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