The Secret of Selfless Action

Self-Inquiry & Contemplative Reading:

As you go through the teachings below:

(a) Mark the 3 items of all 18 teachings that most delight you.

(b) Mark any “aha!” items (sudden insights).

(c) Put a ? mark by the 2 puzzlers. (Go to the Bhagavad Gita book

for the full text if needed.)

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In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says:

“Listen while I explain a practical spiritual discipline for living a happier and more effective, life…

____1) Make Karma Yoga your path and you can live a spiritual life while staying fully active in the world.

____2) Karma Yoga (union with God through action) is not at all dangerous. On this path no effort goes to waste and there is no failure.

____3) When your actions are not based on desire for a reward, it is easier to steady the mind and direct it toward the Atma, the True Self Within.

___4) People with unsteady minds end up failing, but those with unwavering minds achieve great success.

____5) The desire-laden mind cannot develop the utter concentration needed to reach union with God—which is your only real objective.

____6) Work hard in the world but for work’s sake only. Do not seek to acquire earthly objects or acclaim.

____7) Do not crave the fruits of your work. Refuse to be attached to or affected by the results of your work, whether favorable or unfavorable.

____8) The crux issue is desire – and the ensuing lack of inner peace. Desire for fruits brings worry about failing, which pulls you from the present into an imagined, usually fearful future. This robs your energy and you lapse into inaction.

____9) A worried mind veers from the only real goal, which is realizing Atma and uniting with the Divinity within.

____10) The ideal is to be very active and yet have no selfish motives, no thoughts of personal gain or loss.

____11) Doing your duty uncontaminated by desire leads to inner peace and increased effectiveness. This is the secret of living a life of real accomplishment and success!

____12) Do your worldly work with your heart fixed on God instead of on outcomes. Do not worry about results; be even-tempered in success or failure.

____13) Evenness of mind – equanimity – is truly the ideal attitude in which to live your life.

____14) Equanimity truly is yoga – union with God!

____15) When endowed with this basic detachment from the fruits of your actions, you cast off the karmic consequences of both good and bad deeds.

____16) Never lose sight of your main goal: to shed your attachments, to detach from ego, and release yourself from the awful wheel of birth and death, to actually become one with God!

____17) Achieve the goal by proceeding in this order: first unite your heart with God, and only then pursue worldly things. This links all your actions to the very purpose of life.

____18) Detachment converts misery-laden karma (the entangling consequences of your acts) into misery-free living.

These high spiritual teachings are not meant just for the recluse, but for active people who are immersed in the world.” – Krishna

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