The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita - 4.2. Swami Krishnananda

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Monday, August  24, 2020. 7:41.AM.
Chapter 4: Duty – An Empirical Manifestation of True Being-2.
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1.
It is difficult to understand what all this means if we study this theme merely as an abstract science of logical philosophy. Perhaps I may place before you an analogy or a comparison that is more concrete and visible to our eyes than this pure abstract principle we are discussing in this context. We owe a duty to the body in which we are enshrined, and every part of the body owes a duty to every other part of the body, but no part of the body has a right over another part.

This is something very novel that we see in the physiological organism of our own personality. Every limb of our body has a duty which it automatically performs without compulsion or impulsion, without any mandate or governmental enactment; yet, it does not expect anything from that particular limb to which cooperation is extended. If the stomach eats the food, the teeth, which have merely munched it and got nothing out of it, do not complain; and so on, with every other part of the body, there is an excessively friendly cooperation.

'Friendliness' is a poor word we are using to describe this immense unity of purpose that obtains between the limbs of our body. It is oneness in the midst of diversity of the organisational set-up. There is no expectation on the part of a limb of the body in respect of another limb, because the fruit that it might expect automatically follows from the duty that it performs.

The privilege that you expect in this world, the right that you are craving for after performing a duty, is something which you need not expect – it will follow. When the sun rises, there will be light. Likewise whatever you need, which is called your expectation or the fruit so-called, will follow spontaneously from the very fact of your having performed your duty. You need not ask for the fruits; they shall drop from the skies, even without your asking for them. And we will be told sometime later in the Bhagavadgita that when one is united with the purpose of the whole creation, he shall be taken care of by the very law of the universe, and need not cry, "Let it come."

"Ananyas cintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate,
tesham nityabhiyuktanam yogakshemam vahamyaham." - (Gita 9.22)

 – is a great pendent hanging in the garland of the verses of the Bhagavadgita as a central gospel. God, the universe, the law, whatever you may call it, shall protect you and take care of you more than a mother can do – provided you have that affection which you expect from the world.


2.
Thus it is that we cannot expect any fruit of our actions, because our actions are duties that we owe and are not something grudgingly that we do under compulsion from outside. There is no 'outside' in this world. You have to listen to every sentence that I uttered last time and earlier; otherwise, I may not be able to repeat the same thing again and again because we have to cover a large area of study within a short time.

The debts that we owe to things, if we would like to call them debts, are the same as the duties that we have to perform. It is the acceptance of an organic connection between ourselves and all things. It is the cooperation that follows from the very structure of creation. There is no competition possible; it is a word which has no sense under the sun – there is no such thing as that.

There is only cooperation; there cannot be competition in this world. One cannot vie with the other, because there is no 'other' in this world. This will be made more clear as we move further on from the chapters of the Bhagavadgita, how there is no other. Your neighbour is an extended form of your own self – so the service that you render to your neighbour, which is the whole world outside you, is a service that you finally render to your own larger existence.

This you will know further as you go deeper.

This much about the Slokam :

"karmanyevadhikaras te ma phaleshu kadacana." (Gita 2.47)

– Don't expect fruits.

To be continued ....

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