Role of Karma in Sadhaka's life - review of Sri Suresvaracharya's teachings in Naishkarmya Siddhi

Naishkarmya Siddhi - Section - 1

(Sri Suresvaracharya)

Some fundamental aspects of this discussion are pertaining to importance of Karma Yoga for chitta suddih and impossibility of jnAna karma samucchaya for Mukti. 

1. Karma in the discussion is largely geared towards rituals, injunctions for actions outlined in the Vedas. Even though philosophically Karma can be any action - whether or not dictated by Vedas - its evident that for Sri SuresvarAcharya (and His Guru Sri Bhagavatpaada), actions not mandated by Vedic injunction is not even worthy of discussion (as it has potential for Adharmic implications). 

2. Karma is based on the notion there is a doer, desire to be fulfilled and fruits to be experienced (KarmaTa) or surrendered to Ishwara (Karma Yogin). Either way the identification with the body, mind complex, is key pre-requisite for being a KarmaTa or a Karma Yogin. 

3. Jnana which liberates the "apparent" individual, is  vritti jnana (para vidya which opposes the notion that I'm bound, limited, body, mind etc and) reveals our infinite nature as non dual consciousness, in which all other notions - i.e. I'm body or I have body or I think etc...are merely appearances, which in no way contradicts the infinite non dual existence consciousness. 

4. Since Karma is based on notion of finititude and Jnana is opposed to finititude - Karma is said to be avidya and hence cant lead to liberation - by itself or in conjunction with parAvidya sravanam. 

5. However, Karma can help in the journey, when its done as Karma Yoga i.e. with Ishwara arpana buddih and Ishwara prasAdha buddih. This chips away at the jeeva's desire for enjoing the fruits of actions - which in turn dilutes the notion of egotism itself. Always remember that Egoism and Egotism is a result of the Ignorance of one's infinite nature, and its perpetuated (kept alive) by desires, which involve doership and enjoyership. Karma Yoga tackles the enjoyership aspect of the individual, which takes the steam out of the egotism/egoism and leaves it with only doership - which over time becomes enlightened sense of doership (Karma Yogi). 

6. So Karma Yoga leads to chitta shuddih and this creates favorable conditions for Brahma JijnyAsa and subsequent Jnana Sravana, which leads to complete cessation of egotism - hence complete eradication of doership and enjoyership - which are the instrumental cause of suffering. 

7. How do we understand the operation of jnAnis like Janaka ? Do they combine action and knowledge ? Such questions are a result of misunderstanding of what knowledge is and what is delivers. Since knowledge leads to nivrrti - as result of recognizing one's infinite eternal nature - it cant be combined with action (which is egotism/ignorance based) as a combo-method, for illumination. 

 However (in some rare cases like Sri Janaka) once the knowledge of one's infinite Self has dawned, some residual karma may work itself out. This is not be misconstrued as jnana karma combo effort. 

The residual karma of Jnani, post enlightenment, is viewed by the rest of us, as prarabdha of the Jnani, spilling over from prior to dawn of jnAna. 

Note that the knowledge, that "I'm Brahman" (for the illumined soul) is Svarupa jnAna not Vritti jnAna (which was the means to illumination, earlier). 

Having said all this - lets dive into relevant verses in Naishkarmya Siddhi. 

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Note: The ensuing sloka translations are based on Sri A.J. Alston, disciple of Sri Hari Prasad Sastri. 

[39] Thinking that the body endued with Brahminhood etc. is the Self, a man becomes a slave to the Veda in thought, word and deed.

[40] When all qualification for action has been burnt up in the sage by the fire of knowledge,1 then he is no longer a slave of the Veda. Verily he stands above the Veda.

[41] By good acts he gradually rises to the status of a god : by crimes he sinks to hell. Practising both good and evil, he is reborn helplessly as a man

[42] Thus the man of desire perpetually revolves in a circle. He is born bound tight by the bonds of ignorance, desire and his past actions. And he dies immersed in miseries.

[43] The Vedic text also has declared this in order to demolish pleasure-desire. All transmigratory experience has pleasure-desire for its root. The destruction of pleasure-desire arises from the destruction of ignorance

[44] When all the desires that lie in a man’s heart are resolved.” (then the mortal becomes immortal and attains Brahman): “thus (does the man who desires transmigrate; but the man who does not desire never transmigrates)". So says the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad (4.4.7) Vyasa (Mbh - quote pending) also spoke of this, as in “this our bondage is verily bondage through desire.

Here we conclude our description of the process of transmigration, and, with a view to do away with it, proceed to declare how it is taught that ritualistic actions do serve as a remote preparation for liberation, and hence in a sense are a cause of it.

[45] Somehow, by very great good fortune, dispassion (vairagya) sometimes arises in the heart of the transmigrating soul afflicted with pain, if he has amassed much merit and if his mind has been purified by the performance of the obligatory rites.

You may ask, “What is meant by dispassion?’ The answer is:

[46] Through a glimpse ot the truth he becomes as terrified of the results of ritual performed tor individual ends as he formerly was of hell; hence he wishes only to perform the obligatory rites.

