What exactly does the Gita say about ‘work is worship’?

Transcript

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thing that way. So, the question is, what exactly does the Gita say about work is worship? So, if you look at 18.46, actually, there are two main verses in the Gita, which are often used to refer to this idea of work is worship.
One is what is commonly quoted and other is not so commonly quoted. The commonly quoted verse is 2.47. So, 2.47 says that you have a right to do your work, but you do not have a right to the results of the work. And do not think of yourself to be the result of the work and do not be attached to not doing your work also.
So, these are four solid points just said, I will explain them. And the other is what I quoted in the class, 18.46. So, the first verse 2.47 essentially says that we should be able to do work without becoming caught up in its fruits, immediate fruits. Just like when a student who studies only for getting marks, then the student may not really learn much about the subject properly, because the person has to become a pioneer in a field.
And the person cannot be obsessed with marks, the person has to be obsessed with understanding the subject, with developing a trained mind, which will be able to understand future concepts, not just scoring marks. So, marks is a result of proper study, but marks should not be, the purpose of study should not be reduced only to marks. So, like that, when we do work, naturally, we want some result.
That result is a natural, that result is a natural aspect of the work that we do. But if we make the material result of the work as the only motivation for the work, then we are missing out on what work can provide us ultimately. Now, when work is done as a worship for Krishna, then it can lead to our spiritual growth.
So, how does one do that, as I mentioned, by devoting our time, devoting some time of our life for exclusively worshipping Krishna, and then carrying those devotional impressions in our work and seeing them that this work is also a way of serving Krishna, serving God. Now, the Bhagavad Gita is a book for spiritualizing our entire life. The Bhagavad Gita doesn’t recommend renunciation of work.
Arjuna wanted to renounce, Krishna said don’t renounce the work. But that doesn’t mean, Bhagavad Gita says that just you do your work and that will automatically be worship. If that were the case, then even Duryodhana would be a worshipper, because Duryodhana was also doing, Duryodhana was the villain in the Mahabharata, who was also doing the work of fighting, and he was Kshatriya, so he can say I’m doing fighting also.
But he’s not glorified. The purpose of the Gita is not just that one do work, but one elevate one’s consciousness while doing work. So, Arjuna is asked to become absorbed in remembrance of Krishna, in loving devotion to Krishna, and then do one’s work.
So, we have a vertical relationship with Krishna and horizontal relationships with the things and people in the world, and the purpose of the horizontal relationships that are there with the things and people in this world, they are temporary, whereas the vertical relationship with Krishna is eternal. So, if we do our worldly things only for the horizontal relationship, or if we do all our activities only for developing the horizontal relationships, that means to acquire more things and to enjoy with more people in this world, then we miss out on developing the vertical relationship. So, what the Bhagavad Gita tells us is that we should not divorce the material from the spiritual.
The way the divorce of the material from the spiritual can happen in two ways. One is that one only adopts the, renounces everything material, and thinks that I have to renounce everything to become spiritual. And the other is, one mistakenly assumes the material itself to be the spiritual.
That means work is worship. No, the Bhagavad Gita differentiates that actually that which connects us directly with Krishna is spiritual. That is the activities of bhakti are spiritual.
But along with that, our material life can also be spiritualized. And its message guides us by telling us about the process of bhakti yoga, by which we can spiritualize our material activities also. So, the essential teaching of the Bhagavad Gita about work is that we can make our work into a worship by practicing