V: 5

[Krishna Jaya]

Chapter 5, Verse 5

"Take either path
And tread it to the end
Which is the same.
They see indeed the truth
Who see that both paths
Lead to the Self
And both lead
To selfless action."

Sri Aurobindo:

"The wise know that actions are not theirs, but Nature's, and by that knowledge they become free. They do no actions, though actions are accomplished through them. They are awareness of the Self personified. They see all existences as becomings of that Self-existent Being. All their actions are only the development of cosmic Nature working through their own individual natures, and their own actions are part of that same cosmic activity."

Srila Prabhupada:

"Superficially one process appears to involve detachment, and the other process appears to involve attachment. However, detachment from matter and attachment to Krishna are one and the same. One who can see this sees things as they are."

Eckhart Tolle:

"There are three words that convey the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with the now. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance."

[Re Aurobindo's: "...actions are not theirs, but Nature's..." This is how it is instinctively with animals. There is no "free choice" and no Karma accrues. The wise similarly act instinctively, intuitively, spontaneously and improvisationally in alignment with the higher power in the universe. This pure instrumentality has left the "free choice" of the rest of us in its wake. No new Karma accrues, and vesselship, the true freedom, becomes operative. To arrive at this sublime state, what one could call one's natural state, one must overcome the ordinary condition of humanity: exclusive identification with name and form. As Baba Hari Dass says, "Yoga is an unnatural path." An unnatural path leads one to the natural state of oneness with Being...how paradoxical!

To return to Richard Bach's parable about the crystal river...it was "natural" for all those creatures to cling to the rocks on the bottom. Why do we call that "natural"? Well, everybody did it. It took a great deal of courage and fortitude for that one special creature to let go. It was "unnatural". What happens when he lets go of the rock on the bottom of the crystal river? He becomes one with the flow of that great river, no longer a prisoner of separateness, but consciously one with the higher power to do with him as it sees fit. This is the natural law that animals, instinct-bound as they are, follow without deviation and as a matter of course. For us to follow it consciously, we must break through our conditioning.

 

For those who missed the parable…

 

“And he said unto them, ‘Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and to sickness, to riches and to poverty, to freedom and to slavery.  It is we who control these, and not another.’  A mill-man spoke and said, ‘Easy words for you, Master, for you are guided as we are not, and need not toil as we toil.  A man has to work for his living in this world.’  The Master answered, ‘Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.  The current of the river swept silently over them all, young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its crystal self.  Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.  But one creature said at last, “I am tired of this clinging.  Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going.  I shall let go and let it take me where it will.”  The other creatures laughed at him and called him a fool.  But the one heeded them not, and taking a deep breath let go and the current lifted him free from the bottom.  The creatures downstream to whom he was a stranger cried, “See a miracle!  A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!  See the Messiah, come to save us all!”  And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you.  The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go.  Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”  But they cried the more, “Savior!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior.’”  ~ Richard Bach, “Illusions”]