Chapter 5 - Verse 13

Actions are either the obligatory duties (nitya-karmani), or those arising on the occurrence of some special events (naimittika-karmani), or those intended for securing some special ends, and which are only optional (kamya-karmani), of those which are forbidden (pratishiddha-karmani). The man who has subdued the senses, renounces all actions in speech, thought, and deed, by discrimination, by seeing inaction in action, and rests happily. He rests happily because he has given up all action in speech, thought and deed, because he is without worry, because his mind is calm, because, excepting the Self, all interests (foreign to the Self) have departed from his mind,—Where and how does he rest?—In the body which has nine openings; seven in the head, being the organs of sensation; two nether ones for the passage of the urine and the dung. As having these nine openings, the body is said to be a nine-gated city. It is like a city, with the Self for its monarch, inhabited by the citizens of the senses, mind, intellect, as well as their objects,—all working for the sole benefit of their Lord and producing consciousness of various objects. In such a nine-gated city the embodied one rests, having renounced all action.

(Objection) :—Of what use is the qualification “he rests in the body”? Every man, be he a samnyasin or not, rests in the body only. So, the qualification is meaningless.

(Answer) :—He that is ignorant identifies himself with the mere aggregate of the body and the senses, and thinks : “I rest in a house, on the ground, on a seat.” Such a man regarding the mere body as himself, cannot indeed cherish the idea that he rests in the body as in a house. But in the case of a man who regards the Self as distinct from the aggregate of the body, &c., the idea that he rests in the body is quite possible. And it is also right that he should renounce by thought—by knowledge, by discriminative wisdom—the action attributed to the Self through ignorance, but which really pertains to the not Self. Though a man has attained discriminative wisdom (i.e., has realised his true Self as distinguished from the not-Self) and has renounced all concern with action, still, it may be said that he rests in the nine-gated city of the body as in a house, inasmuch as his personal consciousness (of resting arises only with reference to the body in virtue of the traces of the unspent portion of the prarabdha-karma—the karma which brought the present body into existence—still continuing to be felt. Thus the qualification ‘he rests in the body’ has a meaning, as pointing to a distinction between the respective standpoints of the wise and the ignorant.

(Objection) :—It is true that he renounces the actions of the body and of the senses attributed falsely to the Self through ignorance; still, the power of acting and of causing to act may be inherent in the Self and may remain in him who has renounced actions.

(Answer) :—The Lord says : He neither acts himself, nor causes the body and the senses to act.

(Question) :—Do you mean that the power of acting and of causing to act is inherent in the Self and that it ceases by renunciation, like the motion of a moving person : or that the power is not inherent in the Self?

(Answer) :—The power of acting or of causing to act is not inherent in the Self; for, the Lord has taught that the Self is unchangeable (ii. 25), and “though seated in the body, he acts not, nor is he tainted” (xiii. 31). The sruti says, “It thinks as it were and moves as it were.” (Bri. Up. 4-3-7).