Does Gita 2.47 ma phasehu kadachana mean that we don’t have a right to obtain the result or a right to enjoy the result?

From Sushant Kulkarni

Hare Krishna Question from Sushant Kulkarni Prabhu Does the Bhagavad Gita 18.2.47 Ma phaleshu kadachana mean that we do not have a right to obtain the result of our work or that we don’t have the right to enjoy the result of our work Answer It essentially remains that we should recognize that we are not the sole determiners of the result and therefore we should not let the likelihood of the result coming or not coming become the sole determiner of our choice whether I will do a particular activity or I will not do a particular activity so Krishna is saying that our decision should be based on understanding of what is our dharma and when we are doing our dharma we shouldn’t necessarily decide whether we should do our dharma or not, based only on whether the dharma will lead to success or not we should focus on the fact that it is my duty and even if I don’t get success I should not abandon my duty so that is the central point of this verse, Arjuna should not think that just because of undesirable consequences are going to come because of this particular activity, so I should not do that activity, so for example Arjuna should not think that while fighting as a Kshatriya, because I will have to kill my relatives and that is undesirable, so therefore I should not do the activity so now coming to the specific question with respect to the word Adhikar, Adhikar means right so we do not have the right to obtain the result, in the sense that there is our past life past lives, karma which determines our destiny and the destiny daivam chaivatra panchamam as Krishna says in 18.14 that the destiny is the ultimate factor which determines whether we will get the result or not so recognizing that is also very important and what does it mean to recognize destiny, it simply means to recognize that we are not the sole determiners of our success so many times a student may study or artist may do some very good work of art but may not be successful or acclaimed socially for that that doesn’t mean the whole endeavor is failure, one is growing in the talent in the development of the talent and eventually success will be there and one is also by doing one’s duty one is eventually doing one’s dharma and one is going to get eventually good results for that particular action according to one’s nature, according to dharma so the essential point is that one shouldn’t think that one has a right to obtain the result because our past life past life’s karma also plays a factor now another question of whether we have a right to enjoy or not we should understand that we are co-enjoyers when we give pleasure to Krishna we also get pleasure and when we act according to our psychophysical nature then we do get some pleasure at a material level also, a brahmana when doing brahmanical activities gets some material pleasure also, now as long as this material pleasure is within the limits of dharma that is good that means a brahmana wants to study, read, that’s good but a brahmana shouldn’t go about reading books which are just sensual, licentious which are talking about sinful sense gratification or things like that one should not read books which are adharmic so we, now while doing dharma, that means while doing our activity according to our particular if we get some enjoyment it’s not that we should reject that enjoyment, but we shouldn’t think that that enjoyment is our entitlement our entitlement is that we are servants of Krishna and that service is our entitlement and while giving service regularly enjoyment will naturally come but we focus not on the enjoyment we focus on the service and enjoyment will come as a by-product when we serve Krishna and that enjoyment will come in such a way that it will elevate us, it will take us closer towards Krishna so primary thrust is that we don’t have a right to obtain the result and we don’t have a right to enjoyment in the sense that we should do our duty even when we don’t get enjoyment while doing our duty because eventually because that will lead to purification, that will eventually lead to return to Krishna where there is eternal satisfaction Thank you. Hare Krishna