Why is the Gita giving counter-intuitive instructions? – Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

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Thank you This is a famous verse from the Bhagavad Gita 247 It states कर्मन्यवाधिकारस्ते माफलेशु कदाचन माकर्मपलहे तुर्भूर् माते संगोस्त्व कर्म So कर्मन्यवाधिकारस्ते Krishna says The way to work, the art of work is To work without Attachment to the results Now this In today’s psychology makes no sense At all Because most self-help books will tell Before you start a work Visualize the result If you are giving an exam, visualize yourself With the With the certificate With the trophy Whatever it is you are going to achieve And with that vision in mind, work So in one sense Is the Gita telling the exact opposite? And if we don’t Visualize the result, if we don’t aspire For the result Then why would we work at all? So why would the Gita give such a Counterintuitive instruction That work without attachment to the results Now this is a very significant Teaching and it’s Simplistic I was giving a talk in Yale Medical College and there was An Islamic professor of Hindu studies over there And he said I have read the Bhagavad Gita And this is one thing That never made sense to me He said right now You are here Because you want all of us to understand What the Bhagavad Gita says So are you not attached to that result? Are you not attached to wanting us to Understand? How can anyone work without Attachment to the results? So I told him That this verse Is not as simple as it seems Why? Because the Gita differentiates Between goals and results It is not Against setting goals It is against being attached to the results And I’ll explain What is the difference So usually What happens is We choose actions What I should do and what I should not do based on the results If you feel this particular Area I am unlikely to be successful Efforts are too many Maybe let me not do this This is more reasonable So we do it And when we do a particular activity also If we get the results We become inflated I am so great, I am so glorious, I am so successful Without results We become deflated Useless Many times you may see this duality On a tennis court When the winning shot is hit The winner just Yahoo! The winner jumps up in the sky And the loser just sinks into the ground Drooping as if the whole world Has ended for them Of course not all tennis players are like that But sometimes we see these extreme dualities So In general We seem to function In a result-centric way So what’s wrong with that? So what the Gita says is Something very significant That the results Are not in our control And when we obsess over the results There is a problem So therefore the Gita says Be more concerned about What the work does inside you Than what it does outside you What does it mean basically? So as students we study Now obviously when you study you want to get good marks Yes that’s true However in the long run 5 years, 10 years, 15 years down the line When you are in a career How many marks you got In which term exam Won’t make that much of a difference How much you Learned the subject And more importantly How much you developed a discipline to study To train your mind To develop a mind that Is eager to learn That will make a huge difference So the work Does some change outside And the work does some change inside So Gita’s focus is Don’t get so caught in What change the work is going to do outside Yes I could have got the first Rank but I got the second rank Or I got the fifth rank Yeah that’s a difference In the world’s eyes it’s a big difference Right now But in the long run If you have developed an ethos Of diligence Of discipline, of responsibility That will stand you in a good stead Einstein also phrased this Slightly differently Be not a person of success Be a person of values Values is what Happens inside us The Gita, now of course there are multiple levels Of what we can talk about values But the principle is The Gita is telling us that what is Outside is not in our control Sometimes we may study Very very well but Just some things happen And maybe we don’t get as Maybe we fall slightly sick before the exam And we don’t get very good marks in the exam Because we are not able to perform well Does that mean all our studies was in vain? No, we did do our part We learned, we put in the hard work We mastered the subject and more importantly We develop a trained mind To learn That is invaluable Because sometimes the intangible successes Which are the changes That happen inside us We may completely forget them When we get obsessed with the tangible changes In the outside world So in that sense The Gita’s message Be detached from the fruits of the work It is empowering How empowering? Because it shifts our attention To what is in our control And not what is beyond our control The results outside Are beyond our control The results inside are in our control So The Gita’s message in that sense Empowers each one of us So let’s look at this from another perspective That these are the four D’s in functioning In Sanskrit these are called as Karma, Daiva, Kala So Karma is Duty, Kala is Duration And Daiva is Destiny So these three Come together to give us the Fala, the desired result So a simple example Could be farming In farming the duty is to Sow the seeds And plough the land, that’s what the farmer does Then the destiny is Rains have to come in the right time, in the right quantity And then the duration is The farmer cannot get the grains, the harvest Immediately, the farmer has to Wait till The harvesting season comes, so duration Has to pass and then the Results come So Among these four factors if we consider The only factor that is in our control Is duty Now we are obsessed about the results And we often think that our actions Lead to the results It’s not that simple Yes, our actions contribute to the results But they are not the Sole cause of the result So when the Gita says don’t be attached To the results, what it means is Maate karma falahe turbhur Don’t think that you alone Are the cause of the results So because we alone are not the cause Of the results, therefore don’t Be too worried if the results don’t come Don’t be obsessed with the results Don’t be elated if the results come, don’t be dejected If the results don’t come, do your duty And Eventually We will get good results When the duration passes and the destiny becomes Favorable, the results will Come, so we need patience And so the Detachment which the Gita talks about is more About acceptance That after I have done what is in my control Let me not obsess over that which is not In my control And I started this point by saying that there is a difference Between goals and results Setting goals is perfectly fine In fact After the Bhagavad Gita was spoken The Kurukshetra war was fought And Krishna and Arjuna were together Krishna was the charioteer of Arjuna And every day during the Kurukshetra war, Arjuna set Goals Ok, this is the regiment Of the opposite army that I am going to deal with today These are the opposing warriors That I am going to neutralize today Famous, most famously On the 14th day Arjuna said, I will bring down Jayadratha, who was responsible For his devious Role in The vicious killing of my son Abhimanyu And when Arjuna set that goal By sunset today, either Jayadratha will die Or I will die Krishna didn’t tell him, Arjuna you forgot Karma Nivadi ka raste No, because that’s not the implication of Karma Nivadi ka raste See, for us to do our Duty wholeheartedly Visualizing the goals Can motivate us And that’s wonderful So the Gita is not against visualization of the goals Yes, we visualize the goals However After we have done our duty Then let go Then understand that Doing the duty was in my control And doing the duty was my part in getting the results But beyond that I don’t have a part So if the results may come, they may not come So by this bigger picture We can develop greater steadiness Sometimes when results come Sometimes when results don’t come When results come, we won’t become proud and arrogant Thinking, just see, I am so great And when results don’t come We won’t become depressed and deflated Thinking, I am worthless No, I have some capacities Let me use my capacities Let me do the best that I can And in due course, results will come So again, Karma Yoga Is a very What I talked is a basic introduction to Karma Yoga It’s much more nuanced But this will indicate That it is again a very empowering way of living By which we Do all that is in our control And let go of what is not in our control So Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits of Highly Successful People Also talks about his idea of circle of control And circle of influence So the Bhagavad Gita Doesn’t use that language But Karmanyag Adhika Raste Is talking essentially about the same concept That Stephen Covey popularized In his Seven Habits And the Gita talks about it thousands of years earlier So Karma Yoga Is about focusing on