And the
The Constituents of Action Teaching
When Self-knowledge is hard and fast, life continues pretty much as ‘before’ moksa. The jiva is not improved or different, but it’s orientation will have done a 180 change because it no longer identifies with its small identity as a jiva. Doing continues but doership has been permanently negated by Self-knowledge, as are binding vasanas. You know that as Consciousness you are not the doer, and nor is the jiva. The only ‘doer’ is Isvara, the gunas, but not in the sense we think of doing because Isvara is not a person. It is the ruler/sustainer and destroyer of the world of objects, the dharmafield. There is nothing like premeditation in Isvara srsti because though Isvara is conscious, and knows everything happening in the Field of Existence, it does not ‘think’ as such. It is not hiding behind a veil taking score of everything we do, meting out good or bad karma. It keeps the mithya show going to facilitate the jiva’s karma with the endless and automatic working out of the gunas. The presence of Consciousness makes thinking possible for the jiva only. Because of Maya, the jiva then identifies with its thoughts and believes it is a doer/thinker, separate from the objects/Field of Existence, blind to its true nature as Consciousness. See the conundrum?
To assist you in any situation where you are confused or find you cannot surrender the doership, remind yourself of the one immutable fact that makes it impossible for you to be responsible for results:
The Field of Existence is immensely complex and multi-faceted. For anything to happen requires so many factors to be present that it is quite impossible for anyone to make anything happen. If something you desire is meant to happen, you cannot stop it from happening. If it is not, there is absolutely nothing you can do to make it happen. You may get what you think you want – but just remember this: there are two main ways to be unhappy: getting what you want and not getting what you want. Isn’t it safer and saner to just get rid of the one who wants what it wants?
The following karikas or constituents of action are required for anything to happen:
Constituents of Action
1. The agent of action – the one doing the action. The person with a story.
2. The object of action – where the doer goes, what he/she does, the nature of the action.
3. The means of action – sense organs and organs of action. If you want to play the piano, for instance, you won’t get very far without your sense organs and organs of action involved.
4. The purpose of the action – what do we want, what are we really after?
5. The vasanas and values that condition the mind – likes and dislikes.
6. Where does the action originate from – adaptive child or mature adult? It can also be prarabdha karma – the momentum of past actions fructifying now, either from ‘this’ or your ‘past’ life. It’s often impossible to know why some things happen because we cannot know the mind of Isvara. As the scripture says, on the nature of karma, even the sages are perplexed.
7. The nature of the field – what is going on in your environment? So often, the egoic doer is so focused on getting what they want, they are just not in touch with what is really going on around them. They do not register what the field is telling them. And the Isvara in the form of the field is always talking to us. Whatever signals we need to respond appropriately to what Isvara presents us on a moment to moment basis are ALWAYS present. Isvara lets us know. But the problem is that most of the time there is an egoic doer in the way afflicted with the deafness and myopia of its likes and dislikes.
Sundari
