Chapter 5 Shloka 14

न कर्तृत्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभु:।

न कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते।।१४।।

God does not determine doership or doings of men,

nor contact with the fruit of actions.

These are all the work of nature.

Chapter 5 Shloka 14

न कर्तृत्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभु:।

न कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते।।१४।।

Now Bhagwan says:

God does not determine doership or doings of men, nor contact with the fruit of actions. These are all the work of nature.

The Supreme Lord is also not the doer:

1. The feeling of doership in us is not dictated by Him.

2. Our thoughts too, are not dictated by Him.

3. Desire for fruit of action too, are not His doing.

4. Nor is attachment to the body His deed.

5. Attachment to the fruit of action is not dictated by Him.

6. The belief ‘I am the enjoyer’ is not His doing.

7. Our mental aberrations, too, are not created by Him.

Little one, the Lord’s dominion does not extend to our inner world, to the world of our mental aberrations. Nor does the supremacy of the Atma reach there. The Atma is merely the Witness thereof. It does not act, nor does it cause anything to act.

Atma and Prakriti – the difference

a) Bhagwan is once again separating the Atma from Prakriti.

b) He is imparting an analytical rationale whereby He is separating the inert and the conscious.

Saankhya believes in duality – it propagates the disparity between the Atma and the world. The Lord is urging the individual to unite the Atma with its Essence and to let the product of Prakriti – the body, be relegated to its basic nature; for this is the truth and also the reality. All gross actions and interaction belong to the realm of Prakriti, and the internal actions are an integral part of the individual’s nature.

The Atma does not participate in either. The three fold energy of Prakriti has created the body and its attributes, all comprised of the three gunas. It is also these very gunas which control all gross action. Everything will happen according to the individual’s gunas; the body and the sense organs will function according to their nature. What we call destiny is the result of these gunas and their continuous and automatic interaction.

The Yogi understands this truth and remains uninfluenced by the body. When the ‘I’ identifies with the intellect, then one believes oneself to be the body, mind and intellect unit. Lord Krishna Himself says here, that God does not have any sovereignty in this sphere! This is the individual’s own internal world which he has created by his identification with the body, mind and intellect unit.

Little one, this must be carefully understood:

1. The Lord is Atma Itself; He is a non-doer.

2. Prakriti is constituted of the gunas which illuminate the world and sustain it.

This is the inherent nature of Atma and Prakriti – both are devoid of doership; both are Silence itself.

Then from where did the idea of doership erupt?

1. Then who creates?

2. Who enjoys?

3. Who forms the basis of the idea ‘I am the body?’

4. Who is it who gets attached?

a) The senses work according to their natural gunas.

b) The intellect should have been an impartial observer – for that is its natural attribute! It should have kept everyone happy and content and assisted in the successful culmination of the individual’s actions.

c) The mind should have been the epitome of love; it should have directed the senses to give to the other what it liked itself.

But it happened that the mind was enslaved by its own body. It started procuring all that it liked only for its own body. The intellect, which should have been impartial, became biased and dependent on the mind. The mind started claiming the body as its own and called it ‘I’ and ‘mine’. The intellect, too, did the same, and thus they separated that one body from the rest of the world and set about establishing it as their one-pointed quest.

The Atma is the immortal eternal Truth, possessing all the qualities of the Supreme, but the ‘I’ began to feel:

1. ‘My body is immortal;

2. My body is the only Truth;

3. My body possesses all the qualities of the Supreme.’

Thus, the ego, born of the subservience of the intellect to the mind, began to feel:

1. I am everything.

2. The world exists only for my benefit.

3. I am the body.

The ‘I’ never realised that the body, mind and intellect are all lifeless and gross objects:

a) They are all dependent on some other power.

b) They are creations of Prakriti and will all return to Prakriti to merge with dust in the course of time.

c) The ‘I’ has taken on the burden of protecting this body, never realising that the body is subject to death.

d) Actually the ego suffered the delusion of the ‘I’ being the Atma. It forgot that though the entire world abides in the Atma, the Atma is not dependent on any other support.

Little one, the truth is that ‘I am the Atma’ – but the ‘I’ which has identified itself with the mortal body, has alienated itself from the Atma. Yet it imagines itself to have all the attributes of the Atma. This is its greatest mistake.

