First of all let us have a glimpse of what's on the platter. It has certain advantages. It tells us what to expect and one can decide whether he/she would be interested in investing(i dont use "spending") more time on this topic. It sharpens the interest and helps in holding it intact. This is akin to the "trailer" of the movie thats going to be screened :-)
"Sanyas" or inaction: Gita is against inaction
At the beginning of Gita, Arjuna in a lengthy and impassioned monologue presents to Krishna his “confusion,” which is really a plea to inaction, to avoidance of conflict, thinking that such a negative condition is peace, whereas peace is a positive state, not the mere absence of unrest and conflict. It is also reached only through unrest and conflict, however little we like the fact. After listening to all that Arjuna has to say, krishna urges him to act -
"klaibyam mâ sma gamah pârtha naitat tvayy upapadyate
khsudram hrdaya-daurbalyam tyaktvottistha parantapa"
"O son of Prithâ, do not yield to this degrading inaction. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy."
"tyakta + vuttistha" which means "leave it(inaction) and getup" shows the urgency with which one has to get rid of "inaction"
Gita says that if one has to "give up", they have to give up their desires first. They have to give up bad emotions(greed, lust, anger, jealousy...the list goes on)first. After one has reached the stage where their mind is totally pure, only then they can give up "action" and afford to be "inactive". As in stop doing any karma and take sanyas. "Action" or "karma" here means your worldly responsibilities of being a son/daughter, husband/wife and father/mother ..etc.
But in the world we see ppl doing otherwise. The first thing that someone gives up is "responsibilities" :-) and they take sanyas. The residue of the "worldly thoughts" is still with them. They keep struggling to keep it under check, which is impossible(we shall see why later) . Occassionally and predictably they stumble, giving bad name to genuine sanyasis and sanyasins and demotivating others!!!
It says that minds very nature is to be restless. In the modern parlance it is said that "An Idle mind is devils workshop" So do not try to take it to "thoughtless" (Idle) state from a state of turmoil. That way you are only inviting the Devil. It is not feasible. Calm it down first! Keep your mind occupied with good thoughts and keep doing good deeds till you remove the very last of the negetive emotions/thoughts.
So it is imperetive that you "act" (attend to your responsibilities)
Approach towards action
So if it is imperetive that one continues to act, how do one go about doing it?
"karmany evadhikaras te ma phalesu kadacana
ma karma-phala-hetur bhur ma te sango 'stv akarmani"
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but not to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.
Attend to all your worldly responsibilities. Have pure mind with good thoughts and do a good deed. Your duty is done! Do not be attached to your actions and hence the results! "
Vivekananda rightly says "A golden chain is as much a chain as iron one. So it is important that one does not get attached to good deeds either.Just be detached."
As you may have observed, we are disappointed only when something is expected and we dont get it. We do a good deed and expect a good outcome, which need not be the case always. There may be numerous external factors, out of your control which may change the output. You need not be depressed by the outcome. "ye kaise ho gaya! meine kya socha kar kiya, aur ye kya hogaya. I am always like this..so on and so forth"
Where there is no expectation, there is no disappointment and hence no sorrow!
Fatalism in Gita: Gita is against Fatalism
This gives room for the "opportunist" in us to abandon the "responsibility" of the result and become fatalistic. A student might say "I did my best in the exams. But i failed. I am having "bad time"! No one can change whats written!"
Nothing is "written", it is only "probability". The effort Vs result graph has another dimension called probability. Bad time means "less probability". Good time means "more probability"
So you are having "good time" when with less effort you get the required result. During "bad time" you need to increase your effort to get the same result.
It is the "effort" that is under your control. "Probability" is under "Nature/Gods" control. So when you know that the probability is less, instead of giving it as a lame excuse and blaming on "bad time", increase your efforts to achieve the same result!!!!
Act as if it is impossible to fail and you will never fail!!!
In Gita, God does not say, "I am everything. You are my helpless pawn with no free will what so ever." He says you are the Architect of your life. "YOU DECIDE" what YOU do! When Arjuna talks at length on why he doesnt want to go to war with his cousins, Krisha only gives him the facts. And in the end, the last chapter of Gita he says
"iti te jnanam akhyatam guhyad guhyataram maya
vimrsyaitad asesena yathecchasi tatha kuru"
Thus I have explained to you the most confidential of all knowledge. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do.
Krishna presented the facts and asked Arjuna to do the thinking and decide what he wants to do(yat ichhasi, tat kuru). Arjuna cannot say to Krishna later "YOU" wanted me to fight, so i fought ;-)) Hence there is no giving up of the ownership/responsibility of your deeds.
