Namaskar Mahatmas!
After having given this knowledge (ISHA VAASYAM IDAM SARVAM), the question comes to our mind.
‘Everything is God. We should lead a well controlled life. We should not have covetousness for wealth. Be content’. Then what am I supposed to do in this life? So is this knowledge suggesting a life of indolence and laziness?
What we have to do is answered in the first line of the second sloka of this Ishopanishad.
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Kurvann ev’eha karmaani jijivishec chattam samaah
Evam tvayi n’aanyath’eto’sti na karma lipyate nare (2)
IHA – in this world; KARMAANI – works; KURVAN – performing; EVA – alone; SHATAM – a hundred; SAMAAH – years; JIJIVISHET – should desire to live; EVAM – thus; TVAYI – you; NARE – man (wishing to live a hundred years); ITAH – than this; NA – not; ANYATHAA – other alternative; ASTI – is (by which); KARMA – work; NA – not; LIPYATE – stains.
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BY DOING KARMA (scripture ordained works), INDEED, SHOULD ONE WISH TO LIVE HERE FOR A HUNDRED YEARS. FOR A MAN, SUCH AS YOU (WHO WANTS TO LIVE THUS), THERE IS NO WAY OTHER THAN THIS, WHEREBY KARMA MAY NOT CLING TO YOU (stains you).
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If we take an account book, we see that entries are made every day and towards the end of the month/year it is totaled. Similarly every moment of our life must be accounted for. What good have we done every day in our life? Only then the end will be a great end. The saints who have the vision of ‘isha vaasyam idam sarvam’ – the whole world is pervaded by the Lord, take very little from the world but give the best to the world. Ramana says very beautifully that ‘they alone work who have the knowledge’.
So what we have to do is given in the first line of the sloka. From this body nothing auspicious can come out. The only great thing, auspicious thing which can come out of this body is the ‘sat karma’. Those actions alone make man perfect, purified. Sat karmaani kurvan eva – one has to do Sat karma. The Sat karmas are actions prescribed by our scriptures. Whatever actions take us towards the Lord/towards the truth are all Sat karma. The actions which bind us to the world of names and forms is the Asat Karma.
When do we have to practice Sat karma? – Iha Eva – right now.
We have the habit of postponing every good thing we have to do. Most of us think that practice of spirituality is only after retirement or in some other better place than where we live. We imagine that when we retire, we will build a house and there we will read scriptures and meditate. But when we go there, we do understand that there are lots of difficulties, obstacles there also.
If we have to get into spirituality after all problems in our life ends, it is like waiting to take bath in the ocean after the waves stop. Problems are nature of living. If we cannot be happy and content here, we can’t be anywhere else (even in the Himalayas).
Our Guruji said wonderfully in his talk on Yoga Vasishta that: “Wherever there is problem, it is only because of your own mind. You may shift to another place, but the problem ‘I’ keep following you wherever you go”. So let us not wait for a better opportunity to practice, let us do it here and now in this very birth, in this very body.
In the 9th chapter of Gita the Lord says, ‘Sadhur eva sa mantavyah samyag vyavasito hi sah’ – A sinner must verily be considered as righteous; for he has indeed taken the right resolve – He worships Me with unwavering faith and devotion. Change cannot come slowly. It is like a smoker trying to give up smoking slowly. It can never happen. This sloka insists on the practice now and here. Every place is perfect. Not knowing this many of us imagine that we will do it later.
Jijivishec chatam samaah – should wish to live a hundred years: All of us have three desires in common:
- Desire to live, 2. Desire to know and 3. Desire to be happy.
Here in this sloka, the teacher says; ‘one should do the karma (Karma means the intention or desire behind the action. The true Karma is that which uplifts) for one hundred years’ – here the one hundred years does not mean the number ‘100’ but means ‘a complete life’. (The upanishads call the living being Shatakrtu – one who performs hundred yagnyas – sacrifices). Complete life is life without having complaints in any way – a contented life.
What is the result of leading a complete life?
The Vairagya (dispassion) automatically sets in life. Vairagya is not taking or leaving anything forcefully like ‘from today I am not going by car. I will only go by walk’. Vairagya is perfect when our dependency on the things, on the world is not there.
Gondavalekar Ji in his book on ‘daily discourses’ says that: “Non-attachment does not necessarily mean not having a particular thing, but freedom from mental involvement or sense of belonging. To live happily in the conviction that – whatever is has been given by God and is His, not mine – is real vairagya or true non-attachment”
Lord says in Bhagavad Gita that the only way to reach Him is through karma (detached, selfless in attitude, perfect in presentation, offer to Him both the action as well as the fruit of the action). Only by performing karma with knowledge (isha vaasyam idam sarvam) alone our work frees us from the clutches of bondage.
As the picture of Krishna depicts, the stick of karma in one hand, the jnana mudhra in the other hand – let us sport in this world taking every moment as a ball which we need to give all attention and play it in the best possible way.
Knowledge comes by study, skill comes by practice.
We will continue this sloka in the next week.
HARI OM!
