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Sunday, November 22, 2020

Performance of Duty is the Fulfillment

“Karmanyeva adhikaraste, ma phaleshu kada chana; Ma karma phala hetur bhurh, ma te sangostva akarmani,” Krishna says to Arjuna in the verse 2.47 of the Bhagavad Gita. While a man is free to choose the actions which he will perform, he lacks the power to determine the fruits of those actions. He is the cause of his actions, but the consequences are not in his control. It is not necessary that his actions will lead to the consequences that he desires. A moral man will not be paralyzed by the thoughts of the consequences of his actions.. He will not be deterred from the performance of his duties. The action, or the performance of the duty, is a source of fulfillment for him.

2 comments:

Ajit R. Jadhav said...

Dear Anoop,

No, Anoop, it means this:

"karmaNye vaa adhikaaraste": Following [either] the road of karma or of authority [Gita gives you choices]

"maa phaleShu kadaachana": [Think of] Mmmm. You can have [yummy] fruits or essence of "chhena" (cheese curds). [Gita is full of such choices. Chhena is an "apabhraumsh" of or corruption of the original "chana", and "kadaa" of "kaadhaa".]

"maa karmaphal hetu: bhu:": With the purpose of having yummy fruits at the end of [his] work, [even the dog] barks.

"maa te sangoShTva akarmaNi": So, go share all those yummy (fruits) with a good community ("ishTa" and "sanga"); [else doing karma is like] not doing karma ("akarmaNi").

People should learn Sanskrit.

Best,
--Ajit

Anoop Verma said...

@Ajit, Good point. What I have given in my post is not a full dictionary translation (though what I have said is in line with the dictionary translation). I have tried to analyze and expand verse.