The previous article in this series explored the nature of the jiva, or the individual entity we take ourselves to be.

The jiva, you will recall, consists of a gross (physical) body, a subtle body (comprising the mind, intellect and ego) and the causal body (unconscious). These are the instruments through which consciousness expresses in the material plane; what Swami Chinmayananda called the ‘equipment’ by which the Self, consciousness, transacts with the world.

The Self, however, performs no action.

As Krishna states in the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

“Know Me [the Self] to be beyond doing, ever changeless and free. I have no personal desire to act, nor do I long for particular results. The one who knows the Self as actionless is no longer bound by karma.”

If the Self doesn’t act, however, and you are the Self, then how does action happen?

From the perspective of the jiva, it certainly seems as though you’re acting. Everyday you perform numerous actions, from brushing your teeth first thing in the morning, to going to work, eating, making decisions and implementing various goals and projects.

Krishna actually admits that “Even the wisest of men can be confused by the distinction between action and actionlessness.”

The Three Orders of Reality

In order to understand the nature of action, it’s necessary to consider what Vedanta calls the three orders reality. Most of the confusion around the topic of doership comes from confusing these levels.

These three orders of reality are the absolute, the objective and the subjective.

1. The Absolute Order of Reality (Paramartika)

The absolute reality, paramartika satyam, is Brahman, the Self. It is free of attribute, limitless, divisionless and beyond birth and death. As the very ground of existence, nothing can exist without it, including the other two orders of reality. The absolute alone is satya, while all else is mithya. When we speak about the Self, we’re referring to this absolute order of reality.

2. The Objective/Empirical Order of Reality (Vyavaharika)

Courtesy of maya, within the absolute we experience the objective, empirical universe; the world of form and experience. This order of reality, vyavaharika satyam, includes all the elements, the stars, galaxies, worlds, objects, all the jivas, and anything perceivable to the senses.

The objects of the empirical order of reality, maya, clearly exist, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to experience them. However, they cannot be considered absolutely ‘real’, because, as we’ve demonstrated, they are finite and have no independent existence of their own, just as pots do not exist independently of the clay. As an effect, the objective reality is always entirely dependent upon its cause—which is pure awareness, the Self, or the absolute order of reality.

3. The Subjective Order of Reality (Pratibhasika)

Within the objective order of reality appears a third order of reality, called the subjective or pratibhasika world. This is the private of the world of the jiva’s imagination, projections and dreams.

In our dreams at night we experience all kinds of things that have no empirical existence. However, they do exist at a personal, subjective level, because we clearly experience them.

It’s not only in sleep that we experience this imagined world. We also experience it throughout the day. Whenever you find yourself daydreaming, imagining or fantasising, you’re inhabiting pratibhasika satyam, the jiva’s subjective order of reality; a place accessible only to you.

Fears, projections, and mistaken notions are also pratibhasika. Vedanta famously uses the metaphor of the snake and the rope. One night, a weary traveller reaches the outskirts of a village and stops by a well. He’s about to quench his thirst when he seizes up in terror, having caught sight of a snake by the side of the well, its head upraised and poised to strike. It’s not until another man approaches with a lantern that the traveller realises it isn’t a snake at all. It’s simply a length of rope coiled by the side of a bucket.

When it comes to pratibashika, what you see is not actually there. It’s an error of perception; a projection caused by the mind. But, real or not, you still see and experience it, so in that moment, it does inhabit a certain, subjective, order of reality.

Confusing the Orders of Reality

Throughout our day, we flit between these latter two orders of reality; interacting with the objective reality, and creating all kinds of subjective interpretations and alternative realities out of our judgements, ignorance and projections.

The subjective order of reality is a creation of the jiva’s mind. It’s a private world, experienceable only by that particular jiva. The objective order of reality is Ishvara’s creation, arising from this innate cosmic intelligence. It’s not a private reality, for it is experienced by all jivas. Both these orders of reality are, however, mithya. They borrow their existence from the absolute order of reality, which is satya.

Perhaps the most helpful way of understanding the difference between these levels of reality is to again consider dreaming. Your dreams occupy one level of reality, in which you can experience all kinds of wondrous and terrifying things. Upon waking, however, you find yourself completely unchanged by whatever happened in this dream. In your dream you may have murdered someone, but upon waking, you don’t go hand and yourself in to the nearest authorities.

That’s because what happens in one order of reality is particular to that order. There’s no overlap. Your dreams won’t suddenly spill into your waking reality. And neither your dreams or your waking reality in any way affect the absolute reality; the changeless ground of existence which is pure, undifferentiated awareness/consciousness.

Sticking with the dream analogy, you can’t say that your dream didn’t exist, for you clearly experienced it. But knowledge negates the dream as nothing but a projection in consciousness, from which it borrowed its limited existence.

