Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)

as a sacrifice because he is freed from attachment through his mind , hear t a nd spir it being firmly foun ded in self-knowle dg^ gata^sangasya jndnd- vasiKifd^etasah . All his work ^disap pear s ~~cdm- Aid[)^‘£^ooi^as done, suff ers laya , as one might siPf in the being of &c T5rahma n, pra ^iliya te ; it has no rSetionary consequence on the soul of the apparent doer. The work is done by^the-Lord tliroi^ hisJ Njiture, i t is no longer personal to the jbtuman in strument . The woric itself becomes but p^Sr^o^tlie nature and substance of the being of the Brahman. /It isTiPthis sense that the Gita is speaking when it says that all the total ity of w ork finds it s completion, culmination, end in knowledge, sarvam karmdhhilam jn dne parisamdpyate .\ * *As a fire 2kindjedliu rns to ashes it s fuel, so the fire of knowledge turns all works^ to ashes.*' By this it is not at all mean t that when knowledge is complete, there is cessa tion from work^ What is* 4neant is made clear by the Gita when it says that he who has destroyed all doubt by knowledge and has by Yoga given up all works and is in possession of the Self is notjtoundjby his works, yoga-sannyasta-karmdnam dtmavantam na karmdni nibadhnanti, and that he whose self has become the self of all existences, acts and yet is not affected by his works, is not caught in them, receives from them no soul-ensnaring reaction, kurv ann api na lipyate . Ther efor e, it says, the Y o^ of works is better than the physical renunciation of works, because, while Sannyasa is 3difficult f or embodied beings who must do works so long as they are in the body, Yoga of works is entirely sufficient and it rapidly and easdy brings the s oul to Brahman. That Yog a of wor ks is, j^e have seen, the offering of all acti on to the Lord, which induces as its culmination an inn er a nd no t gn^^ter, a sp iritua l, not a physicaj[„^iving up of w orks in to^the ^rahman^into the being of t he Lord > bmhmani ddhdya karmdni, mayi sannyasya. When works are thus “reposed on the Brahman,” the personality of the instrumental doer ceases ; though he acts, he does nothing ; for he has given up not only the fayits of his w gr]^, but the work s themselves and the doing of them to the Lord. The Irvine then takes the burden of works from him ; the Supreme Tiecom es the doer and the ^ct and the