(Remember, it is ownership of the results that you have to give up....not the deeds..quite tricky..huh?!? :-))
And it also proves that each of us have options at every cross road and what we are is determined by the choices we make and "WE ALONE" are "responsible" for what we are and where we end up !
Source: TheGeethaFanClub.rediffiland.com
Monday, March 5, 2007
Nishkama Karma
Nishkama karma is a great message -- very important for living life wholesomely. At the risk of diluting this message, let me rephrase it in a slightly worldly way:
(1) Your actions will bring results, have faith.
(2) Place your faith in the boundless power of God, not in the power of your puny self, or of your action.
(3) Don''t seek to enjoy the fruits of your actions and to get an ego boost by seeing your achievements. Detach yourself, but have faith that God never lets an action go waste.
(4) Don''t let your actions be motivated by your ego, and don''t let the fruits of these actions feed your ego. Keep your actions clean and pure, untainted by ego.
(1) Your actions will bring results, have faith.
(2) Place your faith in the boundless power of God, not in the power of your puny self, or of your action.
(3) Don''t seek to enjoy the fruits of your actions and to get an ego boost by seeing your achievements. Detach yourself, but have faith that God never lets an action go waste.
(4) Don''t let your actions be motivated by your ego, and don''t let the fruits of these actions feed your ego. Keep your actions clean and pure, untainted by ego.
Karma Yoga
“Karma” means “work”; and “yoga” means “peace of mind”. So karma yoga is the methodology by which the work we do can take us to peace of mind. But karma is also used for a different meaning. People also refer to karma basically meaning the past activity we have done and its effect; to say that something is karmic; like why were you born in Turkey and not in America? It is my karmic aspect. Why do I have to go through the suffering? It is karmic. But when we have a great pleasure and happiness, then it is not karmic. Then we easily say, “I’ve struggled hard! I struggled and earned and put all the effort in that work”. Whereas when a suffering occurs, when something bad occurs, then we say it is karmic. If you hit somebody, that is your effort. Somebody hits you it is karmic. That is why “karma” is used very conveniently, so we need to understand what karma basically is.
The second aspect is how karma can give us peace of mind? All agitations, disturbances and the stress all appear because of karma. Activity we feel brings about disturbance. This is the reason when somebody says ‘peace of mind’ people equate it to giving up work. When we simply say that we have to calm down the mind, listeners immediately react saying “if I calm down my mind, how I can work? And how can the work run if we keep quiet?” But that means that karma is the action that is responsible for our problems. And there is no way that I can come out of this activity, so there is no possibility for having peace of mind while I am engaged in work. Do you understand this basically? This is the first secret that Karma Yoga addresses us. It is not the action that is the problem; the problem is something else.
The Bhagavad Gita says “Yogasya karmasthu kousalam” which means “Perfection in action is yoga!”
One may think the idea of yoga is doing some thing extra ordinary. It should be like some thing challenging. How can simply doing an activity give us the benefits of yoga? Just as doing some humanly impossible rigors of discipline, and torturous practices on he body and mind etc are the ones which gives us the benefits of yoga, no pain no gain situation, how can ordinary activity give us the same benefits?
Gita explains this paradox. Work is external. Attitude is internal. Work belongs to the world. Attitude belongs to you. You cannot change work much because it is in the hands of the world out side! When it happens to change, fine, it happens. But attitude behind the work is in your hands. A certain attitude makes your work miserable and certain other attitude makes it pleasant. Change the attitude, and you will become spiritual. If you do not have the right attitude, you are non-spiritual.
It is not the work that determines whether you are spiritual or not. This point needs to be understood very deeply. In fact, we have such stories in Indian philosophy. A woman can even work as a prostitute, but she can be an extraordinary saint. It is not because of the kind of work she is doing, but the kind of attitude she has. Attitude is in your hands and that is a thing you can change. Nobody can force an attitude on you. People can only influence your attitude, but it is you who decides what attitude you should have. And the right kind of attitude can help you turn it into yoga.
PS: As i have been saying time and again, some of the posts are not written by me. Sometimes I only read and try to summarize in a crisp manner the ideas that i find relevant. I shall give link to the source in such cases. You can find the source of this post at www.nvraghuram.org.