In terms of doership, the dream occurred because of you, but you cannot say that you were the doer of the dream. There was no doership involved. The dream was simply an appearance in consciousness; its form and content determined by factors outside your conscious control.

To summarise the three orders of reality: the jiva’s subjective world of thoughts, interpretations and dreams is superimposed upon Ishvara’s objective/empirical world. In fact, the jiva itself is a product of and is non-separate from Ishvara. Both these orders of reality take place within the underlying absolute reality that is the Self—the substratum from which all things derive their existence.

How Action Happens

You might be wondering how this talk of orders of reality relates to action and actionlessness. In short, at the absolute order of reality, the Self is actionless. Courtesy of maya, however, action occurs at the objective order of reality; the world of names and forms.

In much the same way as the sun enables all life to exist without doing anything itself other than shining, the Self is the principle by which all the creation is made possible, while itself remaining actionless.

While the Self is motionless, everything in the material creation exists in a state of perpetual motion. Even things that appear to be inert, such as a rock, are bursting with activity at the subatomic level: a frenetic dance of electrons, protons and neutrons, all driven by the innate organising intelligence of Ishvara.

While the jiva is quick to claim ownership of its actions, all action ultimately belongs to Ishvara, as we shall see. After all, Ishvara set up the entire mechanism by which the jiva functions.

In order for the jiva to perform any action, five factors must be in place: the physical body, the subtle body, the physiological system, the ego, and, of course, Ishvara.

The physical body and the senses of perception and action are obviously essential to the performance of any action. As, of course, are the physiological systems (such as respiration, circulation and digestion) necessary for the body and mind to function. Also involved is the subtle body, which includes the mind, intellect and ego.

So how does action happen? First of all, our senses relay information to the mind, which then filters, questions and interprets the data. The intellect then weighs up our options and, using past knowledge and experience (and, indeed, impelled by the causal body’s vasanas), decides on an appropriate response. The mind then emotes, and this emotion compels action. Finally, the ahamkara, or the ego/doer function, then performs the action using the organs of action.

It’s important to note that although the ego thinks of itself as a lone authority and the sole agent of action, it’s actually only one factor among many.

The ego is our sense of autonomous being; of being the one that initiates actions and takes responsibility for the results.

While a vital component of the subtle body, the ego nevertheless has an overinflated sense of its own importance. It puts its stamp on everything, retrospectively ‘owning’ every thought and feeling, when, in fact, it’s only the tip of a very large iceberg.

Ishvara is the Doer

While the ego sees itself as the sole agent of action, its agency is limited. After all, the jiva doesn’t even have control of the thoughts and feelings arising in its mind. These appear in the subtle body automatically, arising from the causal body, the unconscious, which is Ishvara.

Avidya (self-ignorance) causes the jiva to identify with these thoughts and feelings. The ego invests them with “I”-ness, and they become my thoughts and feelings. Taking appearance to be real, the jiva believes itself to be a limited entity at the mercy of a separate and disconnected universe.

From ignorance, a world of desires and fears is born, predisposing the jiva to act. With each and every action, the vasanas grow stronger, compelling the jiva to keep acting again and again, all the while becoming ever-more entangled in the net of samsara.

The jiva’s mistake is taking ownership of what ultimately doesn’t belong to it. In actual fact, the jiva isn’t the doer. It has a sense of doership, of agency, but everything in the objective realm, in maya, belongs to Ishvara.

The entirety of the creation is Ishvara—the whole manifested universe. While the ego considers itself to be the sole author of its actions, it’s impossible to discount Ishvara. Ishvara is the environment in which the action takes place, and the force that, in the form of vasanas, generates the action in the first place.

In spite of what most personal development and motivational gurus might have us believe, the jiva is not captain of the ship. Ishvara created the jiva’s gross and subtle bodies and the causal body. Furthermore, the entire creation is controlled by Ishvara’s laws. Everything happens according to these laws, including the jiva’s thoughts and feelings, as determined by the gunas and vasanas.

The ego doesn’t like to hear that. It doesn’t want to be out of a job, after all, or to suffer a humiliating demotion. Its job is to take ownership of all its thoughts and actions, and it fundamentally believes itself to be responsible for doing them.

This notion of doership is a hardwired illusion, however. In order for the jiva to be the doer, the sole agent of action, it would have to be aware of and in control of all the factors that generate and influence action. Clearly, this is not possible.

As Carl Sagan once said:

“If you wish to create an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the whole universe.”

Because Ishvara created the whole universe and the laws that run the universe, including all the jivas, the ultimate doer is Ishvara.

The Issue of Free Will

Does this mean that free will doesn’t exist?

It’s hard to give a simple yes or no to this question. From the perspective of the Self, there’s no free will, because the Self has no will at all. It has no will because there’s nothing other than it. What could the Self possibly want when it is already everything everywhere?

