If I want to come first in my class am I being attached to results?

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Hare Krishna. Question, if I want to come first in my class, am I being attached to results? The Bhagavad Gita says we should not be attached to results.
But then, should I try to perform and excel in my work or not? Answer, yes, certainly. If we see Arjuna himself was the best archer of his times. And how did he become the best archer? He practiced tirelessly, he worked extremely hard.
All day he would learn and night he would train himself. So, the idea that we should not be attached to results does not mean that we do not strive to do our best. We can differentiate between goals and results.
The Bhagavad Gita tells us not to be attached to results, not to not set goals. Goals help us to bring out our best. They help us to focus wholeheartedly on what we are trying to do.
After the Bhagavad Gita was spoken, the Kurukshetra war was fought. And each day of the Kurukshetra war, before the war would start for that day, the Pandavas would actually make strategies. Arjuna would decide, this is what I am going to do.
This is the enemies I am going to fight today. So, he would set goals. And Krishna as a charioteer helped him in setting the best goals and achieving those goals.
So, the point is, we cannot take one point from the Bhagavad Gita out of the context in which it is spoken. So, goals are what we set before we do an activity. And that enables us to wholeheartedly do that activity.
Results are what we get after the activity has been done by us. The message of the Bhagavad Gita is that we alone are not the doers. Those who think that, those who think they alone are the doers, they are in illusion.
Gita wants us to get the broad understanding by which we see that we have a part to do, but along with that, there are other factors which also determine the result. Ultimately, it is our karma which is guided, which forms our destiny and our destiny also plays a role in getting the results. So, when we are attached to results, then we are basically obsessing on things which are not in our control.
And thus we end up getting distracted, getting worried and feeling disempowered. Because we can study very well, we can, but suppose in that batch, there are too many brilliant students and we cannot come first. We may still do very well, but we may not come first.
Or somehow if there is some mistake in the computer system for assessing, or before the exam we fall sick. Now, we cannot always be sure that we will get the result. But what is in our control is doing our best.
So, the Gita’s focus is that we should do our best. That is why the same verse 2.47 which says, This is what we usually quote, do not be attached to results. But the same verse goes on and says, मा कर्मपल हे तुर्भूर माते संगोस्त्व कर्मणी.
That, मा कर्मणी, do not think you are the cause of the result. There are other factors also which cause the result. And माते संगोस्त्व कर्मणी, do not be attached to not doing your work.
That means, do not be attached to being lazy, to be half-hearted. And if we are setting, not setting goals, then we often become lazy and half-hearted. Because there is nothing inspiring for us to focus on, to dream about.
So, we should try our best. And trying our best means setting inspiring goals which make us bring out our best, contribute our best. So, ultimately, Bhagavad Gita is not talking about simply detachment.
It is talking about attachment. So, we want to be attached to Krishna. And we want to offer our best to Krishna.
So, with that mood when we work as students, we want to offer our best intelligence, our best studies, our best efforts to Krishna. Now, if Krishna wants, then the results will come. And those results also we can offer to Krishna.
But we should know that Krishna is satisfied much more by our intention to serve Him, by our efforts, by our consciousness, than by the results. So, even if the results do not come, the world may consider us unsuccessful. But in Krishna’s eyes, if we have endeavored, we will be successful.
So, if our intention, if our intention in wanting to come first is to think that, oh, the world will see how clever I am, then that is an ego-driven intention. And that will cause us entanglement. That will perpetuate our illusion that we alone are the doers.
But if our purpose is to serve Krishna, to glorify Krishna, to connect more with Krishna through our service, then that purpose will always be served irrespective of whether the result comes or not. So, in this way, the Bhagavad Gita’s message that we should be detached from the results is actually empowering for us both so that we do not worry about the results which are not in our control and focus on the goals, on the activities that are in our control, and also that we focus on Krishna whom we are trying to please. And whose pleasing by us depends on that which is in our control, our consciousness and our efforts, not on the results.
So, in this way, a devotee can, with positive spiritual intention, become highly motivated to do one’s best for Krishna’s pleasure and not let oneself get distracted by things which are not in