Chapter-11, Verse 4

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 11.4

सुखदुःखे जन्ममृत्यू दैवादेवेति निश्चयी। साध्यादर्शी निरायासः कुर्वन्नपि न लिप्यते॥४॥

4. He who has understood with certitude that happiness and sorrow, birth and death, are all due to the effects of past actions, does no more seek after the ordinary goals of life. He becomes free from efforts. He is not attached (tainted) even though engaged in action. 

When the understanding has dawned that our present life and all its achievements and sorrows are all effects of the past, he has, thereafter, no more any definite goal to be reached in life except the Infinite Self. Naturally, he becomes free from all anxieties and efforts. In short, he does not function as an individualised separate entity; the ‘ego’ in him dies. Therefore, ‘he is not attached (tainted) even though engaged in action.’ 

This idea of ‘action-less in action’ is the doctrine of the Bhagavad-gītā which Aṣṭāvakra accepts root and branch: ‘He who is devoted to the path of Action, whose mind is quite pure, who has conquered the ego, who has subdued his senses, who realises his Self as the Self in all beings, though acting, he is not tainted.’ (yogayukto viśuddhātmā vijitātmā jitendriyaḥ, sarvabhūtātmabhūtātmā kurvannapi na lipyate.  ~Bhagavad-Gītā-5.7)

Egocentric actions alone can leave their impression upon our personality and thus condition our future thoughts and actions. This is how we get involved in our actions. Mind resting in Brahman and in a spirit of utter dedication to It, when an individual functions, such activities bring about, according to Gītā, an exhaustion of the existing vāsanās. For one who is revelling in Brahman, actions are spontaneous expression of the Divine in the world of beings. He acts not; he is acted through by the universal law.