If we are to be detached from results, how can we motivate ourselves for our work?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So how do we motivate ourselves in our material life? If we are detached from the results, that’s why I said detachment from results is not indifference to goals. We need to set goals. But basically, what is the difference between, say, attachment to results and, and say, detachment from results? The primary difference, as I said, it is obsession with the work after we have done it.
Say, if I have given my exam, if I am a student, I have given my exam and after giving my exam, I think, what will be the result? Well, now I have done the exam, the result will come in its own course. I don’t have to be consumed by that. So the difference between detachment and irresponsibility.
Sometimes detachment is thought of as irresponsibility, mistaken to be. The difference between detachment and apathy or responsibility, what the main difference is, detachment is after the work. Irresponsibility is before the work.
That means if a student is irresponsible, student says, I won’t study only. Krishna will take care of everything. Well, Krishna takes care through the intelligence he has given you.
You have to use your intelligence to study. So if we are, if we are actually being negligent about the work, that is not detachment. That is irresponsibility.
That is apathy and that is not good. So we have to know that actually even our work purifies us. When the intention of our life is to serve Krishna, then the work we are doing is also in a mood of service to Krishna.
Then when we have that intention that, yeah, I come to the temple and do some service and I go to the office and there also I’m serving Krishna. So when we have that mood of serving Krishna, then we want to do our service as well as we can. Just as we would serve Krishna well, if we are cooking for Krishna, if we are doing something for Krishna, try to do it as well as we can.
Similarly, we try to do our work as well as we can. We don’t become workaholics. We don’t work all the time, all throughout our life.
But if we see that work as a service to Krishna, this is also my offering to Krishna. And most importantly, often our work enables us to make other offerings to Krishna. Whether it’s to make our home to a temple, whether it’s able to come to a temple, whether to go for yatras, for all that.
So we see our work, if we can’t see our work directly as a service, we can at least see our work as a tool to our service. So without the work, I will not be able to serve Krishna properly. And that’s how we can get our motivation.
So our work is also a part of our bhakti. So we want to do, we should try to do our best in the work because we are also offering that to Krishna. That’s why we offer our best that we can to Krishna.
Yeah, motivation in terms of the progression within the work, that will remain the same. Whether it is Arjuna shooting at a target or whether some other archer who is not a devotee shooting at a target. Now for both of them, the progression will be, okay, if you’re hitting at the bullseye, you hit at the outer circle, then you move towards the inner circle and you hit at the bullseye.
So the progression towards improvement and excellence is going to be the same. And both of them are aiming for the same excellence. So bhakti does not so much changing the how of your life as the why of your life.
So how we do things, it to some extent changes. We may do it in tamasik, rajasik with earlier, we will do it more sattvic ways. But basically we do the same work.
It’s not so much changing the how of our life as the why of our life. Why am I doing this? That is the primary change that bhakti brings about.