Gita 03.19 – Detached dutifulness opens the door to perfection

We will see in the future verses.

Therefore detachment always karyam karmasamachara karyam is prescribed duty karmasamachara is do it. Therefore always act with detachment, Arjuna. Then see in detail what will happen by this.

asato yacharan karma By such detached action paramapnoti purushaha One will paramapnoti one will attain the supreme person the all attractive actually paramapnoti purushaha can in some interpretation be referred to the supreme person but the main reading is as it is not apnoti paramapurushaha it is more like the purushaha will attain a param. At this stage in the Gita, Krishna is not focusing on the param, on the supreme reality whoever or whatever it is. Krishna is focusing on the soul and how to realize the soul.

So that's why the focus on the Krishna has referred to himself as the object of the control senses in 2.61 and similarly in this chapter also 3.30 he will refer to himself as the object of detached actions. But here right now Krishna is talking more about not so much about the person to him the fruits of the detached work are to be offered but to the principle that working with detachment is the key to disentanglement. Now smarth asaktah sattvam therefore work with detachment always.

Now the sattvam is important over here because Krishna has analyzed various permutations and combinations and he has in one sense addressed all of Arjuna's possibilities and he is giving Arjuna a call of action fight. Sattvam. Sattvam means it can mean always throughout your day but it also means whatever situation you are at Krishna is talking about why to do work with detachment at multiple levels.

In the first section in response to Arjuna's question in one and two from three to nine Krishna has given reason that you should work and not renounce action because that working is your adhikar, renouncing is not your adhikar that is what is your level and that is what you are qualified to do. Then from with nine as a concept of yajna as a transition point from nine to sixteen he talks about one level lower if you think that you cannot work with detachment if you are still attached, still even then work but work with the intention of sacrificing in the interest of cosmic cooperation that means sacrificing as a part of the cosmic cycle of the interdependence between humans and celestials the gods there also Krishna has said that karma brahmot bhavam viddhi yajna karma samut bhavam so he was talking about the importance of karma that you have to do your prescribed duty but do it in the mood of a sacrifice if you have the desire for the material results of the sacrifice your desire, still do your duty then after that in eighteen and nineteen Krishna has taken one higher level when he stated that if you are if you think that you are qualified not just for karma yoga but for gyan yoga then he states the qualification for gyan yoga and implies that if a person is truly at the liberated level then nothing will entangle that person then whether that person acts or renounces action or acts both ways that person will stay entangled and therefore it is best for the person to act because by such action one will be able to set a positive example for others and that such examples Krishna will give in the next verse of Janaka then twenty first verse he will take the general principle of how those in leadership position need to set an example for others and then twenty two to twenty four he will talk about how we can how one can work with detachment or rather although Krishna himself is God still he works with attachment for the sake of setting an example for others so here that's why I said the term therefore in all situations whether you are attached to fruits whether you are detached to fruits or whether you are capable of renouncing action still act with attachment Arjuna please work by working with detachment one attains one attains transcendence one attains the supreme so let's consider an example to explain how by attachment by detachment one can actually attain a higher purpose suppose in a readymade cloth shop there is a employee who shows customers the various clothes that are available now sometimes a customer may come and may see hundred clothes and say that they had not purchased anything that is likeable for that customer now that attendant in the cloth shop is too eager is overzealous about clinching the sale and that person may well snap or get annoyed with the customer if the customer doesn't purchase anything after such a long time and then it may well be that the customer may go away forever if the attendant is intelligent and the attendant knows that there is my owner who is sitting over there at the cash counter my boss is there and my boss is observing not just whether I have clinched the sale or not but also how I behave now if the boss is intelligent and sympathetic and the boss will see actually clinching a sale is good definitely that's what the business wants but along with that it's also important that the employee behaves well with the customer that will make the customer come again and if the boss sees that the employee is the attendant is untiringly polite unflappably courteous then that will also please the boss because the boss says oh this person can maintain the cool his or her cool so that way he earns the appreciation of his boss and over a period of time he will be able to make sales also because people will see his courteousness, people will see his considerateness and eventually they will want to come and they will want to purchase also so of course any material example for anything spiritual always has its limitations so here the important principle is that by working with detachment in terms of not getting too worked up and letting the performance suffer because of that by such working the employee will endear himself or herself to the boss so similarly when one understands that Krishna is there in my heart and Krishna is always watching me and whatever I do Krishna is observing my demeanor with others then sometimes people may misbehave and you may want to retaliate it is not that just because we are devotees it means we always have to passively accept everything that is hurled at us but rather we have to intelligently come up with appropriate response that which is the best response in that situation so if we don't maintain our cool then we will usually come up with a hasty response and the hasty response is rarely the best response so the important thing is to recognize that the right response or the best response depends more on calmness and clarity and that calmness and clarity is possible when there is detachment so Krishna says that when you are detached the implication of this verse is that then bodily ups and downs worldly ups and downs at the level of the body will not throw you off course will not throw you off kilter in terms of emotions and you will be able to persevere till you achieve the right result till you get the things done properly so by not letting material events throw you off track you will grow in your spiritual awareness you will grow in your spiritual consciousness in that way you will attain perfection.