The second aspect is how karma can give us peace of mind? All agitations, disturbances and the stress all appear because of karma. Activity we feel brings about disturbance. This is the reason when somebody says ‘peace of mind’ people equate it to giving up work. When we simply say that we have to calm down the mind, listeners immediately react saying “if I calm down my mind, how I can work? And how can the work run if we keep quiet?” But that means that karma is the action that is responsible for our problems. And there is no way that I can come out of this activity, so there is no possibility for having peace of mind while I am engaged in work. Do you understand this basically? This is the first secret that Karma Yoga addresses us. It is not the action that is the problem; the problem is something else.
The Bhagavad Gita says “Yogasya karmasthu kousalam” which means “Perfection in action is yoga!”
One may think the idea of yoga is doing some thing extra ordinary. It should be like some thing challenging. How can simply doing an activity give us the benefits of yoga? Just as doing some humanly impossible rigors of discipline, and torturous practices on he body and mind etc are the ones which gives us the benefits of yoga, no pain no gain situation, how can ordinary activity give us the same benefits?
Gita explains this paradox. Work is external. Attitude is internal. Work belongs to the world. Attitude belongs to you. You cannot change work much because it is in the hands of the world out side! When it happens to change, fine, it happens. But attitude behind the work is in your hands. A certain attitude makes your work miserable and certain other attitude makes it pleasant. Change the attitude, and you will become spiritual. If you do not have the right attitude, you are non-spiritual.
It is not the work that determines whether you are spiritual or not. This point needs to be understood very deeply. In fact, we have such stories in Indian philosophy. A woman can even work as a prostitute, but she can be an extraordinary saint. It is not because of the kind of work she is doing, but the kind of attitude she has. Attitude is in your hands and that is a thing you can change. Nobody can force an attitude on you. People can only influence your attitude, but it is you who decides what attitude you should have. And the right kind of attitude can help you turn it into yoga.
PS: As i have been saying time and again, some of the posts are not written by me. Sometimes I only read and try to summarize in a crisp manner the ideas that i find relevant. I shall give link to the source in such cases. You can find the source of this post at www.nvraghuram.org.
Illustration of Karma Yoga, A story
A saint by name Kaushik was sitting in the forest under a tree meditating deeply. A bird on the braches above was making noise which is natural for the bird. The sage Kaushik got disturbed from his meditation and with anger he looked at the bird with scorching eyes. The very angry looks burnt the bird and it fell dead on the ground.
Kaushik though felt sorry for the bird, on the other hand he was surprised at the power to burn the bird he acquired through the meditation and was proud too!
As his meditation got disturbed he found that he was hungry. He walked to a nearby house to ask for food and stood in front of the house and asked for food. It is the tradition those days that it is the responsibility of the society to take care of the needs of a student and a spiritual seeker engaged in meditation.
But they are supposed to ask in humility and not in arrogance. When he stood in front of a house and asked for food the house wife came with all respect and wanted to take care of the saint at the door steps. But she found at the same time her husband walks in and she invariable has to take care of his immediate needs as a devout wife. She therefore apologized to the saint saying, “Sir, I would like to take care of you. Please give me some time wait for about ten minutes. Let me take care of him and come back to attend to you”. With he words Kaushik felt irritated, “how can she neglect me in front of her ordinary husband when a great yogi like him who accomplished a great power is standing there. But he controlled himself for the time being and waited. On top of all this she took little more time than he expected. When she came out she sincerely apologized saying, “I am sorry I made you to wait”. But his anger did not subside. She apologized repeatedly. But the arrogance will not allow one to act with compassion.
When she found he did not change in spite of her repeated requests and also saying that it was no intentional and she could not help the situation, she said, “oh sir, come on give up the angry looks,” and she further added, “I am not the bird to fall pray to your anger like the bird in the forest”.
He was shocked to hear from her about the bird being burnt because he never expected that any one would know about an incident that happened between him and the bird in the forest where no other person was there. How could he believe she knows about it? How could she know if she does not have any yogic powers? He felt her power must be greater than the power he has to burn a bird just by the heat rays from his angry looks. The moment he realized that she is extra ordinary at once he fell at her feet and prayed her to pardon his ignorance and requested her to tell what kind of yogic practices she does so that she acquired such great powers. She simply smiled and said, “I don’t do any spiritual practices and all that I do is to do my household activity diligently and meticulously”. But he could not believe and thought she is hiding about her practices. She in turn replied, “If you want any more information please go to my guru, his name is Dharma vyaadha and he is in the next town, and find out from him”.
