Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 48-4. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, August 24, 2022. 07:00.

Discourse 48: The Eighteenth Chapter Begins – Renunciation, and Types of Action :4.

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Na dveṣṭyakuśalaṁ karma kuśale nānuṣajjate, tyāgī sattvasamāviṣṭo medhāvī chinnasaṁśayaḥ (18.10):

 The person who renounces attachment due the preponderance of the sattva guna in him, who is very intelligent in perceiving the pros and cons of things, and has no doubt whatsoever about the way in which work is to be done, hating not painful work, clinging not to pleasurable work, such a person is really an example before us. It does not mean that we should cling to something because it is pleasant, nor does it mean that we should hate something because it is not pleasant. 

Na dveṣṭy akuśalaṁ karma kuśale nānuṣajjate: 

The pleasant form of work does not call for attraction, nor should it evoke hatred when it is painful work calling for hard labour on our part.

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Na hi dehabhṛtā śakyaṁ tyaktuṁ karmāṇyaśeṣataḥ (18.11): 

No embodied person can totally be free from work. The very fact of our being in a body calls for some kind of engagement because this body is made up of physical matter and, therefore, it is a form of prakriti constituted of the three gunas—sattva, rajas and tamas. Inasmuch as prakriti is always in a state of disturbance—it is not in a state of equilibrium—and its properties of sattva, rajas and tamas are constantly moving in a cyclic fashion, they compel the body to also be subject to that kind of cyclic action because the physical body of a human being, or of anything whatsoever, is not free from the contingency arising from the operation of the three gunas. Therefore, anyone who has a body has to work. If one has no body, that is a different matter. 

Na hi dehabhṛtā śakyaṃ tyaktuṃ karmāṇyaśeṣataḥ: 

The very fact that we are embodied in a physical tabernacle means that we are part of physical nature, and the process of physical evolution will also have an impact upon our body; it will compel us to do something. Therefore, freedom from work for an individual with a body is unthinkable.

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Yas tu karmaphalatyāgī sa tyāgī'tyabhidhīyate: 

Abandoning work is, therefore, not possible as long as we have a body. But we shall be free from the binding effect of karma, or action, provided we do not look to the effect, or the fruit, that accrues from the work. We should do our work because it is necessary to work for the welfare of everybody, not because we get some recompense out of it. If we have an eye only on the salary that we get, and not on the duty that is expected of us, then that duty, that work that we perform, will be tarnished with a little bit of selfishness because even while we are working, our mind is thinking of the salary or of ‘that something' that comes out of the work. We are not interested in the work itself and, therefore, it is not sattvic.

Sattvic work is work done for work's sake only, whether or not it brings any fruit. Actually, every duty performed well—in a most unselfish manner—will, of its own accord, bring a result which is most pleasant, and we need not ask for it. Every duty is connected with a privilege; and we should not cry for the privilege. If we ask for it, it will not come. If we do our duty well, the privilege automatically follows without asking for it.

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Aniṣṭam iṣṭaṁ miśraṁ ca trividhaṁ karmaṇaḥ phalam, bhavaty atyāgināṁ pretya na tu saṁnyāsināṁ kvacit (18.12): 

People who are attached to work due to selfishness on their part reap fruits which are of three kinds—anishtam, ishtam, mishram. 

Sometimes an action that is done brings unpleasant results; sometimes an action brings pleasant results; sometimes an action brings mixed results: a little bit of joy, a little bit of pain. This is the case with those people who perform work with selfishness, who cannot renounce the fruit of action. But this threefold mixing up of karma's fruits will not have an effect upon sannyasins who have renounced the fruit of action.

To be continued ....

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