Thus through application to the daily and occasional rituals:

[47] When his mind has been purified through the performance of actions dedicated to the Lord, pure indifference to all enjoyments from the heaven of Brahma downwards is generated in his heart. When the mind is clogged by passion and delusion it is easily attracted by the bait of prospective pleasure and it finds itself thrown into the slaughterhouse of the world of sense-objects, escape from which is no easy matter. But by the dedicated performance of action the  dirt of passion and delusion may be rubbed away from the mind till it becomes like a clear well-polished crystal. It is then no longer attracted by the all-consuming bait of desire and aversion generated by sense-objects. All the stains then melt away, and the mind becomes like a clear mirror, naturally turning towards the pure inner Self (and reflecting its light).

[48] When his mind has been purified through the performance of actions dedicated to the Lord, pure indifference to all enjoyments from the heaven of Brahma downwards is generated in his heart.

From that point onwards there is no further scope for prescribed action. But the prescribed actions die with their affairs in good order as they have arranged with their son called “Intentness on Turning Within that he should attend to their business after they have gone!

[49] The actions, having given birth in the mind to “Intentness on Turning Within" by purifying it, die with their duties performed, like clouds at the end of the rainy season. For the performance of rituals has the following great quality

[50] Therefore seekers of liberation (mumuksu) who desire Self-knowledge should always perform the daily and occasional rituals for the purification of the mind.

The words of the Omniscient One (i.e. Lord Krsna) are the authority for the truth of this matter being as we have described it

“aruruksor muner yogam karma karanam ucyate 

yogarudhasya tasyaiva sama” eveti ca smrtih [BG 6.3]

[  For a sage who wishes to attain to Yoga, action is said to be the means; for the same sage who has attained to Yoga, inaction (quiescence) is said to be the means. - Swami Sivananda]

[51] As the traditional literature (smrti) puts it, “Action (karma) is the means for the ascetic who wishes to attain the heights of yoga: restraint (sama) is the means when once he has attained them”

From performance of the daily rituals comes merit (dharma), 

-> from merit comes destruction of sin, 

-> from this comes purity of mind, 

-> from this comes a correct evaluation of transmigratory life, 

-> from this comes indifference to it, 

-> from this comes desire for liberation, 

-> from this comes a search for the means to the latter, 

-> from this comes the renunciation of all ritualistic action and its accessories, 

-> from this comes practice of yoga, 

-> from this the focusing of the mind within, 

-> from this a knowledge of the meaning of texts like “That thou art”, f

-> from this the eradication of ignorance, 

-> from this establishment in the Self alone, according to the texts “Verily, being the Absolute (Brahman), he attains the Absolute” and “Released, he is released  

[52] Only as the result of a series of effects does action contribute to the overthrow of ignorance. It does not destroy ignorance directly, like knowledge, because it is not in contradiction with it.

What be now proceeds to explain is that nothing whatever that can be achieved by action is consistent with release and that what obtains in release is not dependent on action.

[53] The result of action is something produced, attained (reached), prepared or transformed. But liberation is something other than all this. Hence action is not a means to it

[54] Knowledge cannot suppress ignorance when combined with action as a subordinate partner. For since action and knowledge are respectively of the nature of means and end, they cannot exist simultaneously. Nor can knowledge and action coexist as equal partners

[55] And again, there can be no conjunction of knowledge and action (as equals), since the two stand to one another as contradictor and contradicted; (they are destroyer and victim) like the lion and the sheep. They cannot coexist in the same place.

[56] The sphere of ignorance is the unreal; the sphere of knowledge is the highest reality : conjunction between the two is like conjunction between the sun and the night. Thus in the case of one who has secured knowledge of the Absolute (Brahman) or Self (Atman), which is undivided into the factors of action, all injunctions to action become pointless, because he is no longer subject to injunctions. How is that? We tell you

[58] The one who becomes free from the body (videha) and loses his doubts (vita-samdeha) completely through the practice of “not thus, not thus” (neti neti), sees the body (and senses) etc. as not-self and pays no attention to their activity.

[59] Just as a child imagines that his clay elephant is a real elephant and proceeds to play with it, so do the deluded people of the world superimpose the body etc. onto the Self and proceed to behave in various ways 

[60] When a man takes the stump of a tree for a thief, he becomes frightened and runs away. In the same way, a deluded person wrongly identifies the Self with the intellect (and body) etc. and proceeds to act.

[61] But just as correct knowledge of the stump cannot be a factor prompting to flight, so correct knowledge of the Self can never be a subordinate factor in an injunction to action

 [63]  The kind of knowledge (i.e. erroneous) which leads to action may be regarded as a subordinate partner in action, since that which contributes to the work of anything is a subordinate partner of that thing.

[64] But that knowledge (which we Advaitins speak of), which by its mere manifestation destroys ignorance, can neither be a subordinate nor a dominant partner with action in any circumstances whatever.

[65] Knowledge cannot establish itself without suppressing ignorance. The factors of action (which proceed from ignorance) being thus suppressed, knowledge and action cannot be conjoined.

[66] Knowledge and action are mutually contradictory both as to their causes, nature and effects, like darkness and light. There can be no association between them.

EXT: Here care must be taken to understand a subtlety here. Can jnana obtained from upanisad mahAvakya be combined with action in the form of meditation? Sri Suresvara raises this topic in 1.66 (all sentences of 1.66 not shown here). Then he proceeds to clarify that mediation or no meditation - its the knowledge as obtained from Sruti, which liberates us - by dismissing ignorance.  So this question of meditation, does not in anyway negate the conclusion that jnana alone liberates and that it cant be combined with action (even if it be meditation). 

[67]  The knowledge derived from Vedic revelation demolishes ignorance in its form as modified into the factors necessary for action at a single stroke. Hence there can be no association between the two.