The point

[Greg Goode]

At 03:22 PM 10/29/97 PST, Maadhavan Srinivasan wrote:

> In this world, there are lot of people sufferring without food.
>So for them food is the important thing than any other.
>
>My question is, Is Duality unavoidable in critical situations?.
>That is, eventhough the poor people realized Advaita, in critical
>situations they have to respond to the situation.

As long as You are staying in the body, action is unavoidable.  And all
action is in duality, because it is the body, or the gunas, that act, not
You.  In the Gita, Krishna says that the body cannot live without moving:

   Not even for a moment does anyone remain without
   performing action.  (Gita III:5)

   Not even your stay in the physical body can be
   accomplished without action.  (Gita III:8)

Where is the non-duality then?  In not being attached to the results of
action, or in there not being any form of personal doership or receivership
of actions, even though actions get performed.

--Greg

>From  Thu Oct 30 10:12:30 1997
Message-Id: <THU.30.OCT.1997.101230.0500.>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 10:12:30 -0500
Reply-To: chandran at tidalwave.net
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ram Chandran <chandran at TIDALWAVE.NET>
Organization: Personal
Subject: Re: The point
Comments: To: Advaita List <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
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Greg Goode wrote:
>
> At 04:10 PM 10/28/97 -0500, Ram Chandran wrote:
>
> >The Hindu scriptures do not propagate "Do nothing attitude!"
>
> Totally agree!  In the Gita, Arjuna tried this, and Krishna urged him to
> fight.
>
> > Realization is not
> >something poured from heaven like a rain fall. One has to earn it
> >through Sadhana! We can not change our attitude instantaneously and it
> >takes time and efforts! The journey of self-realization is a
> >long-journey without any known path.
>
> Agree about no known path.  But disagree about earning it.  It (jnaana or
> realization) is no phenomenal action, object or state.  So it can't be the
> result of an action, object or state.  It's actually closer to the
> disappearance of such.  Sadhana and sruti are for the apparent result of
> purifying the mind, which can be called a state.  But wouldn't you agree
> that if we undertake Sadhana with the expectation of earning realization,
> this very expectation will prevent realization?  Gita II.47 states:
>
>    You have choice over your action but not over the results
>    at any time.  Do not (take yourself) to be the author of
>    the results of action; neither be attached to inaction.
>
> Regards,
>
> --Greg

Namaskar:

        I always enjoy your quick insights, right questions and clear
statements of issues.  First,  we agree to surrender the "Do nothing
attitude." Second, we agree that there is no Known Path. Third, we agree
that Gita can guide us to start the journey to the unknown Destination.
The only disagreement is Earning Self-realization through Sadhana!  You
have quoted a beautiful verse in Gita to the reason for your
disagreement.  As always, you have raised an important issue on Self-
realization.  The spirit of Karma Yoga is to conduct any action without
looking for the fruits of the action.  Karma Yoga is profound and
SUBTLE!  Action and result can never be separated because the Action is
the RESULT! The reward for any action is the ACTION! The thinker and
thought are the same!  The FIELD and the KNOWER of the field are the
same! The projector and the projection are not different!
        The entire dialog between the intellect (Arjun) and the Consciousness
(Divine Krishna) in Gita is an illustration of the pitfalls of
intellectual comprehension of an action and the result of the action.
The lesson for Arjun, the intellect is to realize that the surrendering
of the  intellect to the feet of the Divine is necessary for the
salvation!   To Act without the Result is the challenge to intellect. To
accept this challenge, the intellect has to accept the fact that the
intellect is an illusion!   When the intellect accepts this challenge,
the intellectual analysis stops and the result always, come along with
the ACTION!  When start doing something instead of nothing, we can
realize the RESULT.  The bottom line message is "Don't search for the
RESULT." The RESULT is nothing but the ACTION!  As long as the intellect
is active, we are going to face logical fallacies and there is greater
likelihood of getting into never-ending Loops and Traps.  Intellect
creates the traps and loops for its own RECREATION and falls into
pitfalls!               "