What is the difference between ‘nishkarma’ & ‘karma’ as explained in Gita & its significance?
From Karishma Mataji
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare krishna question from karishma bhatia mataji what is the difference between naishkarma and karma as explained in the gita and what is its significance answer karma refers specifically to activity but it can have many meanings karma can refer to activity karma can refer to the reaction to the gate to the activity oh this is the karmic reaction i am suffering and karma can also refer to the system of action reaction that the law of karma that means the system of action reaction so these are three among the many meanings of the word karma now naishkarma so that refers to in a straight linguistic sense it refers to not doing karma but in a philosophical sense it refers to not getting karmic reactions so naishkarma so that refers to that one does activities in such a way that one doesn’t get karmic reactions normally whenever we do any activity there is some reaction that to that if it’s a pious activity punyavan activity then we’ll get good results if it’s a sinful activity we’ll get bad results but when we do devotional activities for the pleasure of krishna then we don’t get any reaction for that in fact we get purification through that just like a person shooting somebody else is considered a criminal but a person that same person becomes a soldier and suits in the army at the enemy that person may get an award for that so like that when we do our activities for krishna’s pleasure then we become purified by those activities so the word naishkarma is also referred to in the bhagavad-gita as akarma so in 4.16 17 18 krishna talks about karma and akarma and he explains that actually we should try to avoid karma and we should do akarma that doesn’t mean we have to give up activity but we have to do activity in such a way that we can avoid karmic reactions so for that we have to offer the activities to krishna do them for his pleasure and to get that inner motivation to do them for his pleasure we have to do activity specifically to purify our heart so for example we chant the holy name study the scriptures worship the deities associate with devotees by all this our heart becomes attracted to krishna and when our heart is attracted to krishna then naturally whatever we do will be as a service offering to him for his pleasure then we can attain nishkarma and stay free from karmic reactions or stay free from karma thank