Hari OM
Application - that is what 'Workings-days' are about!
Having reasserted ways to call upon the Lord, the king-guru now demonstrates his personal devotion once more.
kayen vaca manseiÐyEvaR
buÏ(atmna va àk&te> svÉvat!,
kraeim y*t! skl< prSmE
Naaraya[ayeit smpRyaim.38.
Kaayena vaacaa manasendriyair-vaa
Buddhyaatmanaa vaa prakRteH svabhaavaat,
Karomi yadyat sakalam parasmai
Naaraayanaayeti samarpayaami. ||38||
I offer to Naaraayana all that I do with the body, speech, mind, all the senses, intellect, due to my impulsive nature.
This is one of the daily prayers of saadhana. It ought always to be recited prior to retiring at night, the final words being a form of repentance and acknowledgement that perhaps, due to all our human tendency, we may not have attained our highest ideals in the day.
It can also be chanted at the start of the day, following rising prayers and the Mahaa Gayatri mantra, in order to set our focus on our tasks with a memory of our true purpose in life.
The verse itself appears in the Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 11, Chapter 02, Text 36. It is an absolute declaration of devotion and offering of what really matters to the Higher - one's ego and the actions arising from it. "Whatever I do Lord is for You and I surrender to You only." In puja, we may offer many material things, such as water and food and flowers and milk and honey and clothing… but these are really to acknowledge our human frailty. The Lord will gladly accept these things as they are given from a core of Love, but we forget that He already owns all these things! Of course, ultimately, He owns us too - but we have to surrender our ego to recognise this.
This shloka also acknowledges that 'doership' is human. The ego expresses as 'I am the doer, I am the knower' - neither of which is true in the greater picture.
Our karma, the vaasanas, ensure that we generally forget our Oneship and keep us living as individual entities. Our senses ensure we are driven by them and get caught up in the multiplicity of the world. Given that we are here, living this human life, we have a choice; action must be taken, there is no avoiding it - but let us at least decide to not be 'the actor'. Do without claiming the doing.
The purpose of the jiiva, caught in human birth, is to work through the illusion and rise to once again unify with The Self. As it does this, it must still nurture the body which carries it and this involves action. Understanding this purpose, however, ensures that we can perform these actions with awareness and release ownership of those actions.