The question of free will with regards to Ishvara and the objective order of reality (vyavaharika) is also irrelevant. Ishvara operates according to universal laws, of which it is both the author and the implementer. This is a lawful universe and those laws remain constant.

As wielder of maya, Ishvara has all-power and all-knowledge, so it is conceivable that Ishvara could exercise will to change the rules of the game. But this is an impersonal, objective creation. Changing even one aspect—say, making fire cold instead of hot—would disrupt the entire creation and upset the dharma field. Ishvara’s will is dharma. By living in alignment with dharma, the jiva is living in alignment with God.

When it comes to the jiva, there is an apparent free will. Unlike plants and animals, which live entirely according to their nature, human beings have the ability to exercise a degree of choice.

Although we have no direct say over the body we’re given, we can choose whether we eat and live healthily, how we style our hair, and what kind of clothes we wear. Similarly, we may have little control over the external world, but with luck we can decide where we want to live, who we want to be around, and what kind of environment we create around us. We can choose whether we have tea or coffee, an apple or an orange. Heck, now you can even choose your gender if you’re not happy with the one you were born with!

Of course, any objective analysis of human experience will conclude that most of the choices we make are pre-determined rather than volitional. Our behaviour and choices are largely determined by our environment, and our conditioning in the form of the vasanas and gunas. That’s why it’s accurate to say that it’s really Ishvara that’s running this whole show.

However, the apparent free will of the jiva is an essential component of our makeup. Rather than adopting a fatalistic attitude and refusing to budge from the couch, it’s imperative that we exercise this capacity. Life is a dance, a show, and it’s important that we ‘get with’ the show.

For the jiva, one choice is always preferable to another. Following dharma is unquestionably the best option, because adharma comes rife with adverse consequences.

Of course, a person’s nature or upbringing may incline them to perform adharmic action. That’s why the intellect should always be employed to determine whether our actions are right and appropriate.

In short, we must live consciously rather than unconsciously; our actions guided by a discriminating intellect rather than the blind reactivity of emotion and impulse.

The complimentary principles of dharma and karma yoga provide a solid template for our interactions with the world. This not only ensures that our actions are in harmony with Ishvara, but effortlessly relieves the stress caused by our burden of apparent doership.

For the jnani, whose mind is blessed by the light of integrated Self-knowledge, the sense of doership has been completely negated. Doership and will are seen as belonging only to mithya; the empirical world of the senses. The Self, as satya, remains ever free even as the phenomenal universe continues its eternal dance.

Deleting the Karma Account

In the Gita, Krishna states that “the wise see actionlessness in action”.

This means that even in the midst of action, the jnani is aware that the Self is not the doer. The Self is that by which action happens, while itself remaining free of action.

If you really were the doer, there’d be no escaping samsara, because the very basis of samsara is attachment to action and its results. The only way out of it is by examining and negating the whole notion of doership.

As Swami Dayananda notes:

“The destruction of something belonging to a given order of reality can only be brought about by shifting to a higher order of reality. For example, when the dreamer wakes up, everything that was done in the dream is destroyed. Therefore, destruction can only take place by falsification. To falsify what is false is knowledge.”

When all notions of doership as seen as belonging to mithya and not satya; to the empirical reality and not the absolute reality, the notion of the Self as a doer is negated.

Ahamkara, the ego, is an obstacle to Self-knowledge because it places a stamp of “I-ness” on anything it touches. An imposter self subverting your self-identification, it keeps you bound to the notion that you are a limited, time-bound entity.

Contrary to what some spiritual teachings assert, the ego cannot be destroyed, nor need to be. It simply needs to be understood for what it is. The ego is not the Self, although it believes that it is. As an observable component of the subtle body, it is mithya and is dependent on the Self, consciousness, for its very existence.

While action is continuously happening in the domain of maya, this action is specific to the empirical order of reality. The Self, the absolute, remains free of all action.

Even if you still take yourself to be a jiva, the above analysis makes it clear that doership belongs to Ishvara and neither the jiva nor the Self. Either way, you are off the hook—for you are free of doership. If karma doesn’t belong to you, then the results of karma don’t belong to you either. Action and its results belong to Ishvara alone.

When you no longer identify as a jiva, there’s no longer anyone to claim ownership of the results of karma. Your ‘karma account’ is deleted from the system, so to speak.

While prarabdha karma—the karma fructifying in this particular lifetime—still has to play itself out, Self-knowledge as good as neutralises it. As a jnani, a liberated soul, you are insulated from this karma because your mind remains alike in both favourable or unfavourable conditions. No new karma can be accrued because there is no longer an ‘addressee’ on file.

Unencumbered by the ego’s delusions of doership and false self-identification, you come to know yourself as whole, complete, and endlessly content in yourself alone. You no longer need to manipulate the outer world and chase after objects in order to be happy. Why would you when you have an unlimited source of happiness within you?

