It was a slow Saturday morning after weeks of running around. Maya had one of those months where you live more in the head than act. She didn’t get much done, wasn’t that busy, yet felt depleted. On her morning walk, she kept contemplating why the last month was so draining, but no answers emerged.
When she came back home, she intuitively picked up the Bhagavad Gita book lying on her desk and opened it to see the popular verse on Karma Yoga, Ch 2 V 47
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन | मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि || 47 || karmaṇy-evādhikāras te mā phaleṣhu kadāchana mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo ’stvakarmaṇi
Thy right is to work only, but never to its fruits; let not the fruit-of-action be thy motive, nor let thy attachment be to inaction.
While she’d read this verse many times, she now read it again with keen interest. Noticing the 3 nuances that the verse suggests on how to act in the world.
1. Our right is only to put in the work, but not its results: While she’d remembered the first part, she recognised that most of her suffering the past weeks was because she forgot the second part of it. She believed that if she put in the work, the result must always be 100% in her favour.
But Gita clearly distinguishes the two and reminds us the only thing in our control is our actions, not the results. She remembered another verse in Chapter 18 (verse 12) that reinstated that we can show up to our best and the result could be favourable, unfavourable, or mixed.
Hooked, she decided to keep reading.
2. Don’t let the fruit-of-action be the motive: This was the case in the project she’d taken up purely to gain visibility with the senior management. But she thought if I didn’t have that desire, I’d never take up that action.
As she read along she realised that what Karma Yoga suggests is that the fruit alone cannot be our motivation to do an action because then we would give up at the first sign of failure. This is what she’d done in the project, gave up at the first sign of resistance from her peers.
3. Don’t be attached to inaction: At this point, it felt like the book was talking to her. When she realised she may not be fully successful in her project, she decided not to work on it at all. A perfectionist at her core, she decided to not execute rather than do it imperfectly which is exactly what this verse cautions readers to avoid.
Now, Maya was curious, how should we act then:
As though hearing her question, the next verse gave her the answer.
योगस्थ: कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय | सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्यो: समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते || 48|| yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga uchyate
Be steadfast in the performance of your duty, O Arjun, abandoning attachment to success and failure. Such equanimity is called Yog.
When she read this verse, she remembered what her Yoga Teacher had told her about how one can act with evenness in mind. He said it is possible only if we act while remembering that we have – 1. Nothing to Lose and 2. Nothing to Prove. Her actions in the last month contradicted both the principles.
Maya executed her project as though she had everything at stake. She tied her entire self-worth and self-esteem to executing the project well and got consumed in the process. There was no distance between her project and herself throughout the last month.
She also felt the pressure to prove herself to her senior management. For some reason, she convinced herself that she’d only be worthy if she executed this project with flair. This obsession made her lose all sense of boundaries. She kept working 24*7 and took on more than she could fulfil. Besides, she was constantly doubtful, anxious, and afraid of the consequences if the project failed. No wonder she felt that depleted.
It was not the volume of work that was draining her, but the near constant mental angst that left her exhausted.
he remembered a quote by Brene Brown that summarised both these principles – “Don’t shrink. Don’t puff up. Hold your sacred ground” (and in the case of Karma Yoga – act!). She closed the Gita book realising that she’d been acting inefficiently all along and was determined to recheck her motivations over the weekend before getting back to work.
Maya’s experience is not unique. We’ve all been there and done that, and I often find a reminder in Karma Yoga helps to step back, reflect and realign before getting into work mode.
