Gita 03.05 – Inaction is unnatural, materially and spiritually

Thank you Krishna is continuing to explain to Arjuna why for him karma yoga is better than jnana yoga action with detachment is better than inaction, renunciation of action that not anyone for even a moment can one be situated with akarma not doing any activity people act helplessly they act being motivated by the modes born of material nature nature is not poisonous it is part of the same psychophysical structure and it is predisposed to function in a particular way and that predisposition is towards action we do need rest periodically but no one can sleep 24 hours a day for the rest of one's life and even people who are lazy may want to avoid physical work but they also want to do something they may want to watch movie and they certainly want to eat and basically they want to enjoy in some way and not doing physical exertion is a part of their wanting to enjoy bodily pleasure by doing some physically non-exerting but pleasure giving activity so inaction is unnatural at the bodily level because the body is impelled to act by the modes of which more than those influence it is so no matter what we do, how we try we cannot avoid action we cannot stay inactive for long somebody may sit in a meditation, meditative pose and some people may go so much into trance that they may be motionless for quite some time but how many people can do that and even the few, very few who can do that how long can they do that and how practical is it, not just in terms of the ability to do it but in terms of the utility of doing it in the previous verse Krishna has stated that actually inaction does not necessarily lead to freedom from reaction so we are by our bodily nature impelled to act so we cannot stay situated inactive and further someone may argue that actually yes the tendency towards action comes from the lower modes especially the mode of passion so when one rises to goodness then the tendency to action will no longer be there now yes that may be true at one level in the sense that if somebody has a tendency towards hyperactivity which comes from passion that will be slowed down when one comes to goodness now the important thing to recognize is that a person in goodness is not inactive and goodness is also active in fact a person in goodness the difference is not in the in the level of action but it is in the level of the intelligence underlying the action sometimes a person in goodness can also be very busy very active and physically active but there is intelligent deliberation that underlies that action whereas in passion there is just impulse driven action which is often not well thought out so the important point is not is not just the lower modes influencing in making us act all modes actually impel us towards action and the nature of action may be different but the principle of action remains the same whichever mode a person is influenced by and going further now what about when a person comes to transcendental level can a person become inactive at that time there Krishna is not talking about that level right now because he is talking about the person like Arjuna or the person in the world who is definitely not transcended the world such a person who is in the world and still under the influence of the modes cannot artificially imagine that imagine oneself to be at the transcendental level and be inactive at that but then there is a further philosophical question is the transcendental state characterized by inaction entirely now transcendental state is characterized by material inaction when the soul has achieved transcendence the soul has no desire no material desires and there are no material motivations for action so in that sense there is material inaction but then the soul has a spiritual nature and that spiritual nature is to love and serve so due to that nature to love and serve the soul at the spiritual level will act and the soul will act by purification with a pure motive to love and serve Krishna so we see that in the spiritual world the topmost devotees say the gopis they may occasionally get so lost in remembrance of Krishna that they become like statues inactive but that is an occasional state but their usual state is they are animated by love for Krishna and animated by the desire to express that love through practical action, practical service so they churn butter, they take care of the household duties all with thoughts of Krishna and not just the gopis in Vrindavan but also the Vaikunthavasis they also have activities there they engage in various ways in serving the divine couple Lakshmi Narayan so the souls in the Brahman may be inactive but that is a quasi-stable state that is not a state that a person can stay forever and even if somebody stays there for a long, long time still that is not a natural state for the soul because the soul is by nature active so so now coming back to the context of this verse Krishna is telling Arjuna don't think that simply by giving up action you will become protected from reaction because what protects from reaction is not inaction but renunciation, detachment with inaction and that renunciation has to be cultivated it does not come just by automatically adopting come automatically by adopting the renounced order that was what he said in the previous verse now continuing that thought in this verse Krishna states that even if somebody says that no, I will become inactive then becoming inactive itself is not possible because that is unnatural for us and the mode will not allow us to do that and therefore it is better to act in a dharmic way rather than to try to be inactive because being inactive is impractical if not impossible and in the next verse Krishna will go further and state that actually it will be inaction can not only be impractical but it can also be adharmic how that will be so, that we will discuss in our next session.