Embedded below is the video by Sri James Swartz – a Vedanta teacher.
Tag Archives: Karma-yoga
Actionlessness in Action & Action in Actionlessness
[Bhagavad Gita 4.18]
The partial translation of the above verse is as follows:
That man who sees actionlessness in action and action in actionlessness, he is intelligent among men.
Here is my interpretation of the meaning of, “Actionlessness in Action and Action in Actionlessness”:
Actionlessness in Action
Any action is done by the three gunas. I am not the doer. I remain actionless irrespective of any action.
Action in Actionlessness
If a person is sitting idle and seemingly doing nothing, it does not mean that his mind is still. May be he is mentally talking to himself saying that whatever he does he never fails. While from outside it appears that the person is actionless, there is a lot of action going on inside his head.
Karma Yoga = Act As If
One way to realise Self is to follow the traits of a Self-realised person*. Karma Yoga effectively means working just like the way a Self-realised person* would work. After realising Self, there is no identification with body-mind and hence there is no false ego so why would someone work exclusively for making money, for getting promotion in job, for higher social status etc. One would just work till the previous karmic debt is burnt with the intention to sustain the body and since there is a sense of oneness with everything as everything is Self as known to this person* he/she would do work as love/service towards the consciousness in everything (just like a common man works for himself due to his love for himself). Naturally, this type of work would be the work without bondage which would not be the work done solely for the sake of fruition of the work.
*Whether you realise Self or not, you are still a person to the outside world (the world comprising of people who are not Self-realised). But, after you realise Self you do not consider yourself as person as Self means consciousness.