Transcend Inaction – In Gita Verse 3.22 O son of Pṛthā, there is no work prescribed for Me within all the three planetary systems. Nor am I in want of anything, nor have I a need to obtain anything – and yet I am engaged in prescribed duties.
Now Krishna is saying about himself, Universe has not prescribed me any work, nor that I want to achieve anything from my act, still I live and act. As far as I am concerned I have done everything that I needed to do in this universe. I am neither here for any assignment of the universe nor am I here for anything more to achieve. I am light unto myself. But I still live in action as a non-doer.
Krishna says regarding Action, Inaction and Non-action. When we use the word Inaction in the objective world means failure to do anything that might provide a solution to a problem. In other words Mentally Lazy. The way in which through the mediation you transcend your emotion, same way Inaction after the mediation becomes very alive to act as Non-Doer.
Let me explain to you in detail regarding Action, Inaction and Non-Action.
What is action? According to Krishna, mere doing is not action. If it is true – if any kind of doing is action, then one could never enter into inaction. Then the inaction of Krishna’s definition will be impossible. For Krishna, action is that which you do as a doer, as an ego. Really action for Krishna is an egocentric act, an act in which the doer is always present. A doing with a doer, in which one thinks himself as a doer, is action. As long as I remain a doer, whatever I do is action. Even if I take sannyas it is an act, an action. Even renunciation becomes an action if a doer is present in the act.
Inaction is just the opposite kind of action; it is action without a doer. Inaction does not mean absence of action, but it certainly means absence of the doer. An egoless action is inaction. If I do a thing without the egoistic sense that I am the doer, that I am the center of this action, it is inaction.
According to Spirituality – Inaction is not laziness as is generally understood; it is very much action, but without a doer at its center. This thing has to be clearly understood. If the center, the ego, the I, the doer, ceases and only action remains, it is inaction. With the cessation of the doer every action becomes inaction.
Action without a doer is inaction. It is action through inaction.
Krishna’s every action is egoless, and therefore it is inaction. Even when he is doing something, he is really inaction.
Between action and inaction there is akarma or non-action, which means a special kind of action.
Inaction is egoless action; action is egoist action and non-action is a special kind of action. This thing which is midway between action and inaction, which Krishna calls non-action, needs to be understood rightly.
What does Krishna mean by non-action? Where there is neither a doer nor a doing, yet things happen, there is non-action. For example, we breathe, which we are not required to do by our own effort. There is neither a doer nor a doing so far as acts like breathing are concerned. Similarly the blood circulates through the body, the food is digested, and the heart beats. How can you categorize such acts? They come in the category of non-action, which means action happening without a doer and without a sense of volitional doing. An ordinary person lives in action, a sannyasin lives in inaction, and God lives in non-action. As far as God’s action is concerned there is neither a doer nor any doing of the kind we know. These things just happen; it is just happening.
Krishna tells Arjuna even though I am not supposed to do anything still I am in action, as a non-doer. Everyone in the universe whoever has taken body form they have to act how they act, it depends upon their willingness to become self-aware and act or in self-unawreness they want to act. Choice is up to the individual. Even if the Choice is up to us still we don’t have Choice as a human being we have brought seed of consciousness, unless we will grow in consciousness we have to come back again and again in this body. But once the person is enlightened then when they want to come into the body they will come or when the universe wants such a person to guide many of the souls they send them on this earth.
Tags: Transcend Inaction
