Action

Action is the insignia of life. The law of life proclaims that none can remain without performing activity. Everyone is made to act helplessly according to one's own inner temperament. Yet, if you choose to remain idle you lead yourself to destruction. Nature draws your attention to this law. Observe the stagnant pool and the running brook. Where water stagnates it turns filthy, dirty. Whereas running water is clear, pure. Learn the lesson from nature. If you are to succeed in life, be prosperous and peaceful, you must adopt the principle of running waters. Follow their line of action. The river keeps moving. Overcoming all obstacles. Ever progressing. It never stops until it reaches the ocean. So must you pursue the path of action until you reach the abode of Truth. The Bhagavad Gita highlights the gospel of karma action. Emphasises the importance of fulfilling your obligatory functions in life.

Inevitability of Action

The physical body needs to be kept in constant repair. You must exercise daily. But people detest the idea of physical exercise. Instead, they choose to indulge in sensual pleasure. They do not seem to realise that even enjoyment of sensual pleasures needs proper maintenance of the physical body. The neglect of physical exercise would prove detrimental to your material and spiritual wellbeing.

Value of Action

Human beings must keep pace with the march of time if they are to survive in the struggle for existence. Mere acquisition of knowledge would not suffice. Knowledge comes from the past. It has to be translated currently into action. Thoughts and ideas must be transformed into deeds.

Your motto in life should be to strive, to struggle, not to succeed. Work well accomplished is the joy of life. Success or failure is immaterial. What really matters in life is your ability to adopt action to obligation. Your business lies in action alone, not in the reward accruing from it. Let not the anxiety for enjoying the fruit disturb the course of your action.

Just be in the struggle. That becomes your bounden duty. Work on for work's sake. Learn to be indifferent towards pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow, honour or dishonour that may accrue out of your action. Your life is enriched by accomplishment of right action rather than outward success or failure. Take up your work with no axe to grind. Do what you ought to do in life. Go about it in an independent spirit. Work then becomes a pleasure. Pleasure or happiness lies in the garb of work.

Renunciation in Action

Action and renunciation may seem to contradict each other. But in reality, true work is based on the spirit of renunciation. A true worker is one who pours out his efforts for a higher cause beyond his selfish interest. And does it without an egoistic arrogation of doership. That is the spirit of renunciation to be practised. Such work commands success and prosperity concurrently with peace and bliss. You can practise it in your home, in business, in society, everywhere. There is no need to retire to the forests for living a life of renunciation.

Chronology of Action

Action is a symbol of life. As long as you live you act. The type of action executed differs from individual to individual. It depends upon the inherent cause that produces it. The root of action is one's innate nature. Every human being is distinctly individualistic. His inherent tendency, innate bent, inmost nature is known as vasanas. Vasanas are the result of the past. Past actions produce present vasanas. And present vasanas produce further actions. Vasana is the cause and action, the effect. Again, action becomes the cause and vasana, the effect. This cause-effect cycle goes on like the phenomena of tree and seed, hen and egg etc

Vasana therefore is the seed of action. The prime mover in the mechanism of action. Vasana is unmanifest. Action is the final manifestation of vasana. Each vasana before reaching its full expression, passes through the stages of thought and desire. In the chronology of an action, vasana produces thought, thought produces desire and desire produces action.

Three Types of Action

Human activities fall broadly under three categories based upon the manner in which they are performed. They are:

1. Action performed with selfish desire: This is the lowest form of existence, propelled by an individual's egocentric desire to satisfy personal motives and gain.

2. Action with unselfish desire: As a person turns spiritual, their work becomes less selfish. They visualize a high and noble ideal that serves a common cause, benefiting the community or country.

3. Action without desire: At the highest level, one carries out actions with a sense of detachment, merely doing what ought to be done, with no desire or anxiety driving them. This state of fulfillment and self-sufficiency is the ideal.

Renunciation means getting rid of the selfish ego. Banishing egocentric desires. It is work minus desire. To be poised and objective in your work, without likes and dislikes, desire and anxiety polluting your actions. Serve without a motive. Like nature, let your mind be at rest while your body is engaged in action.

Human beings often believe that work will suffer if desire does not stimulate it. But the example of a carefree child, ever active without any motive or desire, proves otherwise. The key is to rise above selfishness and perform your duties with a spirit of renunciation.