XXXIII - Page 329 Home | Index | Previous | Next

You cannot Run from your Inner Enemies

If you just run away to the forest or to a cave without performing the appropriate exercises to remove your inner enemies, then, whether you like it or not, all your latent tendencies will continue to produce thoughts and actions that bind you. These impurities will lie there as seeds in your heart and prompt a stream of thoughts that will be saturated with likes and dislikes, desires and delusions. As a result, you end up forgetting your true human nature.

The Gita has shown that if you can root out the entrenched tendencies that cling to your heart, then you are free to perform any action without concern for the results. From that point on, you will not be bound by any actions that you may become engaged in. In other words, you will be freed completely from the fruits of your actions. People who do not understand this truth and end up renouncing all outside activities become mired in sloth and laziness. But the Gita has repeatedly warned that there is no room at all for laziness in the world of the spirit.

What the Gita teaches is the yoga of impersonal action, in which you remain totally detached and free of any personal interest in the work that you do and in the results that accrue from it. It means working with full concentration to the limits of your capacity for excellence, but orienting all your actions to the service of God and remaining established in God-consciousness. You will not be able to reach this high stage of desirelessness in your actions and renunciation of the fruits of your labors, as long as your vasanas which have arisen from past actions are unfavorable for spiritual progress.

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