Karmańyevádhikáraste má phaleśu kadácana;
Má karmaphalaheturbhúmá te sauṋgo’stvakarmańi.⁽¹⁾

[You have the right to action but not the right to the fruits of the action. You must not do actions that will bind you, but you must not be averse to action, either.]

It is said: “O human beings, you have the right to action, but not to the fruits thereof. So don’t perform any action hoping for certain results, keeping an eye on the results, greedy for the results.” There seems at first glance to be an inconsistency in this statement, or at least a serious misunderstanding of psychology. For such a great personality as Lord Krśńa, at least, to misunderstand psychology or to give defective teachings, is quite unthinkable. Yet the apparent inconsistency remains.

Karmańyevádhikáraste – “You have the right to action.” What does karma mean? The word karma is derived from the root verb kr and the suffix man. The verb kr means “to do something”. You know that a verb is created on the basis of the reaction that a sound produces within the mind; and on the basis of the verb, other words are created – this is the general rule. For instance, the presence of an [annoying] object, or the motion of such an object, may produce a sound like kar kar, and people will say: Cokht́á karkar karche, cokhe váli paŕeche [“My eye is going karkar, feeling a scratching sensation – maybe some dust has gotten in”]. Or people may say: Jinist́á dekhe mant́á karkar karche [“Having seen that unpleasant thing, my mind is going karkar”]. We see the form of the type of wave that arises in the imaginative mind, and on the basis of that we create words – and also on the basis of the action [such as the scratching] itself. A vibration of the colour red comes floating and through the nerves reaches the eye; then a vibration is produced in the mind. Whenever an object vibrates, it has sound and colour as well. The vibration produced by red is itself red in colour. Your eyes also see the colour red. What you see as a result of the vibration in the mind, you call red. Now, what is red to you may be a different colour to someone else. Yet that person will call it red, because his or her mind experiences the same sort of vibration.

The colour you see and call red – which is one particular kind of colour – another person will also see and call red. But the red that you are seeing may not be the same colour that that person is seeing. That person may be seeing a different colour. The colours in the two people’s eyes may be different. It may be that for you it is violet, and for the other person it is yellow. It may also be that you can detect something which someone else cannot. What you call red when you are speaking, someone else does not see as red when he or she speaks – they see something else – but they say “red”. Of course I am not speaking of colour-blindness here, but of normal vision.

At the sight of red, a vibration arises in your mind, and the name that you give to that vibration is “red”. The name you give to what you see with your eyes is “red”.

As mentioned earlier, every vibration has sound; even vibrations in the mind have sound. When you see a certain vibration, you call it t́akt́ake lál [scarlet red], because the sound that colour produced was something like t́ak t́ak t́ak. Similarly, when you see something white, a white colour is produced in your mind and you call it “white”; and because of that vibration, a sound is produced within your mind. That sound is dhav dhav dhav, from which in Sanskrit the word dhava + la = dhavala is derived. Dhavala means “white”. In the Bhojpuri language it is dhaorii. This is how words are created – dhavdhave shádá [perfectly white], t́akt́ake lál [scarlet red]. Nothing comes out of nothing. Everything has a logical history behind it.

The word karma is derived from the root verb kr. The verb kr means “to change the position”. Adding the inflection man lends the sense of “assuming a special form”. Now, the verb kr means “move”, “change position”. If an object does not confine itself to a particular place, and does not remain static, it will always be on the move. Rabindranath said: “When I sketch any object, when any object is drawn, it does not lose its mobility.” When you see a picture, you cannot deny that it has mobility. If you say that something is confined within the scope of lines and is presented as a picture and as such it is static, you are wrong, because the idea represented by the picture enters your mind and vibrates it, and you cannot confine those vibrations; you cannot declare anything to be static or inert.

Kii praláp kahe kavi,
Nahe nahe nahe shudhu chabi;
Ke bale, rayeche sthira;
Mari mari sei saondaryya
Nibhe yeta yadi

[What a meaningless utterance the poet has made! No, no, no, it is not simply a picture! Who says it is static? It would be a great tragedy if that beauty vanished.]

Everything in this world is restless. All the ideas in everyone’s minds lie there in seed form. Whatever work you do contains latent mobility, which has to be expressed – but it is a partial expression. How can you give full expression to an entity which is in eternal motion from anádi [beginninglessness] to ananta [endlessness]? You cannot fully confine it within the scope of lines. At one end is anádi and at the other end ananta, so if you try to confine it within lines, where will you put the lines? So a partial form extends from anádi to ananta; it cannot be confined within lines everywhere. Suppose you demarcate something here, and something else over there: what you are doing is demarcating particular parts, partial forms. You can confine only a particular form, a particular projection of the flow of action from anádi to ananta which is progressing continuously in the segmented eternal flow of time. It is in this context that the word karma is derived from the root verb kr plus the inflection man. You grasp only a particular portion, a partial expression of the eternal flow of time – that is karma.

Shrii Krśńa said: Karmańyevádhikáraste má phaleśu kadácana – that is, “You have the right to action but not to the fruits of the actions.” You have a physical body, you have vital energy, and with their help you can move an object from one place to another. The change of position of an object is called karma; it is just a segment of the eternal flow of time. You certainly have the right to action: you have a body, you have vitality, you have arms and legs, you have power to think, you have an ectoplasmic structure, you have so many things; you can certainly do many things.

Even remaining in one place you can go to many different places. Your body and mind can perform many actions. You have certainly the right to get them to do various things. You can also remain idle – Pi-pu-phi-shu.⁽²⁾ You can do anything; everything is in your hands. Hence it is said: “You have the right to action but not to the fruits of the actions.” Actions and reactions are inseparably associated. Wherever there is an action, there is a corresponding reaction, because every action gets either reflected or refracted. The wave produced by the action will be either reflected or refracted. Both reflection and refraction are reactions. So whenever you act, whatever the nature of that work, that is the kind of reflection or refraction it will produce. But that reflected or refracted reaction is not in your hands. To do whatever you do, that is your only right.

So it has been said: “You have no right to the fruits of action.” And as you have no right to, no control over, the fruits of action, you should think carefully before you act. