By: Ramaswamy Seshadri
Like a full moon in the darkness of the night, Bhagwan descended among us over 5,000 years ago and still lives in our hearts as love, beauty, and good culture as Sai Maharaj.
In Sai Krishna, we see a picture of a complete life. There is love, tenderness, knowledge, dispassion, patience, generosity, compassion, and also courage. When a person has all these qualities, he can accept every situation in life and awaken goodness in other people.
When a driver encounters different road situations like sharp turns, steep inclines, and potholes, he shifts gears accordingly. In the same way, Sai Krishna demonstrated throughout his life on earth how to be joyful – from childhood in Gokula to old age as Sai Baba at Shirdi– and how to make our entire life a celebration.
Once, a man was helping a blind man to cross a road. Although the blind man would normally hold a cane, he didn’t have one. On the other hand, the helper held the man’s cane. He held the man with his left hand and his cane in the other. Seeing this, a bystander said, “Sir, you can see. Why are you using a cane?” The helper replied, “It’s not for me, it’s for this blind man.”
The helper did not need the cane for himself; he had eyes to see. It was merely for the blind man that he held it. This is how avatars like Sai Baba and Krishna are. For the sake of the world, they voluntarily assume human limitations.
Even though saints descend to Earth at a particular time, the benefit they provide to the world transcends time. Sai Krishna’s goal was not limited to stopping the decline of dharma during his lifetime. It was also to teach us how to ascend to the level of a god, as well as to revive the spiritual culture.
Many of us are stuck in a vicious cycle of ‘achieving more’ to be happy and then worrying over whether our achievements are being applauded, acknowledged, and awarded. What we are doing is attaching a ‘condition’ to actions. If we create something, we want the world to praise us. If we have a child, we want them to fulfill ‘our wishes’.
Krishna told Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra: Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana– Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction. It has a deep meaning that no matter what the result of karma is, exercise the intellect to accept it with the same grace. It is important to break free from the cycle of putting ‘conditions’ and losing sleep over them.
Our creations are as anitya, ephemeral, as us. That which is impermanent cannot thus be true, for truth is permanent. Truth is also liberating. To believe in the anitya to be the truth is avidya, false knowledge. An obvious question thus is if our life is a pursuit of anitya, propelled by avidya, should we not do anything? Should we just sit? Is inaction the ‘desired action’?
Arjuna faced the same dilemma on the battleground. Krishna came to Arjuna’s rescue and said: Karmano hyapi boddhavyam boddhavyam cha vikarmanah. Akarmanash cha boddhavyam gahana karmano gatih– You must understand the nature of all three – karma, recommended action; vikarma, wrong action; and akarma, inaction. The truth about these is profound and difficult to understand.
Those who see ‘action in inaction’ and ‘inaction in action’ are truly wise. Although performing all kinds of actions, they are yogis and masters of all their actions. So a yogi is ‘calmly active’ and ‘actively calm’. They do not renounce action. They renounce the tendency to put a ‘condition’ on the outcome of their actions.
Patanjali Yoga Sutra provides a more succinct explanation of why it is important to train the mind to not be a victim of setting conditions for actions and worrying over outcomes.
Patanjali says: AnityaSuciDuKhanatMasu NityaShuciSukhatMakhyaTiraVidya –Ignorance is taking that which is non-eternal, impure, painful and nonSelf, for eternal, happy pure, Atman, Self. Ignorance is mistaking avidya for vidya. By freeing ourselves from conditions, we move closer to being a yogi.
A yogi is someone who has freed their being from imposing conditions on actions. Conditions create desires. To be desire-less is to be a yogi.
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