The Secret of Selfless Action
…Now pay attention while I explain a practical spiritual discipline called karma yoga for living a more effective, happier life in this vexing, ever-changing world. This is the path of selfless, God-dedicated action. By making this your path you can live a spiritual life and yet stay fully active in the world. You can remain a man of action, achieving your very best, and yet not be bound or caught by the worldly….
When one's actions are not based on desire for personal reward, one can more easily steady the mind and direct it toward the Atma, the True Self Within. For the person of steady mind, Arjuna, there is always just one decision, but for the quivering mind pulled in a thousand directions, the decisions that plague it are endless, and they exhaust one's mental strength. People with an unsteady mind inevitably end up failing: those with an unwavering mind achieve great success.
Work hard in the world, Arjuna, but for work's sake only. You have every right to work but you should not crave the fruits of it. Although no one may deny you the outcomes of your efforts, you can, through determination, refuse to be attached to or affected by the results, whether favorable or unfavorable.
There are people, ignorant of this principle, who take delight in their own particular dogma, proclaiming there is nothing else. Their idea of "heaven" is their own enjoyment. The main reason they do their activities is to achieve the pleasures and power that "heaven" promises. Thus, even though their motive is common and positive, they are in truth filled with rather selfish desires.
With their minds thus taken up by their own selfish desires for everlasting pleasure and power, they are not able to develop the utter concentration needed to reach union with God, which is mankind's only real objective….
The central points of issue, Arjuna, are desire and lack of inner peace. Desire for the fruits of one's actions brings worry about possible failure -- the quivering mind I mentioned. When you are preoccupied with end results you pull yourself from the present into an imagined, usually fearful future. Then your anxiety robs your energy and, making matters worse, you lapse into inaction and laziness….
To work without desire may seem impossible, but the way to do it is to substitute thoughts of Divinity for thoughts of desire. Do your work in this world with your heart fixed on the Divine instead of on outcomes. Do not worry about results. Be even tempered in success or failure. This mental evenness is what is meant by yoga (union with God). Indeed, equanimity is yoga!
From the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 2, translated by Jack Hawley.
