Issue #33: Your prescribed duties
And what to do with the results of your duties?
Hi everybody!
Welcome to The Gita.
Today, we cover these 2 verses from Krishna:
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.
Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.
(Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Chapter 2 verse 47 & 48)*
VERY POWERFUL INSTRUCTIONS!
There are 3 kinds of actions:
Prescribed duties
Capricious work
Inaction
1. Prescribed duties are activities based on one's acquired modes of material nature. E.g - the prescribed duty for one in the mode of goodness would be brahmanical.
Prescribed duties are of 3 types:
a. routine work
b. emergency work
c. desired activities
2. Capricious work are work performed without the sanction of authority.
3. Inaction means not performing your duty.
If you perform your routine prescribed work (1.a above) in the following way:
- as an obligation
- according to scripturual codes
- without desiring results
This would qualify your action to be in the mode of goodness and this is how Krishna wanted Arjuna to fight.
If Arjuna is focused on either victory or failure, then he is attached materially, causing him to get caught up in material bondage.
And that’s not good.
All the work we do, should help us liberate from the entanglement of material nature.
In verse 48, Krishna calls such mode of work - yoga.
Yoga means connecting with the Supreme Lord by controlling the wild senses. God's form and God's instructions are the same. And here Krishna is God and His instructions to Arjuna is to fight. Following the Lord’s instructions are as good as following the Lord. Thus, all Arjuna had to do was to follow the instructions of Krishna & he would come out victorious and happy.
What do we learn from today's verses?
Do your duty but don't be attached to the results. They are not in your hands. Only your actions are. Hence, make your actions in the mode of goodness.*If you are interested to get your own copy of the Bhagavad Gita, may I recommend this edition found on Krishna.com: Bhagavad Gita As It Is by ISKCON Founder Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. It’s life changing! You can find the book on Amazon as well in your country.
Here is the online version of the Bhagavad Gita you can read for FREE!
https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/
Thank you! - The Gita