One must reconsider the following questions:

1. Am I the Atma or am I the body created of Prakriti?

2. Am I destructible or permanent?

3. Am I the doer or a non-doer?

4. Am I immortal or destined to die?

How many problems have been created by this small little misconception!

The Lord now clarifies, that He is not the creator of the attitude of doership in the human being, nor of his craving for the fruits of action. This is a misconception arising from the delusion of the mind and intellect. The idea of doership and the individual’s desires are nothing but illusion born of imagination.

a) The ‘I’ is dependent on the mind and intellect.

b) The ‘I’ could be called their offspring.

c) With their support, the ‘I’ claims the body.

d) With their support the ‘I’ seemingly animates the hitherto inert body.

Yet, the Lord says that He has not created this ‘I’. It is enervated by the swabhav.

Now understand the connotation of swabhav (स्वभाव):

1. Swabhav is a person’s real intention.

2. It is the essence of one’s life.

3. It guides the tendencies of the mind’s thought processes.

4. It is that which inspires a certain code of conduct.

5. The basic guna or attribute and the innermost thought of a person is called swabhav.

6. Swabhav connotes any special goal one sets for oneself in life.

7. The value one sets for people and things constitutes one’s basic swabhav.

The Lord enjoins:

a) Relinquish attachments of the mind.

b) Give up desires of the mind.

c) Renounce desire for fruits of action.

d) Relinquish raag and dvesh – excessive attachment or rejection. Give up likes and dislikes – these arise in the mind.

e) Give up attachment to body – this attachment is an attribute of the mind.

The Lord is merely saying that doership etc. are based on the individual’s swabhav or nature.

Little one, the individual believes himself to be the body. If the individual thus identifies himself with his body, his swabhav will necessarily evaluate as the highest, that which pleases the body or which will establish the body, mind and intellect unit.

The most powerful are the sense organs. The mind pursues what they like. The intellect is completely disregarded in the amity of the senses and the mind. It is only when the mind and the senses become quiescent that the intellect will be awarded its rightful place. The intellect can only be gratified in solitude.

The poor intellect is continually trying to satiate the never ending appetite of the senses and the mind. But the latter are great indulgers – their desires can never be satisfied. These desires mould the individual’s swabhav, and the blind intellect carries on its futile mission of pacifying the mind and senses. Their eternal quest for self fulfilment gives rise to doership, attachment and craving for the fruit of action.

Prakriti, Gunas and Swabhav

Prakriti or Nature endowed attributes or gunas to the individual in order to facilitate him in the performance of actions in the spirit of yagya. The individual began to use those same gunas for self gratification.

Whereas the qualities of Prakriti are for universal benefit, the jiva’s swabhav, on account of his ‘I’, becomes individualistic.

The Lord is making clear through this shloka that all beings, attributes and swabhav are a fruit of the jiva’s own deeds, He Himself has no hand in their creation. Everything is flowing from the interaction of the gunas. Through Prakriti the Lord gives equally to all – two eyes, two hands, two feet, two ears and all other faculties. It is because of the jivas’ varied karmas that they are recipients of different destinies. It is up to the jiva to uplift or downgrade himself through his level of attachment.

The intellect can provide the methods whereby all can attain happiness. Unfortunately, the intellect too became attached only to a single individual.

In actual fact, the mind is an integral part of the intellect. When the intellect is established in the Supreme, the mind becomes silent. If the intellect is stable, the mind is silenced; if the intellect is awakened, it can reabsorb the mind. However, if the mind gains ascendancy, the intellect identifies with it and becomes passive and gives in to individualistic tendencies of the mind. The mind, ever engaged in selfish pursuits and enjoyments, becomes completely dependent on the sense organs which can make those enjoyable objects accessible to the mind. The mind becomes so enamoured of these objects, that it enslaves the sense organs to them, and spends its total energy in a ceaseless effort to acquire them.

If the intellect did not get attached to the body, the mind would remain unborn and all the faculties of the body would function in a pure atmosphere – rid of selfish attachments. The dharma of the intellect was to give happiness to all. However, when the intellect focused on a single body, it became blind. Had it focused on the Supreme Essence, it would never have been thus blinded.

The Lord made the jiva independent and free. The jiva lost this freedom by identifying himself with a single body. Thus arose ego, doership, attachment and all those appendages which fettered him and deprived him of his inner bliss.