III: 28

[Krishna Jaya]

Chapter 3, Verse 28

 

“But those who know the relation

Between the properties of nature (Gunas) and actions

Realize how these properties of nature

Work upon other properties.

Those who understand these workings

Do not get attached.”

 

Mahatma Gandhi:

 

“As digestion and similar processes are automatic and we claim no agency for them, we being conscious of the processes only when disease or injury intervenes, in a similar manner all our activities should be like leaves in the wind, without arrogating to ourselves the agency thereof. Charitable people do not even know that they are doing charitable acts; it is their nature to do so; they cannot help it. This detachment can only come from tireless endeavor and God's grace.”

 

[The prescription is for “tireless endeavor,” all the while understanding that it’s only Gunas (the triple-strand of nature’s stuff) acting on Gunas and the real “we” are not the agents of our actions.  Yes, it is paradoxical, but every paradox is only an expression of our dualistic thinking which dissolves in the integrated tapestry of intuitive awareness.  People who are seemingly “poles apart” are in reality “connected at the hip.”

 

“Your hand opens and closes all the time.  If it did not, you would be paralyzed.  Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding.  The two are as beautifully balanced and coordinated as the wings of a bird.”  ~ Elif Shafak, “The Forty Rules of Love,” p. 107]

 

Sri Aurobindo:

 

“Ordinary people are bewildered by the ego-sense owing to their ignorant self-identification with the work and the becoming, and failing to understand that the becoming is a power proceeding from the soul.  They think that it is they and others who are doing everything, failing to understand that nature is doing everything and that they are misrepresenting her works to themselves, because of ignorance and attachment.  Enslaved by the Gunas, they are, by turns, hampered by the dull complacency of Tamas, blown by the strong winds of Rajas, and limited by the partial light of Sattva, not distinguishing themselves from their minds which are thus modified by the fluctuations of the Gunas.  They are therefore mastered by attraction and aversion.  It is the ego-self, bewildered by ignorance, which attributes these things to itself, because it assumes the responsibility of the doer, obscuring its true status as an instrument of the higher power, which is all that it really is.”

 

[When we say we want to become instruments of the higher power, we're typically thinking of the examples of the free souls, those pure vessels of light whom we try to emulate.  But Aurobindo is pointing out that all the rest of us, no matter how enmeshed in ignorance and attachment, are instruments of that higher power as well.  How to reconcile that with our struggles and our efforts, our victories and failures?  Again, it helps to remember the two standpoints, the absolute, where time and space do not exist, and the relative, where we who are not yet free, struggle and strive, sometimes choosing well and sometimes choosing less well within the realms of space and time.  Both standpoints are true.  From the absolute point of view, there is no choice.  Everything is lawfully running its course and all our actions are the result of our past choices.  From this level we are all instruments in the hands of the higher power.  At the same time, it's important for me to remember that until by the grace of God the wisdom becomes steady, the effort to transform the negative aspects of Tamas and Rajas into Sattva…by remembering God, and catching myself in forgetfulness in order to get back on track…is very real and crucial.]