The verse and its meaning · Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 2 · Skill in Action

Yours Is the Doing

Bhagavad Gita 2.47

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि

Meaning · English

Your claim is to the work alone, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruit of action be your motive, and do not let yourself cling to inaction.

Three words carry this. Karma is action, the duty in front of you. Phala is fruit, whatever the action brings back. Adhikara is a claim, a right, something you can rightly hold. Krishna tells Arjuna that his claim reaches to the action and stops there. The fruit is never his to claim, at any time. Then comes the second clause: do not make the fruit the cause of your acting. Work done only to get a result is held hostage by the result. Krishna gives this reason because Arjuna stands frozen, weighing what the war will cost and win. Many things beyond one's control go into any outcome, so a mind fixed on the outcome cannot give itself to the task. The last clause closes the obvious escape. Since the fruit is not yours, you might drop the work. Krishna says no: do not attach yourself to inaction. The commentators read the verse in their own ways. Shankara takes it as guidance for the person still engaged in action, whose mind is cleansed by working without desire for reward. Ramanuja reads it as the practice of duty offered as worship, leading toward knowing the self. Madhva reads it as doing one's duty as service to God, who alone gives the results.

A gardener waters a seedling every morning. She can loosen the soil, give light, keep the snails off. She cannot pull the shoot upward or hurry the flower. If she stops watering because she cannot command the bloom, the plant dies. The watering is the claim. The bloom is the fruit. Quitting is the third error.

1. Pick one task today that you care about, such as a hard conversation, a form, or a meal for guests. Say aloud, or write on a scrap, what the task itself consists of: the steps that are yours. 2. Do those steps for twenty minutes without checking for any sign of result, such as replies, praise or numbers. 3. When your mind jumps ahead to how it will turn out, notice it, and return to the next step. 4. Afterwards, write one line on what the work was like when you were not watching for its reward.

A baker is up at four in the morning, shaping loaves for a festival day. Rain is coming, and he cannot tell whether the crowds will come. All night he has been counting how many he will sell, and he has already burned one tray. The verse changes the moment in small steps. Krishna tells Arjuna the claim is to the work, so the baker's question becomes what the dough needs now. He asks it again at each stage: weighing, kneading, watching the oven. The sales figure is set aside, not because it does not matter, but because standing over it does nothing for the loaves. The verse also refuses the other exit. He does not decide that since the crowd is uncertain, he may as well sleep in. He bakes, fully. Ordinary experience agrees on one point: worry about the outcome pulls attention away from the task in hand. What the verse does not promise is that the crowd will come, the rent will be paid, or the worry will stop appearing. It asks only where his hands and attention rest while it does.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Well and Lake · Bhagavad Gita 2.46
• Next: Equal in Win and Loss · Bhagavad Gita 2.48
• All of Bhagavad Gita · Ask Krishna about it

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