3.Duty: An Empirical Manifestation of True Being : 3.

The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita :


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 verse: Karmanyevadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana – Don't expect fruits.


Secondly, while you have to perform duty, the nature of the consequence that follows from the performance of duty is not clear to your mind. So to expect a particular result to follow from a particular action would be like a blind man groping in the dark and catching hold of what he does not know is there. While under the given circumstance of your existence you have an obligation towards things, which has to be clear to your mind, you cannot clearly perceive the result that will follow from that action because results are conditioned by infinite factors, not necessarily the thing that you do from the point of view of your limited understanding. There are other factors which condition things. Again, we shall revert to this theme as we go further towards the chapters that are to come.


Swami Krishnananda

To be continued ...