Kaushik then proceeded to the town in search of the guru she has referred to him. Expecting to see a great spiritual teacher may be having an ashram or a place like that, he looked around in the center of the town. To his surprise he saw no ashram or no sign board of a spiritual master around there but to his surprise he found a butcher shop with the sign board saying ‘Dharmavyaadha meat shop’. He thought it can not be because he is expecting to see a pious man and not a meat selling person.
As he was hesitating standing there the person in the shop called him, ‘hi gentle man, aren’t you Kaushik and aren’t you the person the lady next village suggested you to meet me. I am the Dharmavyaadha you are looking for.’
Kaushik was totally dumb founded as how could he know what happened between him and the lady next town. But he could not do any thing. He remained as a mute spectator as he found to his surprise the guru is cutting meat and selling meat collecting money and fighting with them for the money! After he finished the work in the shop he counted all the money and took Kaushik wit him to his home. There he took care of his parents joyfully and at the end he asked him, ‘yes gentle man, what I can do for you?’ having seen all the work he is doing yet having such great wisdom, he is now totally surprised and asked him ‘sir, what is the special sadhana or spiritual practice you do so that you are such a great master. Dharmavyaadha replied humbly, ‘all that I do is to do all the duties that I am supposed to do diligently. That is my meditation’.
The moral of the story is that when we are doing the normal day to day work with a special attitude, then the work itself is no inferior to the highest spiritual sadhana. The question now is about the attitude, which can transform our activities into sadhana or spiritual practices!
When you look at it this way, yoga is not doing a few postures. There are some people who have a wonderful body, which can bend in so many ways, but they cannot bend their attitude. They can hold their breath until eternity, but they cannot hold their greed, their arrogance and temper etc even to a small degree!
Now what is yoga and what is not yoga? What appears like yoga may not be yoga. There are many yoga teachers that we come across who do not have the right kind of an attitude, they can bend very well and twist very perfectly yet they are not in true sense yogis because they don’t have right attitude.
So karma yoga is not the work outside. It is essentially the attitude behind the work that we do. An attitude that takes toward peace of mind is a healthy attitude. An attitude, which brings about agitations of the mind, is not a yogic attitude. It is a worldly attitude. It is not the work that causes suffering but you and you attitude. If a right attitude is there, the work can give you peace of mind. If a right attitude is not there, then the work can cause tension to you.
Now, what is this “right attitude”???
Kaushik though felt sorry for the bird, on the other hand he was surprised at the power to burn the bird he acquired through the meditation and was proud too!
As his meditation got disturbed he found that he was hungry. He walked to a nearby house to ask for food and stood in front of the house and asked for food. It is the tradition those days that it is the responsibility of the society to take care of the needs of a student and a spiritual seeker engaged in meditation.
But they are supposed to ask in humility and not in arrogance. When he stood in front of a house and asked for food the house wife came with all respect and wanted to take care of the saint at the door steps. But she found at the same time her husband walks in and she invariable has to take care of his immediate needs as a devout wife. She therefore apologized to the saint saying, “Sir, I would like to take care of you. Please give me some time wait for about ten minutes. Let me take care of him and come back to attend to you”. With he words Kaushik felt irritated, “how can she neglect me in front of her ordinary husband when a great yogi like him who accomplished a great power is standing there. But he controlled himself for the time being and waited. On top of all this she took little more time than he expected. When she came out she sincerely apologized saying, “I am sorry I made you to wait”. But his anger did not subside. She apologized repeatedly. But the arrogance will not allow one to act with compassion.
When she found he did not change in spite of her repeated requests and also saying that it was no intentional and she could not help the situation, she said, “oh sir, come on give up the angry looks,” and she further added, “I am not the bird to fall pray to your anger like the bird in the forest”.
He was shocked to hear from her about the bird being burnt because he never expected that any one would know about an incident that happened between him and the bird in the forest where no other person was there. How could he believe she knows about it? How could she know if she does not have any yogic powers? He felt her power must be greater than the power he has to burn a bird just by the heat rays from his angry looks. The moment he realized that she is extra ordinary at once he fell at her feet and prayed her to pardon his ignorance and requested her to tell what kind of yogic practices she does so that she acquired such great powers. She simply smiled and said, “I don’t do any spiritual practices and all that I do is to do my household activity diligently and meticulously”. But he could not believe and thought she is hiding about her practices. She in turn replied, “If you want any more information please go to my guru, his name is Dharma vyaadha and he is in the next town, and find out from him”.
