When we discussed the Journey of the Secular, we discussed efficiency in action and how Chapter 3 of Bhagavad Gita on karma yoga describes the right attitude to the right work and thereby achieve maximum efficiency. As the secular person starts becoming a seeker (see journey of a seeker) the efficiency in action becomes renunciation of action. In fact, we will go far beyond renunciation of action into a series of other renunciations. We will also look at what Gita really means by “renunciation”. The following quotes by an unknown author and another one by Swami Vivekananda captures the essence of renunciation.
Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of the world, but accepting that they pass away - Unknown author.
It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion - the attainment of freedom, renunciation,…Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! - Swami Vivekananda
In Chapter 3, Arjuna the warrior, asks his charioteer Lord Krishna which path to liberation is better - the path of action (karma yoga) or the path of knowledge (jnana yoga). Krishna explains that one cannot escape from action, but action done with the right attitude purifies our mind and enables us to go on the path of knowledge. Thus Krishna highlights the importance of both the paths and strongly condemns fatalism and inaction.
Krishna continues in Chapter 4 with a call for us to perform actions in the spirit of sacrifice or yagna. Arjuna is now left with yet another doubt on why perform actions if eventually we have to sacrifice on renunciate our actions. Is it not easier just not to perform any action? This is the start of Chapter 5 of Bhagavad Gita on the topic of renunciation of action or karma sannyasa yoga. The successive questions of Arjuna is characterized by this diagram below.
Figure 1: Karma - Karma Sannyasa - Jnana Yoga
Yoga of Renunciation - Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 5.5
यत्साङ्ख्यै: प्राप्यते स्थानं तद्योगैरपि गम्यते | एकं साङ्ख्यं च योगं च य: पश्यति स पश्यति || 5||
yat sānkhyaiḥ prāpyate sthānaṁ tad yogair api gamyate ekaṁ sānkhyaṁ cha yogaṁ cha yaḥ paśhyati sa paśhyati
The supreme state that is attained by means of karm sanyās is also attained by working in devotion. Hence, those who see karm sanyās and karm yog to be identical, truly see things as they are.
Lord Krishna in this one verse not only answers Arjuna’s question but links the three yogas of karma, karma sannyasa, and jnana. In essence, karma yoga entails two key causal chains
Selfless performance of actions without attachment leads to the purity of mind;
Selfless performance of actions also leads to inner detachment. This inner detachment then leads to renouncing worldly possessions and activities, thereby purifying our minds.
The mind thus purified by either one of these causal chains is fit for enquiry and contemplation on the Self which then leads us to renounce the notion of doership and realize the Self or attain liberation or moksha. This causal inference is highlighted below in this diagram that I will elaborate further in this article.
Figure 2: Mukya karma sannyasa yoga
Story of two brothers
One of Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s story elegantly brings out the difference between the action performed and the attitude with which the action is performed.
Ramu and Somu were twin brothers who lived in a village. As brothers they were very close and always did things together during their childhood. After finishing their high school both brothers went to the city for their studies. Their actions started deviating when they came to the city. Ramu went to the lectures of a Swamiji during weekends and whenever he was free during the evenings. Somu on the other hand frequented nearby pubs during the weekends. However, Ramu was always envious of his brother and imagined the fun time his brother was having in the pubs while he was physically present in the discourse hall. Somu, on the other hand was admiring his brother and always thinking about the great lectures and knowledge his brother was gaining from the Swamiji.
The story goes that when both Ramu and Somu died they went to Yama Loka where Lord Yama (or God of death) sent Ramu to hell and Somu to heaven. This surprised the brothers when Lord Yama explained that while Ramu was physically in the discourse hall his mind was always in the pub; while Somu although always in the pub was constantly thinking about the discourses. The story illustrates that it is not the actions, but the attitude with which these actions are performed is what is critical.
Turning the Vicious Cycle of Vasanas into a Virtuous Cycle
In the article on How to control your senses? I presented the following Cycle of Vasanas.
This impulsive unconscious behavior is what has been referred to in Gita and other upanishads as vasanas or underlying tendencies to act in a certain way. These vasanas are the seeds of our desires, the desires manifest as thoughts, which then lead us to act, in order to derive the reward (or fruit) of our action, which once again reinforces the vasanas.
