Omm Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Verse 176: “Since I have no craving for the fruit of action, actions cannot contaminate Me. One who knows Me as such is not bound by actions.”

In this verse, Lord Krishna is saying, “Actions cannot cloud me, veil me, or contaminate me, because I don’t claim the benefit of the result that comes out of action. A person that knows me as such will not be bound by action.”

There is a hidden meaning.  In Gita, Krishna has also said, “I dwell in every heart, in every being, and I am pervading in this entire creation.  When someone will realize Me, who is pervading in the whole creation and who is also within him, then he will know that he is not getting veiled or contaminated by karma.”  It is Krishna who does not get contaminated by karma, and the entire world is nothing but the manifestation of Krishna in different forms and names.

To realize this, you must first realize the Krishna that is hidden in you.  If you can do that, you can also say and feel the same way, that karmas cannot veil you, contaminate you, or bind you if you are not claiming the benefit of the result.  From this it became very clear to me, when I was studying this verse in 1974, that karmas and the result of karma are two different concepts.

The result of karma is for the purpose of experiencing or enjoying.  Some enjoy the result; others experience it.  For example, we are sitting in this closed room in winter.  Some are experiencing that it is winter, while some are enjoying it: “Oh, the summer was so hot, so humid.  Now thank God it is beautiful weather and I like it.”  Such a person is not only experiencing, but also enjoying, and Gita says that the fruit of this enjoyment carries the seed of pain.

Verse 226 reveals that any enjoyment that comes as a result of sense contact always carries in it that seed.  This the jnanis have realized; that is why they don’t enjoy, because the moment you enjoy you are throwing the seed of pain.  Anything you enjoy that is sensory in origin definitely will also bring you the opposite, and the opposite of pleasure is pain.  However, if you do not enjoy it, and simply experience it, and this experience is not throwing you out of your awareness, then the experience does not become enjoyment and the action of experiencing will not cloud or veil you.

Clouding or veiling means losing the consciousness, the awareness of who you are. Depending on the stage of your evolution in yoga, this awareness will be different.  If you are a beginner this awareness will be that you are a seeker, but if you are nearing the end of the path, this awareness will be that you are a seer.  Seerhood is not an experience; it is an awareness.  In this state of awareness the seer does not see himself, he simply sees how prakriti is functioning.

If I will say, “X is angry,” then I am not a seer.  If I am able to see how the rajas has overpowered the soul called X, so that X has completely lost her awareness, then I am a seer.  A seer is he who is able to see how prakriti, through her gunas, is veiling, covering and trapping the awareness of a purusha.  This is the first thing that the seer is able to see.  The second thing is to what extent prakriti through her veiling has succeeded in contaminating the state of the purusha.  Veiling is one thing; getting contaminated is another, much deeper condition.

Suppose rajas overpowers the sattwa in some form.  Rajas creates confusion, so the seer sees that this person is now getting confused and beginning to lose his awareness that he is the being and he is a seeker or a seer.  We don’t take up the role; prakriti gives us the role.  We only carry the responsibility to discharge the role.  But if we are overpowered by rajas or tamas we get clouded and cannot discharge our responsibility, and if we are unable to do that we are unable to play our role, and are trapped by karma.  The seer is able to see how a person gets clouded, which means, how the awareness gets clouded by experience and how the experience penetrates to every layer of consciousness and remains there.  Then in a similar situation the person will again be attracted to a similar type of experience.  Whenever a person is running after that experience, it is called hankering or desire.  If experience simply comes and goes, nothing gets stored inside, and prakriti cannot veil, trap or contaminate you, the pure being.

When Krishna says, “Actions cannot veil me, trap me, or contaminate me,” only one qualification is needed, that is: “I have no special interest in the fruit or result of action.”  If a person is not having any claim over the result, the question may come, why will he perform action?  My answer and Gita’s answer is that everyone simply gets trapped, veiled, and contaminated by action.  No one ever performs any action.  Actions are performed by prakriti through her gunas. That is the nature of creation.

Actions are performed automatically; you have to simply participate in this process or interfere in it.  If you are interfering, you will be creating action from your side or reacting to this process.  If you are creating action, that shows you have desire.  Without desire, action cannot be created, it simply can be responded to.  Those who have transcended the desire plane just respond to action because prakriti wants them to respond.  Prakriti wants the response to happen in a particular way.  It may be a positive way or a negative way, as far as prakriti is concerned.  This is so delicate that even seers are confused.

The safest guide is Krishna himself because he is the only one who perfectly demonstrated this principle all through his life.  Let him be our role model.  Krishna says, “I never claim the result of the action, I simply respond to action.  That is why actions cannot trap me, bind me, veil me, or contaminate me.”  One of prakriti’s gunas—sattwa, rajas or tamas—entering into you, the pure being, means you are contaminated, you who are neither sattwa nor rajas nor tamas.  You are beyond these coatings, but when any of these gunas enters into you and makes you to dance to its command, you become contaminated and then you are not that pure awareness.  When due to contamination you become rajasic, sattwic or tamasic you are not awareness, you are experience, and experience is prakriti.

You are purusha.  This is my realization.  I am purusha and I must retain my state of purusha.  If I have to participate in prakriti’s play, I must participate in such a way that my awareness is not clouded.  Without clouding my awareness I can play as long as necessary, but the moment I will see my awareness is getting clouded, and my consciousness is getting injected with these attributes, I will withdraw.

The next verse is 177: “Knowing the secret of this truth, the seers have performed action from ancient times; therefore, Arjuna, you too perform actions likewise.”  Knowing that secret, if you do not cling to the result, and do not have any hankering for enjoying the benefit of the karma, then karmas cannot bind you.  Liberation means going beyond that type of veiling and trap, and liberation comes only when you are in the body, not after you leave the body.  It is liberation from the contamination of all the stored-up experiences.  If those experiences are cleansed from your system, you are liberated.  The nature of your liberation depends on how much contamination is gone from you.  If all of it is gone, and all types of experience have been erased from your system, you are fully enlightened.

If it is erased seventy-five percent, you are seventy-five percent liberated; if it is erased one percent, you are one percent liberated.  Everyone is liberated; it is simply a matter of degree and intensity.  Every human being is a liberated being, but an enlightened being is one who is completely, one hundred percent liberated, so that no action by prakriti can contaminate him against his will.

Liberation means that while living in the body you are free from all contamination.  Then you live life as long as you want as Krishna on Earth.  Those who are aspiring for liberation know that the secret is to not be identified with the result.  Knowing this, the aspiring liberated beings perform action in the same way that Krishna showed.  That is: respond.  Don’t act and don’t react.

[From a 2010 Interaction at Satyachetana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India.]