Janmashtmi

And what a better day to talk about the great work Srimad Bhagwadgita.

And from Srimad Bhagwadgita lets talk about its most famous shloka:

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोस्त्वकर्मणि॥

— भगवद्गीता २-४७

karmaṇyevādhikāraste mā phaleṣu kadacana|
mā karmaphalaheturbhūrmā te saṅgostvakarmaṇi|| 2-47

It is one of my favourite quotes. Its most common translation is “karma kiye ja phal ki ichchha mat kar re insan….”. The question that comes to mind is, “is it really important, rather possible to work without thinking about the results or the consequences thereof?” What is the motivation to work then? Well like almost all of Srimad Bhagwadgita’s shlokas this one also is not a mere two liner. It is a complete book in itself. A thesis can be written on this shloka itself. Its import is very deep. Swami Ranganathananda of Advaita Ashram has translated the shloka in English as, “Your right is to work only; but never to the fruits thereof. May you not be motivated by the fruits of actions; nor let your attachment be towards inaction… akarmani…”

It has four catch words here. Work, Fruit, Motive and Inaction. What this shloka infact says is, or what I understand of it is-- going backwards through the shloka—you should not be attracted towards, or be interested in inaction… you must act as per your duty, as per your religious beliefs, as per your dharma, as per your position. You must act. There should not be inaction.

Next it says is—or going backwards it says—a right to the fruits of action should not be your motivation to work. And this is very important. We should work with our best understanding of our rights and duties but we should not be motivated by the fruits of this work alone. We may actually not have the full understanding as to which work will ultimately produce what type of fruit. The final fruit may or may not belong to the exact type of work executed by us. Thus making that fruits the basis of our work is not always practical and is fraught with danger. Thus apart from spiritual aspect this practical aspect is also one of the reasons why we should not be motivated by the fruits.

Next it says is that your right is to work only and not to its fruits. Since we cannot actually decide the real ‘fruit’ of our work we shall not ask for it by right. Our exact selection of fruit might or might not be as our work. Moreover the word right here is more of a ‘right to choose’ than a ‘right to claim’. We can exert our rights, our powers, our discretion to choose our work and not the fruits thereof. Fruits shall follow automatically based on our work. We shall deliberate on the type of work we can undertake, the right and wrongs involved, our duty, our position and all that. We shall decide the work-exert our right to choose the work and then do it. The fruits will follow. We cannot exert our right to fruit anymore. We can not chose the fruit now. We can change the character and effect of this fruit, this result, subsequently by our other action but we can not chose our fruit here. We have no right to chose a particular fruit with or without doing a work. We do the work or don't do it... or do it badly, the result, the fruit shall follow. Having done the work now we can't stop the fruit. But one thing is sure, one or many works together may result in many or one fruit but it will always be commensurate with the quality and quantity, or the character of our work. Satvik work- good fruit, Rajsik work- slightly less good and Tamsik work- or paap and you get worst type of fruit. May even be in the shape of some punishment. But as we had ourselves chosen the work, we should accept all the fruits happily. It is only as per our work and we had all the liberty to chose the quality of our work. We had to chose our discretion properly. A work may be sattvik for one and rajsik for another. Or the work may be rajsik for both but one in his wisdom may consider it as sattvik and the other as rajsik, or might even consider it as tamasik. The first one, as such, might chose in his discretion to undertake that work as saatvik but the other might not touch it thinking it to rajasik or tamasik. The result would still be as per rajasik only because the work basically is rajasik only and he mistook it as satvik.

So all that this shlok says is that you use your discretion to chose the type of work you should undertake. Not to do any work, or inaction is not a good option. So work.... and chose the type of work and then leave the results or the fruits to follow. Fruits will follow per your work. The basic character of that work should be your motivation not its result. Selection pf fruit in the advance may, at times, result in faulty selection or execution of work. And that will, in turn, result in a different type of fruit than anticipated. So in this case one will first waste his right to chose his work and then lose the fruit also which might not be as per his perception. Thus in plain simple words we must use all our authority, right, power and discretion in selecting the right work and then should wait for the results to follow, one may or may not recognise or relate the fruit or exact result to his respective work but one is bound to get the fruit as per his work committed now or sometime earlier in the past. The result could be effect of a single work or result of cumulative work.... but he has control over his work only and shall not try to control the result over which one doesn't have much control.