the Truth, even while see ing, heari ng, touch- ing, smelli ng, eat ing, go ing,

sleep
ing and breathi ng, is frmly con vinced that the senses are occ up ied with their res
pect ive ob jects and knows for cert ain, I do noth ing at all.!" #nd he has pro
vided the ill us trat ion$ %a me p&rth&sti kartavya' tri(u loke(u ki)cana*
%&nav&ptam av&ptavya' vartaeva ca karma+i. ,I have, - .artha, no duty, nothi ng
that I have not gained and noth ing that I have to gain in the three worlds. /et 0for
the good of peo ple1, I re main al ways en gaged in ac tion.! 02.331 4e get an other
e5 am ple in the life of the sage- king 6anaka$ ,7arma+aiva hi sa'siddhim &sthit&
janak& daya8* 9er ily by ac tion alone 6anaka and oth ers att ained sa'siddhi.! 02.3:1
4hile com menti ng on this, ;hankar a- charya said that the word sa'siddhi can be
taken to mean ei ther ,pu rity of mind! or ,re al - i<a tion!. If we say that it means pu
rity of mind, then there is nothi ng il log i cal in 6anaka!s be ing es tab lished in
sa'siddhithrough act ion. #nd if re al i<a tion be the mean ing of sa' sid dhi, then
we may cons true that for some reas on, even af ter the at tain ment of re al i<a
tion, 6anaka!s ac- tiv i ties did not cease=he re mained es tab lished in re al i<a tion
along with ac tiv ity. #c cord ing to the lat ter in ter pre ta tion too, from the prac ti -
cal view point, the jnani can still be inv olved in work. ;hankara took the pres ence
or ab sence of the idea of own ers hip and des ire for re sults as the test of work and
workless ness. 4ith out the de sire for re sults or the at ti tude of a doer, work is no
work at all. ;o in this case the >ues- tion of mi5i ng work with knowle dge cann ot
arise= ,naitat karma yenaj)& nenasamucc?yeta.! @ur ther more, this state, one of
ac tiv ity to all app eara nces, repr es ents in truth the acme of knowl edge. The
sage-king 6anaka rem ained est abl ished in such knowl edge. Aow ever that may
be, herein we have an e5 pla na tion as to how some one who has reached the
#dvaitic e5 per i ence can still rem ain eng aged in ac tiv -
ity. 4e have also to keep in mind that when the an cient mas ters de nied the co e5
is tence of knowl edge and work, they were e5 am in ing the iss ue not at the
worldly 0or phe nom en al1 level but rather from the abs o lute standp oint. #l
though from the abs o lute view point knowl - edge and re nun ci a tion of ac tiv ity
are in sep a ra - bly conn ected, they did not em phas i<e e5 ter- nal ren unc i at ion
from the point of view of prac tice. Bven ;hankara charya!s line of rea - son ing here
is mainly con cerned with the state of the mind. @rom the point of view of psy - chol
ogy there is an in su per a ble bar rier be - tween the two modes of think ing= ,I am
do - ing work! and ,I am the ac tion less #t man!. Bven #nandagiri in his gloss on
;hankar- acharya!s e5 po si tion of the ;hruti te5t tapas& v&pyaliCg&t 0the knowl
edge of #t man cann ot be att ained by aust eri ty alone, witho ut for mal re nun ci a
tion or san nyasa1 has both Dpani- shadic think ing and prac ti cal con sid er ations
in mind when he ob serves$ ,Eut is there not ment ion of re al i<a tion of #t man by
Indra, 6anaka, Fargi, and othe rs in the 9ed ic te5tsG Truly it is there. #s they had no
idea of pos ses- sion, they too had that int ern al ren unc i a tion of ev ery thing
which san nyasa stands for. In - deed, the ass umpt ion of e5 tern al signs of re -
nunc i at ion is not the meani ng int ended herein.!3 It is a long-stand ing pract ice
that a spiri - tual asp i rant makes progr ess along the spiri - tual path by asc ribi
ng to hims elf the state of a perf ected pers on. That is why ;hankar- acharya, in the
course of his prefa t ory rem arks on the the chara ct eri s tics of a sthitaprajna 0per
- son of steady wis dom1 in the seco nd chap ter of the Fita, writes, ,In all spiri t ual
lite ra t ure, cul ti va tion of the at tribu tes of a per son who has reached per fec
tion is pre scribed as spir i - tual prac tice. This is be cause such cul ti va tion re
>uires a good deal of ef fort.! This leads us to the fol low ing con clu sion$ @or var i
ous rea sons, lib er ated per sons, in spite of be ing be yond all bond age of duty, ap
pear du ti ful to peo ple* a spir i tual as pi rant can prog ress by as crib ing to
3H