Sankhya Yoga
Chapter 2, Verses 50-51
buddhi-yukto jahātīha
ubhe sukṛta duṣkṛte
tasmād yogāya yujyasva
yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam
karmajaṁ buddhi-yuktā hi
phalaṁ tyaktvā manīṣiṇaḥ
janma bandha vinirmuktāḥ
padaṁ gacchanty-anāmayam
Endowed with wisdom of equanimity, one discards here and now the fruits of good and evil deeds. Therefore, devote yourself to yoga. The performance of actions with a balanced mind is true yoga. The sages who have united their reason and will with the Divine, renounce the fruit which action yields and, liberated from the bondage of birth, they reach the status beyond misery.
Here, in verse 50, Krishna says that, “A true yogi, endowed with equanimity, easily lets go of good and evil in this very life.” A true yogi is not attached to anything. What he receives, he can give away, without having any remorse. He is free. He does this because he is established in this equanimity. The residue of all virtues and sinful deeds from one’s past lives, persisting in the form of tendencies, are stored in the Brahma Nadi. A true yogi sees this and lets go of it. He removes all these tendencies; he renounces them from the mind itself; he breaks the connection with these actions which he has performed in this life, or in a past life. From the mind itself, he removes them. He doesn’t just sit and enjoy this. When he does something good, he doesn’t sit there and feel good about it and keep praising himself. He removes even that feeling.
Christ says this: “What is the use of loving the one you love already?” It doesn’t make any sense to just love the people you already love. You should learn to go beyond that and love everyone. You have to come to the point of this equal-mindedness. Like the yogi who sees all in the mind, who sees the connection with his action in the mind itself, from the beginning. Whatever arises inside the mind, how much attention do you give to it? Krishna says, from that moment on, you remove it from your mind so it cannot bear fruits in the form of rebirth. If you renounce all fruits of action from the mind itself, the mind is purified. There is no creation of any new karma for later on. You start to burn it! That’s what Atma Kriya Yoga does: it burns the karma, releasing you from past tendencies which had been stored inside you. Through the performance of this disinterested action for the good of the world, all the actions of the yogis are neutralized. With this attitude, there is no attachment to personal gain.
When you help people, there is always an expectation – for a ‘thank you’, for a gratification, for praises. You see this in daily life, you see it everywhere; wherever you go, the world runs on expectation. When you don’t expect anything from the mind itself, all is purified, all is transformed; you stop this creation of karma. Similarly, the virtues and sinful deeds of this current life will also stop having any effect. Lord Krishna is advising Arjuna to commit to exerting himself through the yoga of equanimity. The Lord reminds the mind of Arjuna, that such a yogi gets liberated in this very life itself. He says that you can liberate yourself, now and forever, in this very life. How? You have to transform; you have to do all your actions without any expectation – and if that is done, you are free! Otherwise you will become a slave of the mind, and you will become as crazy as the mind.
In verse 48, Krishna tells Arjuna, “Fixed in yoga, do your actions.” Every action which one does in life, whether it’s big or small, always creates karma, because the very nature of action leads to bondage, to attachment. People can’t really stay inactive, even for a moment. They are always busy. The mind is always busy engaging itself, jumping from one thought to another, going from one action to another. It’s not possible to not do action. Even when you are sleeping, you are doing action: you are breathing in and out, you are moving left and right. So there is action in every aspect of your life.
Krishna says in such circumstances, “Practice the yoga of equanimity.” If you train your mind to see this equality, it is very easy. And it’s the best practice to relieve one from bad karma, to relieve one from the bondage of karma. Therefore, practice this and become equal in failure and success. For it is equality that is the essence of yoga. It’s only through this equal-mindedness that one will attain the state of perfection.
“The sages who have united their reason and will with the Divine, renounce the fruit which action yields and, liberated from the bondage of birth, they reach the status beyond misery.” So Krishna says that the sages “have united their reason and will with the Divine.” They are not attached to the mind which is thinking always of, ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Through their wisdom, the truly wise and learned are established in the state of equal-mindedness, and they have attained the goal of their human existence: they have become sages, they have become yogis.
A human birth is the doorway to salvation. Here Lord Krishna says, “One who attains a human birth should realise how important it is.” This human birth is not here to create karma. You have not been given this human body to dance to the tune of Maya. You have not been given this human body to enjoy an attachment to this world. You are not here to be bound yourself to this reality. You are here to elevate yourself. You are here to liberate yourself, to detach yourself, to rise to the Divine’s virtues, to God Consciousness. You are not here to rebuild karma, but to be free from karma, to be free from misery. Because it is through the creation of karma – firstly in the mind – that misery arises. But you make yourself miserable!Nobody is responsible for your misery! You yourself are responsible for your misery, because in your mind you choose to be miserable, you choose to be poor, you choose to be sad, depressed, terrible, and so on.
Krishna is saying to Arjuna, “Rise, My dear! Be wise! If you are wise, you will not attach yourself to all these human qualities and miss the opportunity in this very life. If you miss this opportunity and remain immersed in worldly enjoyment, then you are not wise, you are like the outside world.” Through the stability of the yoga of equal-mindedness, one ceases to have any connection with the fruit of action performed in this current life, as well as with the fruit of action performed in countless past lives. This automatically liberates one from the cycle of birth and death. One is released from this bondage when one renounces the fruit occurring from action.
Krishna says that the sage who is liberated from misery, who is liberated from all the pain of Maya, will automatically obtain the Supreme Abode of God. If one is freed from the mind, liberation is automatically attained. One attains the Lotus Feet of the Lord and one is totally surrendered. One rises, one goes beyond the power of Nature itself and the divine qualities start to manifest through that person. The one who is totally above all the negative qualities, becomes identical with the Supreme Brahman, with Narayana. Then the qualities of Narayana start to manifest through that person. With the attainment of the Supreme Abode of Lord Narayana, with the Realisation of the supreme state of Brahman, one awakens and Satchitananda manifests through that person. All the attributes of the Divine start to shine through this person. And one goes even beyond the reality where Heaven is present: this state is beyond Heaven itself. One goes beyond the dualistic state in the mind: and this breaks all the bondage to birth and death. When the bondage to birth and death is broken, one rises above even the heavens. One becomes a true yogi.
Bhagavad Gita
