Chapter 2 & 3

(Revision 01 jan 26 09)
Bhagavad Gita
KARMA YOGA- A WAY TO LIVE
CHAPTER 2
2.47: Your right is to work, not in the results of that work; Let them(fruits) not be the cause of your action. May you not be attached to inaction.
Purport: What you are doing right now, do it without mind forever thinking of what you will get. Also, be not lazy, sloppy, shoddy, and careless in your work
2.48: Do your work for the sake of Lord, Do it without attachment. Be calm in its success or failure. This evenness of mind is called Yoga
Purport: If the work is routine and allows you to chant His name, do it. If someone takes over your job, do not get upset; If your subordinate is promoted, feel good; no need for you to resign. After retirement, or leaving the job do not talk of your job or Company you worked for. Forget whether you were a watchman or a Chairman. Difficult? Attachment! It is not the CEO that reaches he Lord. Anyone who is not attached to his position, work. You need not be General secretory for donkey's years. Let someone take over. You need not be the one and only one to give pravachans, or sing bhajans or cook prasad. Yours is the best? Good! All the more reason for getting you out from this foolish attachment.
2.49: Selfish action is inferior to Yoga of disinterested action. Take shelter in this yoga. Miserable are people who make fruit as the cause of their action.
Purport: Almost all actions we see around us have eye on 'what I can get' - fruit' or result. A never ending need which curdles into greed without our knowledge. Hence our misery. If we simply do what we are supposed to do, in an efficient way, without forever spending sleepless nights for results, we can be happy instead of being miserable.
2.50: With Intellect connected to Lord, give up good and bad results. Therefore practice this. This is expertise in action.
Purport: When you practice this, you seek, neither fame, nor wealth, nor acceptance from others. They may come or not. If you do not feel lost or dejected, and feel the calmness, you have become a yogi or expert in action. It is not the efficiency or efficacy that is meant here.
2.51: When the working intellect is in yoga, renouncing fruit of action, freed from cycle of birth reaches the Supreme State.
Purport: Liberation is possible only when one practices Karmayoga. 'one' means householders, sanyasis working in society, anyone who is forced to 'act' in the world.
CHAPTER 03 KARMAYOGA
3.1-3: Two paths: Of Knowledge and of Action.
3.4: Goal is freedom from action; this comes not by avoiding action, but by action
3.5: None can remain inactive; we are forced to act by our nature.
3.6-7 controlling both organs of action and senses, acting through them unattached is excellence
3.8 do your regular duty. action is superior to non-action
3.9 work binds you(for rebirth), unless you work as a sacrifice(unselfish acts) without attachment
3.19 Do your duty w/o attachment and thus reach the supreme
Purport: see purport for 2.47 above. 3.19 confirms superiority of position of disinterested action over everything as it promises you the Lord!
in fact, disinterested action alone gives you relaxation, peace and zero stress, as against selfishness, greedy actions or a feverish aspiring daily for the success in life.
3.20 Janaka, the King and others worked without attachment and attained liberation. You too for the sake of world order, take to action.
3.21 For men follow leader; What he does, the world also does those action.
PURPORT:
During the decades prior to independence of India, large number of leaders set an example of sacrifice. People gave up their jobs, lawyers quit practice, and students gave up studies, People donated their wealth, property. After independence when leaders became selfish, business leaders started hoarding, people followed them. The earlier stigma which was attached to corrupt practices and unaccounted money, became a power and accepted criteria for success in life. This took place in movies, media, politics, the IAS, IPs and various departments of government.
Even in a house, school, Maths where sanyasis live, the master or the head sets the example for values.
to be contd