legs, sex organs and ounce. In addition to five karmendriya he has five Gyanendriya too. When a person tries to stop his karmendriya from doing any karma forcefully it does not mean that he could abandon his Gyanendriya too away from that karma. In BhagavatGita Lord Krishna says that our Gyanendriya and karmendriya both should abandon karma. If our legs and hands, speech and other organs stop doing karma but our mind, intellect, eyes, ears or feeling of touch could not be controlled. We could not remain aloof from the consequences of karma because ‘karma’ can be done by karmendriya as well as Gyanendriya too. When a nature is active it affects everything to be active.

When a person tries to stop his senses forcefully and tries to control them outwardly, he could remain aloof from doing karma. Hence the word ‘outwardly’ is used to make it clear that one should abandon things and abandon kriya not by sense but by mind. If we observe fast and control our senses of taste and try to keep away ourselves from eating specific food but our desire to eat that food and our thoughts to feel that taste remains alive our mind would not be free from the temptation of eating that specific dish. Same could be said about other things we enjoy through our senses as movies or sex.

Because of our wish, desire, attachment and pride We think about consuming that dish or enjoying those entertainment through our senses mentally. When we see dreams during our sleep we feel all the senses involved, either enjoy or feel sorrow about the events happening in our dream during sleep. Though dream is an illusion as we know very well, We enjoy it or feel sorrow about it. It means that feeling of enjoyment or sorrow could be felt not  only through senses and physical organs but also by mind and thoughts, watching movies and listening ,chatting (though we are not enjoying it physically  ourselves) .Hence we have to suffer from the consequences of it.

A person can abandon enjoyment of senses ‘outwardly’ and tries to look pious and SADHU  outwardly but if he could not be said to be free from karma and its consequences. When a person shows that he has abandoned all the enjoyment through his senses outwardly because either he wants to create his image as ‘Sadhak’ or he thinks to be look like holy and pious, austere person .A person sometimes abandons all the physical enjoyment out of fear because he could not maintain his dealings with people properly and create confusion about his character in the minds of people, he tries to show that he has abandoned everything as now he is trying to become Sadhak. Moreover when a person tries to enjoy worldly luxuries or things physically he has less time to enjoy them because he could not enjoy anything continuously 24*7 or day and night but when he is enjoying them through his mind he could engage with them24*7 .  It is more dangerous to remain attached with the instruments of worldly entertainment mentally.

Every worldly entertainment could be enjoyed physically as well as mentally. Hence we make a show of abandoning entertainment through senses physically .We proved ourselves as’ hypo crate’ because it is difficult to abandon enjoying entertainment -instrument by ‘mind’ and enjoying anything through ’mind’ is more dangerous because one cannot abandon it even for a moment .

Then let’s understand ; what is the meaning of abandoning entertainment totally by ‘mind’ and senses?