Some seekers of moksha or absolute liberation are often perplexed by an ethical dilemma: is it too selfish to seek my own liberation while the whole world around me burns? Some others arrive at the same dilemma even when they proceed from the opposite direction: if it is right knowledge which burns away the chains of bondage keeping us caught in the cycle of birth and death, should we not make the attaining of right knowledge our only goal, while summarily suspending all other pursuits, even if that act of suspension exacts from us an enormous personal cost?
Is there a dichotomy between the path of right knowledge and the path of action? This indeed is the question which lies at the heart of the matter. It gives rise to such ethical perplexities, which keep famously reappearing in the now classic dialectical discourses found throughout the Mokṣaśāstra literature, most notably in the Bhagavad-Gita and in the Yoga Vāśiṣṭha. Interestingly enough, the preceptors in these two great books of Mokṣaśāstraappear to be representing two distinct worlds – and as such, two different paths – on account of their work, on account of the role they played in their societies, on account of their locations in the Varṇāśrama matrix.
One of them is Sri Krishna: a Kshatriya, a most influential chief of the Yādavas, a great political figure, a man who belonged to the world of warriors and of ruthless war-strategies, a man of action; whereas the other is Vaśiṣṭha: a Brāḥmaṇa (we are reminded of his epic encounter with King Viśvāmitra in which the latter lost his faith in the value of kṣatra-balaor physical prowess and decided to devote his life to the pursuit of brahma-bala or spiritual prowess), a great rishi, a sage par excellence who had attained the highest enlightenment, a man of the world of learning, a man of knowledge. For this reason, it may be surprising for some to know that both Sri Krishna and Vaśiṣṭha concur on the indispensability of both action and right knowledge for the seeker of moksha.
Both preceptors have categorized action into two classes: action in ignorance, and action in right knowledge. ‘Action in right knowledge’ is an action undertaken even after right knowledge has dawned on the sādhaka, the seeker of moksha. Right knowledge is the realization that all, including the sādhaka himself, is Brahman – the Absolute, the undivided pure consciousness, the first principle. The attainment of such knowledge dissolves the illusion of the world of subject-object binary. And ‘action in ignorance’ is that category which encompasses all those actions that are undertaken without having attained right knowledge. In this connection, Sri Krishna has stated in the Bhagavad-Gita that “[A] person does not attain freedom from action by the non-performance of actions; nor does he attain fulfilment through mere renunciation.” (Bhagavad-Gita 3.4)
It is not possible to attain freedom from action by the non-performance of actions – sounds paradoxical, right? Furthermore, no less an authority than the Vedas state that theSaṁnyāsins renounce their homes and all other associated worldly affairs only to attain right knowledge, the Paramātman. What, then, is the utility of work, of any kind of action, for the sādhaka? Anticipating this query, Sri Krishna concludes his statement by saying “nor does he attain fulfilment through mere renunciation.” This is precisely where Sri Krishna starts laying down a solid ethic for the seeker. This ethic provides the seeker with a path to be followed, it helps him determine his attitude towards action. In other words, it enables him with the power to take decisions in the face of uncertainty – the uncertainty that arises from a profound analysis of one’s very being, and as such it is an uncertainty of the most unsettling kind. It should be noted that this kind of uncertainty is not arising due to some external factors that often create obstructions on the path to success of an endeavour, of any endeavour. The specific uncertainty in this matter, which may perhaps be summarised by the phrase “to act, or not to act”, is of the nature of an apparently unsurmountable existential problem.
It has everything to do with the very nature of the ignorance which has prompted the seeker to seek moksha, in the first place. The ignorance which has created the apparent duality of subject and object for the seeker, is the same ignorance which misguides the seeker in his attempt to determine the means of achieving renunciation. For, as MadhusūdanaSarasvatī elucidates Sri Krishna’s statement in his commentary, “renunciation itself is not possible without purity of mind born of (selfless) actions. Even if it (saṁnyāsa) is somehow undertaken out of mere eagerness, it does not culminate in yielding its fruit.”Indeed, further light is shed on the matter by Sri Krishna by his immediately next utterance in the Bhagavad-Gita: “…no one ever remains even for a moment without doing work. For, all are made to work under compulsion by the guṇas born of Nature (Prakṛti).”
Therefore no one, not even the possessor of right knowledge, can remain without undertaking some form of action or another. This point, although it sounds contradictory, has been explained by Vaśiṣṭha in great detail in the Yoga Vāśiṣṭha. In it, Sri Rama – the young prince of Ayodhya – is the seeker of right knowledge, and he is perplexed by the same ethical dilemma, which he expresses in the form of a question to the venerable sage who is his preceptor. Sri Rama asks: what ills are begotten if a possessor of right knowledge, one who has been able to get rid of such false notions as ‘I’, ‘mine’ etc., goes on to undertake actions? And if he stops undertaking actions, what good does that bring about? He adds that, in his opinion, renouncing actions and undertaking actions are equivalent for such a person, viz. one who has already attained right knowledge.
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