Yog of Knowledge and Action
Chapter 4, Verse 21
nirāśīr yatacitt-ātmā
tyakta sarva parigrahaḥ
śarīraṁ kevalaṁ karma
kurvan-nāpnoti kilbiṣam
He has no personal hopes; does not seize on things as his personal possessions; his mind and body are under perfect control; performing action by the body alone, he does not commit sin.
When the body, the mind and the heart are in complete control and completely surrendered into the divine rhythm, whatever action one does is a service, a prayer to the Lord. When you practice yoga in such a state, without expecting a result, you can be a householder or a recluse. You can be anywhere in the world, and you will not create any karma. You can do whatever you want, and you are free! You can dance naked, people can beat you up, it doesn’t matter. You are not bound by anything. That’s what you see, for example, in the lives of the fools for Christ. They have renounced everything; they don’t care about anything. It doesn’t matter what they eat or what they drink.
One day, Adi Shankaracharya was walking from one village to the other. He would eat whatever people would give him. He arrived in one village that was poor. It was a fishermen’s village, and they only had fish to offer him. Adi Shankaracharya didn’t care what he was eating, because he had full control over the taste. He was above all this. He was completely renounced. They placed the fish in front of him and, of course, his devotees were very happy, because they used to eat fish and were happy that on that day they could also eat fish. Some of them had a great desire for fish because they had not yet fully renounced everything and they were at the beginning of their path.
Adi Shankaracharya called them saying, “Come here, my dears. Prepare this fish for me.” It was prepared and Adi Shankaracharya was eating it, and saying, “Ah, very good!” But then he said to his devotees, “You all are not allowed to eat this.” They became angry and asked, “Why not? You are a renunciate, you should not even eat meat or fish, you can’t take life like that! How dare you! Why can you eat it and we can’t?” Adi Shankaracharya knew what is in their minds. The devotees, very angrily and reluctantly, ate only the few vegetables that were there. They were cursing Adi Shankaracharya throughout their meal, saying all kinds of words and being very moody. After they all left the village, the devotees were still cursing their Master saying, “How dare he do that!” Behind his back, they were even plotting to kill him!
Adi Shankaracharya had no desire or craving for anything. He was not attached to any of the five senses, whereas the devotees were fully attached to their senses. When Adi Shankaracharya took food in his mouth, it became Amrit, but they didn’t know that it became Amrit in His mouth. Their minds were full of much delusion and they only saw what was outside; they only saw the outside action that the Master was doing. They criticised him, saying, “this is good” and “that is bad.” They could only see with their minds and they thought that they knew best.
Adi Shankaracharya and his devotees went to the next village. He went to a blacksmith. When they were all at the blacksmith’s shop, Adi Shankaracharya asked, “Mr. Blacksmith, please, will you give me a bowl of molten iron? I want to drink it.” The blacksmith gave it to him and Adi Shankaracharya drank it as if it was water. This was molten iron, which was boiling hot, and red in colour. If you drank it, it would burn so much that only your bones would be left. But because of his state of mind, his state of consciousness, and his complete surrender to the Will of God, he had no ignorance, nothing. There was no ego, nothing. For him, everything was equal, so he drank it.
After he drank it, he turned to the devotees and said, “Do the same.” At that moment the devotees realised their foolishness of judging the Master, the foolishness of thinking that what the Master is doing is right or wrong.
The Masters, even if it appears like something is wrong on the outside, they’re fully aware of what they are doing. And Adi Shankaracharya said, “Here, take it, I have drunk this, you can drink it also.”
That’s why I said, for me, everything is equal. I am in the state of this equality. I don’t expect anything. There is no ignorance, there is no ego, there is no expectation. But the devotees cannot be like this, because they are full of pride, judgement, and so on.
That’s why I say, “Don’t look at what the Master is doing on the outside, because you will never comprehend how or why the Master is doing things.” The Master is always in accordance with the Will of God. The great souls are always in surrender. They still continue doing their duty in the body, but their minds are completely absorbed in the Divine Self. They are absorbed in Narayana within themselves.
Bhagavad Gita
