20 Sri Isopanisad

altogether from the actions and reactions of work. Intelligent
men know well that both good and bad works are equally
causes of the material miseries of life. They therefore seek to do
work which will free them from the reactions of good and bad
work. This freedom from good and bad work is ascertained
herewith in Sri [sopanisad.

The instruction of Sri Isopanisad is better explained in
the Bhagavad-gita, sometimes called the Gitopanisad, the cream
of all the Upanisads. In the Bhagavad-gitd, the Personality of
Godhead says that no one can attain the state of naiskarma
or akarma without beginning the prescribed duties mentioned
in the Vedic literature. The Vedic literature can regulate the
working energy of the human being in such a way that one can
gradually realize the authority of the Supreme Being. When one
realizes the authority of the Personality of Godhead, it is to be
understood that he has attained the stage of positive knowledge.
At this purified stage of life, where the modes of Nature—
namely goodness, passion and ignorancc—cannot act, one is
enabled to work on the basis of naiskarma, or work which does
not bind one to the cycle of birth and death.

Factually, no one has to do anything more than to render
devotional service to the Lord. In the lower stage of life,
however, one can not at once adopt the activities of devotional
service, nor can one completely stop reactionary work. A
conditioned soul is accustomed to working for sense grati-
fication, for his own selfish interest, immediate or extended.
An ordinary man wants to work for his own sense enjoyment,
and when the principle of sense enjoyment is extended from
the individual to include the collective society, nation, or
humanity in general, it assumes various attractive names such
as altruism, socialism, communism, nationalism, humanitarianism,
etc. These isms are certainly very attractive forms of Karma-
bandhana, the bondage of one’s own work, but the Vedic
instruction of Sri [gopanisad is as follows: if you actually live for
any of the above isms, make them God-centered. There is no
