|
The Yoga of Knowledge and the Yoga of Action both lead to supreme Bliss
or liberation of the Self. Of the two, however, the Yoga of Action being
easier of practice is superior to the Yoga of Knowledge. A person
practising yoga of knowledge must believe, even though seeing, hearing,
touching, smelling, eating or drinking, walking, sleeping, breathing,
speaking, answering the calls of nature, grasping, and opening or
closing the eyes, that he does nothing, holding that it is the senses
that are moving among their objects. He, who acts offering all actions
to God, and shaking off attachment, remains untouched by sin, as the
lotus leaf by water. A person practising yoga of action must perform
action only with his senses, mind and intellect and body as well,
withdrawing the feeling of mine in respect of them and shaking off
attachment, simply for the sake of self-purification. Offering the fruit
of actions to God such a person attains everlasting peace in the shape
of God realization, whereas, he who works with a selfish motive, being
attached to the fruit of actions through desire, gets tied down. God
determines neither the doership nor the doings of men, nor even their
contact with the fruit of actions; but it is nature alone that
functions. The omnipresent God does not receive the virtue or sin of
anyone. Knowledge is enveloped in ignorance; hence it is that beings are
constantly falling a prey to delusion. In the case, however, of those
whose said ignorance has been set aside by true knowledge of God, that
wisdom shining like the sun reveals the supreme.
|
|
