The Moksha Gita: Swami Sivananda // Commentary: Chapter 8.2. - Swami Krishnananda.
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The Moksha Gita: Swami Sivananda
Chapter 8: Ignorance and Wisdom-2.
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4.
He who thinks "I did this work; so I will go to heaven; I enjoyed such and such a thing" is an ignorant man.
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He who asserts his egoism is an ignorant person. Egoism is the real doer of all actions. It is egoism that creates space for action and deposits its impressions in the Chitta. The most potent method of eradicating this evil ego is the complete surrendering of it to a Person or persons or to the Absolute. Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, and Jnana-Yoga are respectively the methods which take recourse to these three aspects of ego-destruction.
The science of selflessness, thus, embodies in itself the processes of the entirety of the systems of all Yogas. A truly selfless act wants nothing at all in particular space or time. It is a natural outflow of the Truth in itself like an overflow of waters within themselves in a river that is in floods. Such a service or tending is not meant to enjoy the gratitude of the person served or usefulness of the animal tended, but for a transformation of the separative consciousness through an expansion of it into universality by disintegrating it into a thousand different fragments or annulling it by an all-embracing love expressing Infinity.
Such stored up feelings of selfless satisfaction effected through self-denial which would otherwise have been dispersed and spread out externally for the purpose of selfish enjoyment derivable through the contact with objects, act as a powerful spade to dig out the depths of the ego and throw it off into the abyss of Infinite Experience. Every act, in common parlance, is directed towards the achievement of an end particularised in time and limited by space. But a truly unselfish act done for no particular object in view is a challenge to the separative ego which cannot live without relating itself to something that is marked in space and time. Such an act which fails to feed the individual self-sense with its diverse requirements compels the relative self-interest to dissolve itself in the Absolute-Interest, which soars high above the limitations of Space and Time and engages itself in its establishment in the perfect satisfaction and the uncontradicted experience of Completeness and utter Reality. The disappearance of egoism is at onement with the Divine Presence.
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5.
He who thinks "Prakriti does everything, I am only witness, I am non-doer, I am non-enjoyer," is a wise sage.
Prakriti or Nature is the real doer of all actions. Prakriti is understood as the concrete appearance of a universal power which is other than the essence of the Reality. This has got both a cosmical and an individualistic significance. As the cosmical energy Prakriti works the evolution of the mass of beings constituting the universe and as the individualistic energy it brings about the activity of the Jiva.
Action binds the Jiva when it considers itself as the doer of the action. The Intelligence of the Atman is reflected through the Vijnanamaya Kosha which is predominated by distraction and activity and which limits the Self to Jivahood. The actions of the superficial sheaths are superimposed on the taintless Self. The creative push of Prakriti which is inherent in every individual causes the individual to be helplessly driven to act. No amount of protest on the part of the Jiva can stop Prakriti from functioning. The only course that the individual has to take is to be a silent witness of the actions of the superficial nature and be unconcerned with the effects of those involuntary actions.
The self is in fact neither a doer nor an enjoyer. It is Nature that acts as such. The feeling of Sakshittwa of the self should be cultivated as long as the natural active tendencies cannot be checked. When the active impulses are withdrawn through the meditative force, Sakshi-bhava gives way to Samata-drishti or Aikya-bhava or the feeling of equanimity and oneness in life. This again gives rise to the still higher step, Brahmabhava, where the actions of Prakriti are interdicted through the generation of spiritual power, and the One Brahman alone is perceived in everything.
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To be continued
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