February10 – Bhagavadgita Chapter 2; Verses 2.47 (Day 41) Sankhya Yoga

 

Actions and Results (Fruits of Actions)

Lesson 2.6 (Verse 47-53)

February 10 – Day 41

Verse 2.47

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥ २-४७॥ 

karmaṇy evādhikāraste mā phaleṣhu kadāchana
mā karma-phala hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo ’stwakarmaṇi (2.47) 

க¹ர்மண்யேவாதி⁴கா¹ரஸ்தே¹ மா ப²லேஷு க¹தா³ச¹ன |
மா க¹ர்மப²லஹேது¹ர்பூ⁴ர்மா தே¹ ஸங்கோ³‌ஸ்த்¹வக¹ர்மணி ||47|| 

47. Thy right is to work only, but never with its fruits; let not the fruits of actions be thy motive, nor let thy attachment be to inaction. 

Commentary: When you perform actions have no desire for the fruits thereof under any circumstances.  If you thirst for the fruits of your actions, you will have to take birth again and again to enjoy them.  Action done with expectation of fruits (rewards) brings bondage.  If you do not thirst for them, you get purification of heart and you will get knowledge of the Self through purity of heart and through the knowledge of the Self you will be freed from the round of births and deaths.

Neither let thy attachment be towards inaction thinking “what is the use of doing actions when I cannot get any reward for them?”

In a broad sense karma means action.  It also means duty which one has to perform according to his caste or station of life.  According to the followers of the Karma Kanda of the Vedas (the Mimamsakas).  Karma means the rituals and sacrifices prescribed in the Vedas.  It has a deep meaning also.  It signifies the destiny or the storehouse of tendencies of a man which give rise to his future birth.

Commentary by Swami Venkatesananda: This is the central teaching of the Bhagavad Gītā. Its many shades are dealt with in several other verses, but here it is good to stress a factor often ignored.

‘Thy right is to work only’ implies that we have a right to work and to do, a right which we should exercise. This sentence is often read with the emphasis on ‘only’, but every word deserves emphasis and every emphasis will reveal a new interpretation! Karma will create the necessary circumstances around us and bestow on us the rewards of our own past actions. But, in those circumstances and with those rewards, we yet enjoy the freedom to work and to do what we care to. We are not asked to surrender this right, but to exercise it and thus not to ‘let thy attachment be to inaction’.

‘Not to the fruits thereof’ implies that there is someone else in charge of the reward – God. (‘Reward’ is euphemism for a ‘future event’.) Leave it to him. This is not slave[1]mentality or fatalism. It is joyous participation in his plan. Joyous participation brushes aside ideas like: ‘Is God a capricious being who will visit us with pain though we do everything selflessly?’ The joy of doing what we can and should is itself the greatest and immediate reward. On the contrary, it is the man of hope who always suffers, even from the fear of the hope not being capable of realization!

“I do not long even for the fruits of dharma is my nature. He who wants to milk the cow of dharma for his own pleasure, does not get it!”—Yudhiṣṭhira, in the Mahābhārata. 

-*-