Kaushik then proceeded to the town in search of the guru she has referred to him. Expecting to see a great spiritual teacher may be having an ashram or a place like that, he looked around in the center of the town. To his surprise he saw no ashram or no sign board of a spiritual master around there but to his surprise he found a butcher shop with the sign board saying ‘Dharmavyaadha meat shop’. He thought it can not be because he is expecting to see a pious man and not a meat selling person.
As he was hesitating standing there the person in the shop called him, ‘hi gentle man, aren’t you Kaushik and aren’t you the person the lady next village suggested you to meet me. I am the Dharmavyaadha you are looking for.’
Kaushik was totally dumb founded as how could he know what happened between him and the lady next town. But he could not do any thing. He remained as a mute spectator as he found to his surprise the guru is cutting meat and selling meat collecting money and fighting with them for the money! After he finished the work in the shop he counted all the money and took Kaushik wit him to his home. There he took care of his parents joyfully and at the end he asked him, ‘yes gentle man, what I can do for you?’ having seen all the work he is doing yet having such great wisdom, he is now totally surprised and asked him ‘sir, what is the special sadhana or spiritual practice you do so that you are such a great master. Dharmavyaadha replied humbly, ‘all that I do is to do all the duties that I am supposed to do diligently. That is my meditation’.
The moral of the story is that when we are doing the normal day to day work with a special attitude, then the work itself is no inferior to the highest spiritual sadhana. The question now is about the attitude, which can transform our activities into sadhana or spiritual practices!
When you look at it this way, yoga is not doing a few postures. There are some people who have a wonderful body, which can bend in so many ways, but they cannot bend their attitude. They can hold their breath until eternity, but they cannot hold their greed, their arrogance and temper etc even to a small degree!
Now what is yoga and what is not yoga? What appears like yoga may not be yoga. There are many yoga teachers that we come across who do not have the right kind of an attitude, they can bend very well and twist very perfectly yet they are not in true sense yogis because they don’t have right attitude.
So karma yoga is not the work outside. It is essentially the attitude behind the work that we do. An attitude that takes toward peace of mind is a healthy attitude. An attitude, which brings about agitations of the mind, is not a yogic attitude. It is a worldly attitude. It is not the work that causes suffering but you and you attitude. If a right attitude is there, the work can give you peace of mind. If a right attitude is not there, then the work can cause tension to you.
Now, what is this “right attitude”???
Action and Attitude, A story
Action and Attitude are the two pillars on which karma yoga is based on. Right action and right attitude.
The basic tenent of karma yoga is "You reap as u sow" or "Every action has equal reaction" or "what goes around comes around". Which means you do bad, you get it back and u are doomed. You do good, it comes back to you and you should be happy.
As per this rule, You be good and do good always, and you should be eternally happy!
But This is only half of the truth. we see that this doesnt happen in the real world. Gita explains the missing half. It is bcos of our attitude..ie attachment that the good deeds can result in sorrow. We do good and expect good result. So we are sad if we dont see the result. we try to "own" our "actions" and hence the "credit". Good deeds resulting in sorrow bcos of this wrong attitude!
You do good and say "I have done my job to the best of my ability. God wanted this good to be done and he chose me. I am thankful to Him for that. He is capable of making a donkey recite vedas if he wishes so! Whatever good i did reflects his greatness and not mine"
(This, If you believe in God or the Supreme soul who is omni potent, omni present and omniscient:-) Otherwise refer note1)
In this case the doer is happy irrespective of the outcome of the good deed. Good action with right attitude (detachment to the result) never brings sorrow. The doer is eternally in action and eternally happy!
This is karma yoga as per my understanding.
At the same time, the concept of "action" or "karma" is not as simple as it looks. It should be understood at a very subtle and abstract level as well. karma yoga (detachment) should be followed in essence and not just in letter. You may breach it in letter if the essence is retained. This is the unique beauty of Bhagavad Gita ! I gives the person total freedom in implementing it.
A story comes to my mind to illustrate this.
A Guru and his disciple were traveling in a jungle. They come to a stream and have to cross it to go to the nearest village before dark. It was raining and the stream was already full and the currents were strong. On approaching the stream, they find an anxious lady pacing up n down the bank, agitated and almost in tears. She is a milk maid who lives on the other side of the stream. She delivers milk in villages on this side of the stream and returns every evening to her village. Everything was ok when she crossed the stream in the morning; the water was only knee deep. But now the stream was overflowing and even a 6 feet man would be drowned till his shoulders and would barely make it to the other side. There was no way that this lady could cross it by herself. On seeing the gentle men, she approaches the disciple and asks him if he would carry her to the other side. The disciple humbly says, “Lady, we are sanyasins and we should not even touch a lady, so even imagining carrying you on the back is against the rules! I am helpless“
The Lady then in her desperation approaches the Guru and repeats her request. The Guru without even batting an eye lid, reverentially accepts her request and carries her to the other side of the stream on his back. They leave the lady on the other side of the bank and continue their journey. The disciple is dumbfounded! He can’t fathom his Gurus action and at the same time can’t question him or doubt his intentions.
