Bhagvat Gita: Essay on verse 47
August 27th, 2018
Verse: “You have the right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities and never be attached to not doing your duty.”
On meditating upon the verses on Karma Yoga my mind keeps returning to a single, conspicuous thought, the pervading thought of SURRENDER. I wonder why it never occurred to me before when it makes so much sense? I have been pondering over this word a lot in the past few months. Surrender is the refuge of the weary, the shade of a lush green tree after the scorching heat of the Sun in the summer, the restful sleep after a laborious day of hard work. The concept of surrender aligns so beautifully with the theory of Karma Yoga. When the all-pervading, all knowing, all loving God or Supreme intelligence is teaching us to perform our duty without attachment to the results, he is not being a hard taskmaster or a uptight judge ready to chastise us on our slightest digression. This advice is full of kindness and overflowing with love, for when we follow this advice, we will be in alignment with our true peace-loving nature which likes to flow with the natural rhythm of things.
In my personal life, I noticed that as I began to surrender the consequences of my actions to the discretion of the divine will more and more, and asked God to lead me rather than planning, analyzing, manipulating and strategizing to influence the results of my actions, blessings began pouring into my life like rushing rivers. Before, it felt like no matter how furiously active I tried to be and no matter how many activities I undertook, my life remained stagnant. But when I allowed some space for the divine will to pour into my life, miracles began to happen. I experienced a complete transformation of both pace and place of my life.
As we go about our daily lives and our days progress along from morning to evenings, the burden of responsibilities, task lists, goals and burning ambitions begin to pile onto our shoulders. Our brain is busy in problem solving and finding ways out of the maze we find ourselves in. And at times, we feel overwhelmed by it all. But what we forget is the lesson taught by Krishna in Karma Yoga. Every time we feel burdened and stressed, we must remember- our only job is to do our part to the best of our intellectual ability but it is not our job to worry about the consequences. If we spend two minutes in prayer surrendering all our actions to the Supreme, all the burdens seem to melt away and we flow effortlessly with the divine will. This is the way to true freedom and the way to royal hood. It is a state where we are willing to give without being tied to the expectation of any return. This is a breaking free from all sorts of shackles or restraints. This is true liberation.
Therefore, by following this simple golden rule so generously given to us by Krishna, we are being taught how to make our lives easy and joyous. Rather than carrying the load of the world on our shoulders we can surrender our actions to the divine will and forever live a life of freedom!