Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 14. ACTION, INACTION AND NON-ACTION
As I said earlier, even if you want to re member a friend’s name you cannot succeed as long as
you make efforts to remember. You will never remember it as long as you go on straining your
mind. Memory comes alive only when you give up efforts and become totally inactive. Similarly if
you become totally inactive – inactive in depth – the memory buried in the cosmic unconscious will
spring like an arrow from there and shoot up to your conscious mind. It is as if a flower seed buried
in the soil has sprouted and sent its shoots up in the form of a plant m your garden. And when the
meteor of remember, ing, awareness arising from the cosmic unconscious, reaches and illumines
your conscious mind, you know who you are.
So inaction is the key to remembering, as remembering is the key to devotion. On the other hand,
action is central to spiritual discipline, it is only through action that you can discipline yourself and
achieve your goal. And inaction is the door to devotion.
It would b e good to properly understand Krishna’s principle of inaction. Unfortunately it has not
been rightly understood so far; all those who have interpreted Krishna up to now seem to have
no right understanding of inaction. Most of them have interpreted inaction as renunciation. They
always said, ”Renounce the world, renounce your family, renounce everything!” But renunciation
is an act; you have to do something to renounce the world or the family. The interpreters went
on telling people to give up everything – their professions, families and even love – and escape to
mountains and monasteries. But renunciation is as much an act as indulgence is; Krishna was really
misunderstood. Inaction was thought to be just renunciation and escapism. For this reason, India
has a centuries-long tradition of renunciation and escape from life.
And all this has happened in the name of Krishna. No one has ever bothered to see that Krishna
himself is not a renunciate, he never left his world, his family and his worldly responsibilities.
Sometimes I wonder how such a long tradition can be so blind; all along it has refused to see
the stark fact that the man who applauds inaction so much is himself deeply engaged in action
throughout his life. He loves, he marries, he has children. He fights war and negotiates peace. He
does many other things. So by no stretch of imagination can Krishna’s inaction be interpreted as
renunciation and escape.
In this context Krishna uses three words: akarma, karma and vikarma, meaning inaction, action
and non-action. What is action? According to Krishna, mere doing is not action. If it is true – if
any kind of doing is action, then one could never enter into inaction. Then the inaction of Krishna’s
definition will be impossible. For Krishna, action is that which you do as a doer, as an ego. Really
action for Krishna is an egocentric act, an act in which the doer is always present. A doing with a
doer, in which one thinks himself as a doer, is action. As long as I remain a doer, whatever I do is
action. Even if I take sannyas it is an act, an action. Even renunciation becomes an action if a doer
is present in the act.
Inaction is just the opposite kind of action; it is action without a doer. Inaction does not mean
absence of action, but it certainly means absence of the doer. An egoless action is inaction. If I do
a thing without the egoistic sense that I am the doer, that I am the center of this action, it is inaction.
Inaction is not laziness as is generally understood; it is very much action, but without a doer at its
center. This thing has to be clearly understood. If the center, the ego, the I, the doer, ceases and
only action remains, it is inaction. With the cessation of the doer every action becomes inaction.
Action without a doer is inaction. It is action through inaction.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 263 Osho