He just can’t keep his mind off the topic of “Guru carrying the lady”. After a few hours of walking in silence, the Guru turns to the disciple and says, “I carried the lady only till the other side of the stream. Why are you still carrying her???”
So what do you, my fellow ilanders, think about the moral of this story?
Note 1: Even for a rational atheist, it is only logical to realize that the result is out of his control. It is like giving the board exams. You study hard and write well doesnt mean you get good marks for sure :-) It depends on the mood and nature of the person who corrects your paper. Some teachers are lineient and some are strict. A mark here and a mark there...which could make all the difference for you, but it is outside your control. So why fret about sth you can't help? Quite rational, isnt it?)
The basic tenent of karma yoga is "You reap as u sow" or "Every action has equal reaction" or "what goes around comes around". Which means you do bad, you get it back and u are doomed. You do good, it comes back to you and you should be happy.
As per this rule, You be good and do good always, and you should be eternally happy!
But This is only half of the truth. we see that this doesnt happen in the real world. Gita explains the missing half. It is bcos of our attitude..ie attachment that the good deeds can result in sorrow. We do good and expect good result. So we are sad if we dont see the result. we try to "own" our "actions" and hence the "credit". Good deeds resulting in sorrow bcos of this wrong attitude!
You do good and say "I have done my job to the best of my ability. God wanted this good to be done and he chose me. I am thankful to Him for that. He is capable of making a donkey recite vedas if he wishes so! Whatever good i did reflects his greatness and not mine"
(This, If you believe in God or the Supreme soul who is omni potent, omni present and omniscient:-) Otherwise refer note1)
In this case the doer is happy irrespective of the outcome of the good deed. Good action with right attitude (detachment to the result) never brings sorrow. The doer is eternally in action and eternally happy!
This is karma yoga as per my understanding.
At the same time, the concept of "action" or "karma" is not as simple as it looks. It should be understood at a very subtle and abstract level as well. karma yoga (detachment) should be followed in essence and not just in letter. You may breach it in letter if the essence is retained. This is the unique beauty of Bhagavad Gita ! I gives the person total freedom in implementing it.
A story comes to my mind to illustrate this.
A Guru and his disciple were traveling in a jungle. They come to a stream and have to cross it to go to the nearest village before dark. It was raining and the stream was already full and the currents were strong. On approaching the stream, they find an anxious lady pacing up n down the bank, agitated and almost in tears. She is a milk maid who lives on the other side of the stream. She delivers milk in villages on this side of the stream and returns every evening to her village. Everything was ok when she crossed the stream in the morning; the water was only knee deep. But now the stream was overflowing and even a 6 feet man would be drowned till his shoulders and would barely make it to the other side. There was no way that this lady could cross it by herself. On seeing the gentle men, she approaches the disciple and asks him if he would carry her to the other side. The disciple humbly says, “Lady, we are sanyasins and we should not even touch a lady, so even imagining carrying you on the back is against the rules! I am helpless“
The Lady then in her desperation approaches the Guru and repeats her request. The Guru without even batting an eye lid, reverentially accepts her request and carries her to the other side of the stream on his back. They leave the lady on the other side of the bank and continue their journey. The disciple is dumbfounded! He can’t fathom his Gurus action and at the same time can’t question him or doubt his intentions.
He just can’t keep his mind off the topic of “Guru carrying the lady”. After a few hours of walking in silence, the Guru turns to the disciple and says, “I carried the lady only till the other side of the stream. Why are you still carrying her???”
So what do you, my fellow ilanders, think about the moral of this story?
Note 1: Even for a rational atheist, it is only logical to realize that the result is out of his control. It is like giving the board exams. You study hard and write well doesnt mean you get good marks for sure :-) It depends on the mood and nature of the person who corrects your paper. Some teachers are lineient and some are strict. A mark here and a mark there...which could make all the difference for you, but it is outside your control. So why fret about sth you can't help? Quite rational, isnt it?)
