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Worksheet 15

 

Who Is The Doer?

 

Self-Inquiry & Self-Reflection: "Who Is The Doer?"

This whole idea of “doership” is important, but elusive...

 

(a) Mark the 2 statements below that are the most exciting

     or interesting to you.

(b) Put a ? mark by the 2 foggiest.

(c) How to lift the fog? Four hints:

…See Worksheet #59 “Be An Instrument.”

…Be persistent yet patient; nature’s fog lifts in its own time.

…If it’s available, read the full text in the book, "The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners" (Chapter 5:7-15)

…Rest assured, in due time you will rise above the mist.

 ________________

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna explains that:

 

“Purifying your mind makes your sense of doership vanish—then God becomes the doer…

 

___ 1) Always think: The Real I, Atma, does nothing—this bodily ‘I’ is but an instrument.

 

___ 2) Actions pertaining to bodily existence such as seeing, hearing, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, talking, and even blinking—all take place in the worldly self, which is not the True Self, not the Atma.

 

___ 3) All your actions and activities may seem real, but they are merely interactions among the bodily senses and worldly objects—just nature at  work.

 

___ 4) Atma is beyond nature, beyond all worldly matters. The lotus stays clean even as it sits in muddy water. Similarly, you cannot be tainted when you offer up all your actions to the Divine. Perform all your work dispassionately and offer up all desire for the fruits of your actions to the Divine.

 

___ 5) Purity of action, mind, and heart is absolutely essential for further spiritual growth. The yogi (godly person) who has turned his or her whole life Godward, considers the body, senses, and intellect as instruments for self-purification.

 

___ 6) Do not incessantly drive your self to act or to involve others in action. When impelled by desire you get entangled in agitations and anxieties of the mind. Live as the indweller, contented, a mere resident of the body.

 

___ 7) Grasp this mystery: God established this system but does not operate it. God, Divinity, does not instill the sense of doership (which is ego) into humanity. Divinity does not even link karma to your actions. Nature does all that. All actions, all works, all karma belong to nature, not to the Divine, not to God.

 

___ 8) You seal your own fate!  Humanity determines its own earthly destiny! The Divine is neither responsible for, nor does the Divine take note of anyone’s bad, or even good deeds.

 

___ 9) Both bad and good karma is the result of actions performed by people who mistakenly think that their Self (Atma) is connected to the worldly—which it is not!

 

The Divine (Atma, the true Self) is absolute perfection, poise, and bliss. Worldly acts have no place in this blessed purity.”   – Krishna

 

 ________________

 

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