Figure 3: Vicious cycle of Vasanas
Bhogi or Enjoyer of Life
Let’s take a very simple example to illustrate this cycle. I love Indian sweets - especially a particular Indian sweet called Gulab Jamun (if you have no idea what I mean check out this Wikipedia entry or better still go to a good Indian restaurant or grocery store, get some and taste for yourself!!). Given that I have tasted this sweet in the past I have an underlying tendency towards wanting to enjoy it or have a vasana for Gulab Jamun. Sometimes, this underlying tendency will manifest itself as a desire to have the sweet. This will be followed by a thought to go to a restaurant or grocery store to buy it. The strength of that desire and the thought will drive me towards the action of buying and having the Gulab Jamun. The satisfaction I get from having it is the ‘fruit’ of my action which in turn strengthens my vasana for gulab jamun. Of course, if one does not like Gulab Jamun as it may be too sweet for some or too sticky with the sugary syrup one might develop a negative vasana.
Whether it is positive or negative vasana this underlying tendency is what drives our desires. The notion of vasana is more akin to what we call behavior in psychology; however, one major difference is that the vasana or underlying behavioral tendency gets carried from one birth to the other - so it is a multi-life memory of our behavioral tendencies. Another point to note here is that if someone had no prior knowledge or exposure to gulab jamun then there will be no underlying tendency to want to have it. A person who thus goes through this cycle of vasanas enjoying and also suffering through the roller coaster ride of life is called a bhogi or the one who enjoys/suffers. According to the advaitic philosophy it is this accumulation of vasanas that is the reason for our rebirth. Until we stop accumulating vasanas and exhaust what we already have we will not be able to attain liberation.
Karma Yogi or Selfless service
Gita gives four methods to break this vicious cycle of vasanas. The first one is to break the causal chain from ‘fruits of action’ to ‘vasanas’. When an action is performed by a person, the result of the action is determined not solely by the one performing the action, but is a combination of environmental factors and the actions of all others in the system. One of the main tenets of karma yoga therefore is to do the action to the best of your ability, but not to expect the results to turn out in a certain way. So whether the result is favorable to us or unfavorable to us we are equipoise in accepting the result. This is termed as giving up or renunciation of the ‘fruits of action’. For example, the duty of a salesperson is to make the best pitch she can to sell a product; whether the customer buys it or not is not in her hands. This also means that when the sales are really good or terrible one approaches the result with the same attitude of equanimity. Gita is also careful to add that renunciation of the fruits of action does not mean that you do a poor job of selling; in fact you are urged to continually do your best. This attitude also builds humility when your actions yield overwhelmingly favorable results and avoids guilt when the results of your action are unfavorable.
The renunciation of the fruits of action can be done purely for secular reasons (e.g., I don’t have full control over the results of my action so there is no point worrying about things that I cannot control) or for religious reasons (e.g., accept the results of my action as a prasad or gift from the Lord).
The second way to break the cycle is to stop the causal chain from ‘actions’ to ‘fruits of actions’. Here Gita says that we should view ourselves as the ‘instrument of action’ of the Lord. Given any situation we do the ‘right’ action with the ‘right’ attitude to the best of our ability. When we perform actions in this way renouncing the ego-centric instrumentality we will also be renunciations the fruits of our action (I.e., the causal chain discussed earlier in this section). As we have seen before each one of us have multiple roles we play in life, each of these roles entails a certain set of duties and we need to carry out these duties (or dharmas) to the best of our ability. For example, as a salesperson I am expected to make a certain number of cold calls to customers each day; worrying about the results of each call or getting dejected with the number of negative responses and not making adequate calls, will only make one more miserable. This also does not mean that we act mechanically and not care about the job we do. We are urged to do our best which would require us to talk to others, improve our skills, and get better at selling.