You reap as u sow
One day Buddha went to a house and begged for some food. This is normal for a sanyasin, who has taken to the spiritual life in India. His requirements are very small: some food and few clothes. They do not have any attachments to anything. Buddha was a big king and he became a sanyasin. And then his requirement is just a morsel of food. So Buddha went to a house and asked for food. The lady, respecting the culture, wanted to offer food to him. She opened the door but then she saw a well-built, robust forty-year old man in good health. Obviously she did not recognize him so she at once got annoyed and started shouting at Buddha, “why are you begging food? Can you not earn? Why don’t you work at some place and earn your food? Why should you beg for it? You are a lazy fellow!” After she shouted all that at him, she slammed the door on his face. Buddha’s disciple Ananda heard all this and got angry. He told Buddha, “Why did you keep quiet? Look, you are the king of this place. If she is eating food, it is because of the king’s grace. Why did you allow her to shout at you?” Buddha smiled. “Maybe in some previous life I shouted at her. I’m glad that this debt is cleared now. I don’t want to shout at her now, so that I don’t create a fresh balance. She shouted at me and went back, and now I’m peaceful.”
This basically shows how one’s behavior changes by taking up responsibility for not only your actions, but for what others do to you as well! You stop blaming others. The hatred and negative reactions disappear! So karma philosophy is not blaming somebody but seeing how one’s future has been planned based on what you did in the past. It gives a person a big relief, by telling him that he is not a mere puppet in someone’s(God’s) hand. But he can actually take control, plan and work towards making his future painless.
This basically shows how one’s behavior changes by taking up responsibility for not only your actions, but for what others do to you as well! You stop blaming others. The hatred and negative reactions disappear! So karma philosophy is not blaming somebody but seeing how one’s future has been planned based on what you did in the past. It gives a person a big relief, by telling him that he is not a mere puppet in someone’s(God’s) hand. But he can actually take control, plan and work towards making his future painless.
Good deeds(karma) causing frustration, A Story
It is because we do good and we now expect the results. If the good does not pay the results expected, it becomes our agony. This is the next subject noticed by the student. There was a slum area in a certain city. In these slums most often people do not keep their houses clean. A group of youngsters, who were really charged for doing something good, wanted to do good in that area. They went there and saw that the streets and the people were dirty. There was a lot of work to do. So they wanted to do selfless work. They cleaned the streets and the houses, and showed the people how to clean the dirt why to keep clean and live a life of hygiene. They collected all the garbage, threw it out, and gave baths to the kids. In the end, the kids were looking neat; the streets were neat. The time from morning to evening was spent usefully and they were happy. “See we did good work,” they said. They had peace of mind.
The same group of youngsters came again to the same place the next week, and they found the place is as it was before and back in dirt. Yet they consoled themselves, saying “People will not learn it in one day. Maybe if we do this, another two-three weeks, people will slowly learn.” So the following Wednesday, they did the whole thing once again. They cleaned the whole place, disposed of the garbage, gave baths to the kids. Everyone was wonderful and happy. The next week they went there one more time and found the place no different. But they were still not tired. The same enthusiasm was there. They cleaned the whole place, did everything nice. People were happy; the students were happy. Then they went back. Then for the following Wednesday there were some important problems in some other part of the city. Since the students had to go there they could not come to the first place for one or two weeks. They did all that - Happy. Then once again, the following Wednesday after that, they went back to the same slum area. As soon as the local people in that slum area saw the youngsters, they asked them, with anger,” What happened to you last week? Why did you not come to clean?”
Now you are frustrated. You say to yourself, “I taught them something good. I tried to do good, but the good did not pay the result. The results are not coming forth. The people do not realize” This frustrates us. The work has not frustrated, but not getting the result of the work frustrated us. What we then normally do is blame the work and say that we should not do this work since the work causes us frustration. Look at this subtly. Work itself did not frustrate you, because the first week we enjoyed it; the second week we enjoyed it, and now it has become frustration! If work caused the frustration, it should have always frustrated you, isn’t it? However, it gave happiness before and how can it give frustration now!
Good work itself does not cause frustration, but there is something else that causes frustration; that is the expectation of the results. The expectation of the results gives us frustration. We do the work with a good attitude, but the expectation of the results is the bad attitude. That is why Krishna gives us a golden rule: Give up the fruit of the work. ‘Ma phaleshu kadaacana’. Give up the desire for the results. Immediately we have a rebel within us for that very thought. The question rises if we do not expect any results, then why do we do or why do we have to do the work? Here, we need to understand the nature of work from a deeper perspective.
