To Act or not to Act

I believe a lot of our life is about making decisions of whether to act or not to act and often there can be a tension between action and inaction. Our lives could be viewed as the sum total of decisions and actions that we take daily. Daily we decide whether we should do this or that. It sounds simple. However, is feeling paralysed in the moment of having to decide between doing or not doing sound familiar to you?

Yoga philosophy and the Bhagavad Gita in particular address this in depth. My understanding of those teaching is that it is best to act than no to act. Krishna says to Arjuna (v3.8): “Perform your prescribed duty, because action is better than inaction”. But even a moment of consideration of this, calls for more questioning. I wonder whether this is partly dependent on which side of the fence you sit: better to regret what hasn’t been done than to regret something done? To make things even more complicated there is also the idea of action in inaction and inaction in action. What would be considered as doing and what as not? I sometimes find myself feeling confident that I have a good grasp of these concepts, but most times I feel like I am chasing my tail. A simple every day example could be in the midst of a conversation with a group of friends or colleagues, you might be thinking should I speak and share this or not? And is the speaking and sharing the doing or is staying silent and giving space to others to share the doing? And perhaps the answer to that lies in the first component of the advice which is doing one’s “prescribed duty”. In other words, what comes to us is the thing to engage with.

There is an idea that we can use discrimination to ascertain what is the best course of action as well as be clear about what is our duty and what it is not.

One of the main ideas around action and inaction is the attachment we might have to its outcome and the way to reduce our suffering is by doing the action without putting the emphasis on the fruits/the outcome of the action. Krishna advices Arjuna (v2.47) that it is his right to engage with his prescribed duty “only but not with its fruits”, that the fruits of the action should not become one’s main motive. The first time I really came to experientially understand this idea was in my early 20s. A university student, experiencing a fair amount of stress, studying for exams that were due to take place within the space of 4 days, at a time when I thought that pretty much my whole life depended on them. I think my dad could see how stressed I was and gave me this golden advice to stop worrying about the outcome of the exams but rather to concentrate on the here and now and on the studying itself. I can’t explain how and why, but when he said that all that mattered was the studying itself (my duty) and not the outcome of the exams, I believed him! And with that belief I let go of the worry and the stress that came with it. I even started enjoying the process of studying again and as it turns out the outcome was actually ok.

Life constantly engages us with such interactions; but how easy is it to stop investing on the outcome of something and instead stay present in the here and now?

My understanding is that there are no have to’s and should’s in how we navigate through life but perhaps there are ways that we can engage and actions we can take that can reduce our suffering. If we hold no attachment to the outcome then whatever that might be, our suffering will be reduced. This guidance of how we engage with action and inaction does not require that we deny things or suppress them, in fact that will create an even greater attachment in the form of aversion. What it does ask from us is to be present and bring emphasis on the action itself. Linked to this is also the idea that truly all we need to respond to and take action towards is what is in front of us, which is our Duty.

My understanding of the scriptures is that they ask that we favour action to inaction when it comes to our Duty, to what is present in front of us to engage with, but we do so because it is there present, rather than invest and put emphasis on what engaging with what is in front of us could bring for us, or how best we can benefit from it, or even how best we can avoid it next time.

Another component to this action/inaction equation is the idea that it is far better to engage with our own duty even if we do it badly, than to take on someone else’s Duty and do that perfectly. In that process, not only do we neglect our own Duty but we also take away from someone else what it is theirs to perform.

If you have been reading my blogs or joining me in class it might sound familiar that I seem to conclude that the bottom line and the answer to all of life’s unpredictable and colourful conundrums is to be present. In conversation with someone only yesterday we reflected on how simple and yet how difficult “being present” is. If we are truly present perhaps we can discriminate what is our Duty, stay present with what is rather than investing in the outcome and in that present not get attached to the outcome or the doing itself.

To fully be present, especially in trying to ascertain what is our duty and how to engage with it, I found coming back to my body and my breath a useful place to start, to check in and find my starting point. Trust and surrender are also helpful allies. Trusting that I am and doing exactly where and what I should be, and surrendering and offering all efforts to something greater than myself, trusting that I am being looked after.

If you have engaged with setting intentions (see February post) for yourself over the last month perhaps being present could be a practice to be added to that rich tapestry of your life, perhaps together with trust and surrender and then see what happens. I would love to have your comments, thoughts and experiences below so please do share if it feels right to do so.