Now the doer himself is divided three-fold.
muktasaṅgo’nahaṁvādī dhṛtyutsāhasamanvitaḥ | siddhyasiddhyornirvikāraḥ kartā sāttvika ucyate ||18.26||
The one who is free from attachment, who has no egotism, who is endowed with resolve and enthusiasm and is unperturbed in success and failure, is called a sāttvika doer.
The agent - kartā who is sāttvika, is muktasaṅgaḥ - one who has no attachment to what he does, and without pride or egoism - anahaṁvādī. He has no false expectations of accomplishment or any commitment to the result of the action that he is doing. And he appreciates fully that everything is given to him, therefore he has no pride.
Further he has dhṛti - resolution or perseverance. His resolution is for his clarity of the mind for the sake of moksa. The word dhṛti itself comes from the root dhṛ - to sustain, and thus it is which sustains a thing. If we start something, and then later relax our efforts or give it up there is no dhṛti. Even if there is dhṛti, it must be backed by utsāha - the energy / enthusiasm. Proper and adequate effort is required for the fulfilment of even a firm resolve. The one who is endowed with resolution backed up by effort and enthusiasm - dhṛtyutsāhasamanvitaḥ is sāttvika-kartā. Furthermore he is not subject to any emotional turbulence in success and failure - siddhyasiddhyornirvikāraḥ.
rāgī karmaphalaprepsurlubdho hiṁsātmako’śuciḥ | harṣaśokānvitaḥ kartā rājasaḥ parikīrtitaḥ ||18.27||
The one who has a predominance of rāga and a predominant desire for the result of action, who is greedy, whose nature is to hurt, who is not clean and who is subject to elation and depression is called a rājasa doer.
He is called rājasa-kartā because he is a rāgī - one who has a predominance of rāga. Because of rāga and dvesa all actions he performs are purely based on his likes and dislikes. Because he has a pronounced desire for the results of actions, he is called karmaphalaprepsuḥ. He is lubdhaḥ - greedy or miserly. And he is one whose nature is to hurt other - hiṁsātmakaḥ. He is also aśuciḥ - not clean, either inside or outside.
Further, he is just the opposite of the agent who is sāttvika. The person under discussion here is harṣaśokānvitaḥ - one who is subject to elation and depression when things go well or badly for him. Then the third type of kārta is being described.
ayuktaḥ prākṛtaḥ stabdhaḥ śaṭho naiṣkṛtiko’lasaḥ | viṣādī dīrghasūtrī ca kartā tāmasa ucyate ||18.28||
The one who is disturbed, immature, irreverent, deceptive, cruel, lazy, given to sadness, and a procrastinator is called a tāmasa doer.
The word ayuktaḥ refers to one who is not together, a person who is disturbed. He cannot apply his mind properly, and therefore, his thinking and behaviour are improper. And he has a mind that is prākṛtaḥ - immature. He is also stabdhaḥ - irreverent. Śankarācārya says this kind of person is unbending like a stick, he does not prostrate to anybody. There is no question of any kind of surrender to anything because he is absolutely irreverent.
Further, he is a śaṭhaḥ - very deceptive. He can be so deceptive that he can present himself as though he is not deceptive. In other words, he is an impostor. And he is naiṣkṛtikaḥ - cruel and alasaḥ - completely lazy. He is one who is always given to sadness / depression - viṣādī. And he is a procrastinator - dīrghasūtrī. This is all because he has a disposition which is dull, and he is called as tāmasa-kartā.
buddherbhedaṁ dhṛteścaiva guṇatastrividhaṁ śṛṇu |
procyamānamaśeṣeṇa pṛthaktvena dhanañjaya ||18.29||
Dhanañjaya (Arjuna)! Please listen to the three-fold difference of the mind and of the resolve, according to guṇa, that is being told completely and severally.
Previously we saw how knowledge was divided into three types. Now the buddhi is being divided. What is the difference between buddhi and jñāna? Buddhi is the faculty of thinking, while jñāna is the actual thought modification, vṛtti that obtains in the buddhi. Then dhṛti - resolve, is also three-fold.
First the sāttvikī-buddhi is being told.
pravṛttiṁ ca nivṛttiṁ ca kāryākārye bhayābhaye |
bandhaṁ mokṣaṁ ca yā vetti buddhiḥ sā pārtha sāttvikī ||18.30||
The mind, which knows the pursuit of karma and renunciation, what is to be done and what is not to be done, what is to be feared and what is not to be feared, and bondage and freedom, that (mind), Pārtha (Arjuna)! Is sāttvikī.
Buddhi is a rational faculty, where the decision is made. It well ascertains that pursuit of karma - pravṛttiṁ is the cause of bondage. But when it is done with karma-yoga attitude, it becomes the secondary cause for moksa because it involves karma-phala-tyaga - renunciation of the result of an action. Then it is not really pravṛttiṁ, but nivṛttiṁ - giving up. Even though the person may be engaged in many activities, when they are done for the sake of mental purification, with the attitude of offering the action to Īśvara, then moksa - freedom is the result. For mental purification, nothing is added on here, we only have to remove rāga-dvesa in general. This is the term that we use for all the impurities like guilt, hurt, anger, and so on. When the mind is free from these obstructions, one can see the nature of oneself clearly.
Buddhi knows what is kārya-akārye - actions that have to be done and those that are not to be done. bhaya-abhaye - what is to be feared and what is not to be feared. Further he knows what is bandhaṁ - bondage and mokṣaṁ - freedom. People have varieties of notion of bondage, but here the buddhi knows that ignorance is bondage. The life of becoming - samsāra, born of self-ignorance, is the bondage from which one seeks release. The buddhi that knows this, is called sāttvikī.
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