Īśo 2: Śrī Īśopaniṣad

No one wants to die, and everyone wants to live for as long as he can drag on. This temperament is not only visible individually, but also it is visible collectively in the community, society and nation. There is a hard struggle for life in every class of living entities, and the Veda says that this is quite natural for the living being. The living being is eternal by nature, but due to his bondage in the material existence he has to change his body from one to another. This process is called transmigration of the soul. This transmigration is also called Karma-bandhana, or being bound by one's own work. The living entity has to work for his livelihood because that is the law of material Nature, and if he does not act according to the prescribed duties of his particular life he transgresses the law of Nature, making himself bound more and more in the cycle of birth and death.

The cycle of birth and death is present in life other than the human form. When the living entity gets the. chance for human life, however, it is his chance to gel free from the chain of the law of karma. Karma, akarma, and vikarma are principles very clearly described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Actions which are done in terms of the prescribed duties mentioned in the revealed Scriptures are called karma. Actions which make one free from the cycle of birth and death are called akarma. And actions which are performed by the misuse of one's freedom, thereby directing oneself toward the lower regions of life, are called vikarma.

Of these three categories of activities, the one which makes one free from the cycle of further bondage to karma is preferred by intelligent men. Ordinary men want to perform good work in order to be recognized and to achieve some status of life in this world or in heaven, hut more advanced men want to he free altogether from the actions and reactions of work. Intelligent men know well that both good and bad works are equally causes of the material miseries of life. They therefore seek to do work which will free them from the reactions of good and bad work. This freedom from good and bad work is ascertained herewith in Śrī Īśopaniṣad.

The instruction of Śrī Īśopaniṣad is better explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, sometimes called the Gītopaniṣad, the cream of all the Upaniṣads. In the Bhagavad-gītā [3.9-16], the Personality of Godhead says that no one can attain the state of naiṣkarma or akarma without beginning the prescribed duties mentioned in the Vedic literature. The Vedic literature can regulate the working energy of the human being in such a way that one can gradually realize the authority of the Supreme Being. When one realizes the authority of the Personality of Godhead, it is to be understood that he has attained the stage of positive knowledge. At this purified stage of life, where the modes of Nature—namely goodness, passion and ignorance—cannot act, one is enabled to work on the basis of naiṣkarma, or work which does not bind one to the cycle of birth and death.

Factually, no one has to do anything more than to render devotional service to the Lord. In the lower stage of life, however, one can not at once adopt the activities of devotional service, nor can one completely stop reactionary work. A conditioned soul is accustomed to working for sense gratification, for his own selfish interest, immediate or extended. An ordinary man wants to work for his own sense enjoyment, and when the principle of sense enjoyment is extended from the individual to include the collective society, nation, or humanity in general, it assumes various attractive names such as altruism, socialism, communism, nationalism, humanitarianism, etc. These isms are certainly very attractive forms of Karma-bandhana, the bondage of one's own work, but the Vedic instruction of Śrī Īśopaniṣad is as follows: if you actually live for any of the above isms, make them God-centered. There is no harm in becoming a family man, an altruist, socialist, communist, nationalist, or humanitarian—provided all such activities are executed in relation with īśāvāsya, the God-centered conception.

God-centered activities are evaluated in the Bhagavad-gītā [2.40] as being so rich that even a little bit of them can save one from the greatest danger. The greatest danger of life is to glide down again into the evolutionary cycle of birth and death. If some way or other a man misses the spiritual opportunity offered by his human form of life, and thus glides down again into the evolutionary cycle, it must be considered the most regrettable incidence, although foolish man cannot see this, due to his defective senses. Śrī Īśopaniṣad advises us, therefore, to exert our energy in the īśāvāsya spirit, and in that engagement we may wish to live for many, many years. Otherwise, one's long life is no better than that of a tree, which is also a living being, and which lives for hundreds and hundreds of years. There is no point in living a long time like the trees, or breathing like the bellows, or begetting children like the hog and the dog, or eating like the camel. Even a humble life, with God-centered activities, is more valuable than the colossal hoax of so-called altruism or socialism without any relation to God.

When activities such as altruism are executed in the spirit of Śrī Īśopaniṣad, every one of them becomes a form of karma-yoga, as is recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā [18.5-9]. And that guarantees the executor against the dangers of the evolutionary process of birth and death. Such God-centered activities, even though half-finished, are still good for the executor, because they will guarantee him the human form of life in his next birth. In this way he can have another chance to improve his position on the path of liberation.