Action for the Enlightened

The knower of the Self attains life’s highest goal and has nothing more to seek in the world. For the ignorant, action arises out of the need to become somebody; to attain fullness, happiness and wholeness. But knowing oneself to be already whole, the jnani has nothing to gain or to prove. Their actions spontaneously align with dharma because they have no reason to violate it.

An enlightened mind no longer takes itself to be a finite entity appearing in and subject to the limitations of a hostile external world. Everything is seen as the Self. The jnani views the entire world as an appearance in awareness just as the dream-world appears in consciousness at night.

No longer lost in endless self-rumination, nor gripped by compulsive desires and fevered projections about the past and future, the liberated live in the present moment, enjoying life for what it is, free of the need to grasp and control.

While the samsari performs action for happiness, the jnani performs action from happiness. Whereas the samsari works for fulfilment, the jnani works with fulfilment. Whatever the samsari is seeking, the jnani has already found.

Devoid of egoistic desire or will, the liberated act to bless the world rather than to take from the world.

Vedanta defines success as the ability to manage both the successes and failures of life with equal grace. It is, after all, impossible to experience one without the other. Alike in both good fortune and bad, and free of emotional dependence on objects, only the jnani is able to truly enjoy the game of life. Such souls view life as a lila; as a divine game or sport.

Self-knowledge shifts the locus of our identity from jiva to the Self; from mithya to satya. Of course, the body, mind, intellect and ego remain for their allotted lifespan. Life continues its merry dance. The jiva still has to get up in the morning, make the bed and go about its day. Action, therefore, continues as before according to our karma.

The wise do not, therefore, renounce action by abstaining from action—which is, after all, an impossible task. Instead, they renounce action through knowledge. They continue to act, but no longer identify themselves as the doer of those actions.

Swami Paramarthananda likens this to selling a house but continuing to live in it. Everything might seem the same and life goes on as before, but the deeds have been handed over to Ishvara (who, in actual fact, owned everything all along). Instead of living with a sense of ownership and entitlement, the wise live as trustees, with the knowledge that everything in this world is on temporary loan from Ishvara.

As that which manufactures and maintains the entire creation, Ishvara has provided the house—specifically, our body and environment—and takes care of most of its upkeep.

In exchange for rent, we are expected to follow dharma and keep everything healthy, clean, and in order. While ultimate responsibility belongs to the landlord, we still have to take good care of the landlord’s property. After all, anyone causing too many problems for the landlord runs the risk of eviction!

Life as an Offering

It’s only appropriate to live with gratitude and devotion. Krishna talks about living a prayerful life; a life of devotion and sacrifice. We’ve been given everything by Ishvara, and therefore we have a debt to repay.

Krishna outlines different ways we can give yajnas, or sacrificial offerings. This includes helping others, whether in terms of our time, effort, or money, practicing moderation in diet and lifestyle, and performing yoga to purify the body and mind.

The highest form of offering, however, is the pursuit and practice of Self-knowledge, which liberates the jiva from bondage to action and samsara. That’s why Krishna recommends finding a qualified teacher who can unfold the vision of Vedanta and resolve any doubts or confusion that might arise.

In order for the teaching to work, you have to ensure that you are a suitably qualified student. Therefore, you must cultivate an abiding, tranquil mind; one that’s capable of listening to and reflecting on the teaching with single-pointed devotion. You need both faith in the teaching and the teacher, and the sincerity and commitment to see it through. Discipline of the senses is also important, otherwise you’ll find your mind galloping here, there, and everywhere like a wild horse.

The greatest obstacles to knowledge are ignorance, lack of faith, and doubt. The solution is to practice karma yoga in order to neutralise the mind’s restless extroversion and its entrenched likes and dislikes. Only then are you fit for jnana yoga, the yoga of Self-knowledge.

This Self-knowledge destroys the notion of doership. It does so by providing what Shankara calls ‘clear vision’, which is steadfast discrimination between satya and mithya, the real and unreal. All action, including the agent of action, the purpose and means of action, and the action itself, are understood to be mithya—meaning only apparently real.

As sorrow, delusion and suffering dissolve in the light of Truth, you attain the absolute peace of your own nature as the ever free, ever shining Self.

Other articles in this series

What is Advaita Vedanta?

The Problem of Suffering

Limitation, The Quest for Liberation and the Four Human Pursuits

Samsara and How to Escape the Wheel of Suffering

Who Are You? How to Practice Vedantic Self-Inquiry

What is the Self? Vedanta and the Power of Self-Knowledge

The Truth About Enlightenment

Vedanta, Spiritual Practice and the Necessity of a Qualified Mind

Karma Yoga: Vedanta’s Secret Weapon For Purifying the Mind

Vedanta’s Definition of God

Practising Self-Knowledge: The 3 Stages of Vedanta

What is a Jiva?