The third way to break the cycle is to stop the causal chain from ‘thoughts’ to ‘actions’. Gita advises us to split our thoughts into three components - the subject, the object, and the verb or action. It urges us to renunciate the ’subject’ of the thought and not the object or the verb. The one thought that underlies every other thought is the ‘I’ thought, also called the ego or ahankara. One when renunciate the notion of ‘doership’ I.e., ‘I’ am the doer of this action or ‘I’ made all this happen it liberates us from focusing on ourselves to the task at hand and doing it as best as we can. When one renunciates one’s ego or the thought that I am the ‘doer’ we are acting as the ‘instrument of agency’ of the Lord. This attitude to work is extremely valuable in a corporate setting when one can do the ‘right’ thing for the team, the company, and for society without worrying about the consequences of one’s action.
All three methods help us to act efficiently and diligently without building up positive or negative vasanas. These three methods purify our mind, as we highlighted in the previous section, and helps us contemplate and focus on something higher than just our immediate self or family. Even if our goals are not spiritual and purely secular we still gain by reducing stress, acting more efficiently, acting more ethically, and performing selfless service.
A practical example of karma yoga is provided in explore vedanta in pictures reproduced on the figure below on the left. The right hand side illustrates the three methods of breaking the causal chain for a karma yogi.
Figure 4: Practical example of Karma Yoga and the three methods of renunciation
Sannyasi or Renunciation of worldly desires
The final method to break the causal chain is described in Chapter 5 of Gita as Karma Sannyasa Yoga. The causal chain from desires to thoughts can be broken by adopting a higher level desire and making every other desire subservient to it. In Gita, the only desire we are urged to have is the desire for liberation or moksha (see article on the Journey of the Seeker where mumuksuhtvam is one of the four-fold qualities of a seeker). Every desire and action we do is to fulfill that one desire of liberation. In a secular world that ONE desire may not be spiritual, but material. For example, consider Michael Phelps, the swimming legend who is the greatest swimmer of all time who amassed 23 gold medals, 3 silver, and 2 bronze olympic medals participating in four consecutive olympics from 2004 to 2016. Michael Phelps followed a brutal and relentless routine with six hours of swimming six days a week, paired with heavy weight lifting, a strict diet and an extremely disciplined life. An outside observer may see this as a sacrifice or renunciation, but to Michael Phelps he was just pursuing his ONE dream and desire to the exclusion of everything else. Hence, attaching oneself to a ‘higher’ goal or desire is the best way to renunciate the ‘lower’ level goals or desires. In his brief, yet profound thoughts on renunciation, Sadguru states that there is nothing called renunciation, just the extreme attachment to something higher. The one who sacrifices the desire for action is called karma sanyasi by Gita.
Summary
The four methods of breaking the causal chain of vasanas is summarized in the figure below. So far, we have been silent on how to break the causal chain from vasanas to desires. We will pick this up in a subsequent article on the Journey of the Seer - the exhaustion of vasanas is a critical step in the process of liberation or moksha. The one who has exhausted all the vasanas is liberated or attains moksha and is called a jnaani.
Figure 5: Turning the vicious cycle of vasanas to a virtuous cycle
An alternative tabular representation of the different methods fo renunciation is given below. A bhogi is one who goes through the full cycle - having worldly desires triggered by vasanas, performing them with ego and enjoying the fruits of action and further accumulating the vasanas. A karma yogi goes through three stages of renunciations - renunciation of the fruits of action, the actions, and the ego that he is doer of these actions. The karma sanyasi gives up all worldly desires and hold on to just the desire of liberation. The jnaani is the one who has given up even the desire for liberation in order to get liberated and attain moksha.
Figure 6: Comparison of Bhogi - Karma Yogi - Sannyasi- Jnaani
Key Takeaways
Renunciation
Fruits of action
Actions
Thoughts
Desires
Renunciation of ‘lower’ by Attachment to the higher
Bhogi – Karma Yogi – Sannyasi – Jnaani
Exercise for the week
Identify a specific action or thought or desire that you are performing/want to perform?
Practice going through the cycle of successive ‘renunciations’ by changing your attitude?
Additional Links
On Renunciation (Part 1 of 2) by Swami Vivekananda
On Renunciation (Part 2 of 2) by Swami Vivekananda
Becoming Warren Buffet in HBO Dcoumentary