Yuva Bharati – March 2018

Yuva Bharati / March 2018 / 41

The Isopanishad does not supply these two
links between the life of action and the goal
of actionlessness and point out the goal of
actionlessness, may be secured in the midst
of action only through freedom from
attachment to action and the annihilation
of any desire for end of action”. But at any
rate it is evident that the Isopanishad goes
very much beyond the other Upanishads,
when it tries to reconcile the life action with
the life of knowledge. Knowledge leads
to one result and action to the other. But
he alone who can synthesise the claims of
knowledge and action is able by means of
action to cross the ocean of death and by
means of knowledge to attain immortality.
In this way does the Isopanishad reconcile
the claims of action and knowledge telling
us that the life of bare contemplation and
the life of bare activity are alike fraught
with evil; but that he alone may be said to
attain the goal of life who knows how to
harmonise the two different paths. Thus
we may see how the later claims of Aristotle
for the contemplative life and of Bacon for
the active life are prophetically reconciled
by the philosopher of the Isopanishad”.

(R.D.Ranade A constructive Survey page
218 – 219)

In practical yoga exercises the action and
renunciation (phala tyaga) stimulation
and relaxation, exercising right and left
parts of the body by turns are employed
in various asanas and in right nostil – left
nostil breathing. Alternating stimulation
with relaxation, and gradually reducing
the intensity of stimulation, the physical,
pranic and psychic systems are sensitized
in yoga exercises.

In Iconography this Yin-Yang [(right – left)

feminine - masculine)] reconciliation is

expressed in Art forms. The Anantashayana

posture of Vishnu represents Action in

Actionlessness. Apparently doing nothing

Vishnu does everything in reality. Contrast

this with Nataraja who by his intense action,

represents intense stillness and peace.

The artistic exquisiteness of the Dancing

Shiva is commented upon by the Nobel

Laureate Ilya Prigogine.

Says Capra,

‘Prigogine’s theory interlinks the main

characteristics of living forms in a coherent

conceptual and mathematical framework

that implies a radical reconceptualization

of many fundamental ideas associated

with structure – a shift of perception

from stability to instability, from order

to disorder, from equilibrium to non-

equilibrium, from being to becoming. At

the center of Prigogine’s vision lies the

coexistence of structure and change, of

“stillness and motion,” as he eloquently

explains with a reference to ancient

sculpture’:

“Each great period of science has led

to some model of nature. For classical

science it was the clock; for nineteenth-

century science, the period of the Industrial

Revolution, it was an engine running down.

What will be the symbol for us? What we

have in mind may perhaps be expressed

by a reference to sculpture, from Indian

or pre-Columbian art to our time. In

some of the most beautiful manifestations

of sculpture, be it the dancing Shiva or

in the miniature temples of Guerrero,