V: 5

Chapter 5, Verse 5

"Take either path
And tread it to the end
Which is the same.
They see indeed the truth
Who see that both paths
Lead to the Self
And both lead
To selfless action."

Sri Aurobindo:

"The wise know that actions are not theirs, but Nature's, and by that knowledge they become free. They do no actions, though actions are done through them. They are awareness of the Self personified. They see all existences as becomings of that Self-existent Being. All their actions are only the development of cosmic Nature working through their own individual natures, and their own actions are part of that same cosmic activity."

Srila Prabhupada:

"Superficially one process appears to involve detachment, and the other process appears to involve attachment. However, detachment from matter and attachment to Krishna are one and the same. One who can see this sees things as they are."

Eckhart Tolle:

"There are three words that convey the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with the now. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance."

[Re Aurobindo's: "...actions are not theirs, but Nature's..." This is how it is instinctively with animals. There is no "free choice" and no Karma accrues. The wise similarly act instinctively, intuitively, spontaneously, in alignment with the higher power in the universe. This pure instrumentality has left the "free choice" of the rest of us in its wake. No new Karma accrues, and puppethood, the true freedom, becomes operative. To arrive at this sublime state, what one could call one's natural state, one must overcome the ordinary condition of humanity: identification with name and form. As Baba Hari Dass says, "Yoga is an unnatural path." An unnatural path leads one to the natural state of oneness with Being...how paradoxical!

To return to Richard Bach's parable about the crystal river...it was "natural" for all those creatures to cling to the rocks on the bottom. Why do we call that "natural"? Well, everybody did it. It took a great deal of courage and fortitude for that one special creature to let go. It was "unnatural". What happens when he lets go of the rock on the bottom of the crystal river? He becomes one with the flow of that great river, no longer a prisoner of separateness, but consciously one with the higher power to do with him as it sees fit. This is the natural law that animals, instinct-bound as they are, follow without deviation and as a matter of course. For us to follow it consciously, we must break through our conditioning.]