When you closely watch we see that we have good intention for doing good. If it is not there then you are not even fit for spiritual knowledge. Spirituality does not start if you have not arisen from bad to good! And a simple moral education is sufficient to make one to come towards doing good to others from doing bad. Therefore in the first place a spiritual person tends to do good to others. He plans and starts working towards that.
From the time he starts doing he enjoys the activity. Doing bad has vengeance or venom behind it and that it is crippling and causing pain. He has come out of all that negativity the moment he comes out of doing bad. You were happy as you are doing the good work. That means your inner self was happy by doing good. But as we progress we start expecting results. The expectation of results is outside. Joy of doing the work is internal and very satisfying. But the moment your focus is outside you are disturbed. As long as your focus is inside, you are happy. The moment you turn your focus outside, you are unhappy. Therefore, expecting results brings you out of your personality. You start becoming anxious and frustration for seeing the results and disappointments if they do not give expected results. Even then the objection sustains. You say, “I did good work and the good work should give good result”. You start wondering why there has been failure. You loose your faith in good work also. It appears good work may not have desired fruits.
Please understand there is nothing wrong with good work and good work has the result. You may not be able to see. Yes, the work has the result. You do not have the result. The result does not belong to you.
source:www.nvraghuram.org
The same group of youngsters came again to the same place the next week, and they found the place is as it was before and back in dirt. Yet they consoled themselves, saying “People will not learn it in one day. Maybe if we do this, another two-three weeks, people will slowly learn.” So the following Wednesday, they did the whole thing once again. They cleaned the whole place, disposed of the garbage, gave baths to the kids. Everyone was wonderful and happy. The next week they went there one more time and found the place no different. But they were still not tired. The same enthusiasm was there. They cleaned the whole place, did everything nice. People were happy; the students were happy. Then they went back. Then for the following Wednesday there were some important problems in some other part of the city. Since the students had to go there they could not come to the first place for one or two weeks. They did all that - Happy. Then once again, the following Wednesday after that, they went back to the same slum area. As soon as the local people in that slum area saw the youngsters, they asked them, with anger,” What happened to you last week? Why did you not come to clean?”
Now you are frustrated. You say to yourself, “I taught them something good. I tried to do good, but the good did not pay the result. The results are not coming forth. The people do not realize” This frustrates us. The work has not frustrated, but not getting the result of the work frustrated us. What we then normally do is blame the work and say that we should not do this work since the work causes us frustration. Look at this subtly. Work itself did not frustrate you, because the first week we enjoyed it; the second week we enjoyed it, and now it has become frustration! If work caused the frustration, it should have always frustrated you, isn’t it? However, it gave happiness before and how can it give frustration now!
Good work itself does not cause frustration, but there is something else that causes frustration; that is the expectation of the results. The expectation of the results gives us frustration. We do the work with a good attitude, but the expectation of the results is the bad attitude. That is why Krishna gives us a golden rule: Give up the fruit of the work. ‘Ma phaleshu kadaacana’. Give up the desire for the results. Immediately we have a rebel within us for that very thought. The question rises if we do not expect any results, then why do we do or why do we have to do the work? Here, we need to understand the nature of work from a deeper perspective.
When you closely watch we see that we have good intention for doing good. If it is not there then you are not even fit for spiritual knowledge. Spirituality does not start if you have not arisen from bad to good! And a simple moral education is sufficient to make one to come towards doing good to others from doing bad. Therefore in the first place a spiritual person tends to do good to others. He plans and starts working towards that.
From the time he starts doing he enjoys the activity. Doing bad has vengeance or venom behind it and that it is crippling and causing pain. He has come out of all that negativity the moment he comes out of doing bad. You were happy as you are doing the good work. That means your inner self was happy by doing good. But as we progress we start expecting results. The expectation of results is outside. Joy of doing the work is internal and very satisfying. But the moment your focus is outside you are disturbed. As long as your focus is inside, you are happy. The moment you turn your focus outside, you are unhappy. Therefore, expecting results brings you out of your personality. You start becoming anxious and frustration for seeing the results and disappointments if they do not give expected results. Even then the objection sustains. You say, “I did good work and the good work should give good result”. You start wondering why there has been failure. You loose your faith in good work also. It appears good work may not have desired fruits.
Please understand there is nothing wrong with good work and good work has the result. You may not be able to see. Yes, the work has the result. You do not have the result. The result does not belong to you.
source:www.nvraghuram.org
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