Chapter 5: Karma Sannyāsa Yoga – Yoga of Inner Renunciation: Verse 8
नैव किञ्चित्करोमीति युक्तो मन्येत तत्त्ववित् ।
पश्यञ्शृण्वन्स्पृशञ्जिघ्रन्नश्नन्गच्छन्स्वपञ्श्वसन् ॥
Naiva kiñcit-karomīti yukto manyeta tattva-vit
paśyañ-śṛṇvan-spṛśañ-jighrann-aśnan-gacchan-svapañ-śvasan – 5.8
Meaning of verses 5.8 and 5.9 –
The Knower of Truth, who has achieved ‘yogic integration’, will think ‘I do nothing’ even while seeing and hearing, touching and smelling, eating and moving about, sleeping and breathing, speaking and answering the calls of nature, holding, opening and winking his eyes. He understands that in all these the senses alone interact with the sense-objects (and he at heart does nothing at all).
Chapter 5: Karma Sannyāsa Yoga – Yoga of Inner Renunciation - Verse 8
Ma Gurupriya
Explanation of verses 5.8 and 5.9 –
This is one of the greatest statements, rather revelations, in Bhagavad Gita. It is in conformity with Krishna’s exposition of the Self. Self has neither birth, nor death (2.20); it neither kills nor gets killed (2.19), nor causes another to kill (2.21).
Whatever activities one may perform – domestic, official, societal, national – in and through all of them, the Self in him remains unaffected, untouched. At that level of the personality, actually no change takes place, no effect befalls. Krishna emphasizes this truth by including all actions we usually do, like eating, speaking, waking, sleeping, walking – everything that the senses get involved in variously.
He extended the truth of impersonality and non-acting (4.18) to all activities of the senses and the bodily limbs. Our personality is part of the Creation. World includes our personality too. Activating power belongs to Nature, activated instruments also are Nature’s. So, in any action, Nature’s guṇas alone meet Nature’s guṇas (3.28). Once this point is grasped, where is the question of doership for anyone?
Krishna earlier explained more than once that Nature’s guṇas alone are the content and motivation for all activities. It is like water evaporating from the sea and again coming back to the sea as rain from the clouds. Without the clouds, the water could not have reached the mountain tops and come down as huge rivers fulfilling Nature’s multiple purposes. But, in the whole cycle, although many processes are involved, it is water alone that goes up and comes down, without undergoing any essential change.
The Knower (yukta) understands this truth about unchanging nature of the Self. Hence no action or interaction unsettles or distracts him. On the other hand, he courses through them efficiently and confidently without getting the least affected. Krishna wants to bring home this crucial point, to enlighten our intelligence, and inspire us to aspire for this covetable state.
