The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 7.4 Swami Krishnananda.
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Sunday, October 18, 2020. 10:11. AM.
Chapter 7: The Nature of Right Understanding-4.
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1.
We have only a duty, and we have no right to expect any fruit out of the performance of duty. This is the great ringing tone of the teaching of the Bhagavadgita. This is something which the modern mind cannot easily understand because it is sunk in the mire of the expectation of fruits even before the seed is being sown. We are always after the rights that we have to expect from the world, minus the duties that we seem to owe to the society in which we are. One cannot expect the fruits of one’s action. There is a great mistake in this expectation because the fruits are not in one’s hands, while action is obligatory. Even to take a common example of sowing the seed in a field, look at the work of the farmer. He does his duty very well, but we cannot say that the fruit is entirely in his hands. Many factors which are out of his bounds go to contribute in the production of the result which is the harvest that he has to reap. There should be rainfall, there should be the proper weather condition, and many other things, as we know very well.
2.
The fruit, the result, the consequence of an action is decided by factors beyond the comprehension of the human individual and, therefore, to expect a particular fruit would be the height of ignorance on the part of any person. We suffer because we expect a particular consequence to follow from a set of actions that we perform, and those results we expect do not follow on account of the simple reason that there are other conditions to be fulfilled for the production of the result than merely the initiative taken by the so-called agent of action. I as an agent, the so-called initiator of the action, may be one of the factors. Yes, accepted. But I am not the only factor, and to consider myself as the sole conditioning principle behind the production of the result of an action would be ignorance, and that would be the absence of samkhya, knowledge.
3.
Hence, we are told again and again, throughout the teaching, that it is highly improper to expect a fruit. All that goes to constitute the universe in its entirety has something to say in the production of the result of even the least of actions, and we are not the only deciding factor. There is a ‘bench of judges’, as it were, and it is not only one judge that decides the case, here the ‘bench’ being a very large one constituted of innumerable judges.
4.
This wondrous knowledge becomes a source of great solace and peace to the mind, and it remains equally rooted in success as well as failure. The words ‘success’ and ‘failure’ are applied by us as a kind of judgement upon the nature of the results of action. But we are not supposed to pass such judgements. Success and failure are not to be regarded as the criterion of the correctness of an action, because success and failure are our valuations, from our own standpoints, and not necessarily from the total standpoint of the purpose of the universe. Again, there can be a so-called failure in spite of all the efforts that we have put forth, and that should not be a source of dejection of our mind, provided we have done our best. Nor should there be any kind of unnecessary exultation on account of a so-called success, merely because it is in consonance with our pleasures and predilections. ‘Sukha’ and ‘dukha’, pleasure and pain, should not be the judging factors in the performance of an action. We have to be cautious in seeing that the action is performed in as impersonal a manner as possible, freeing it from the intrusion of individual agency or doership as much as possible. All actions, finally, are cosmic actions, and they appear to be our actions on account of a misunderstanding of the causative factors of any action.
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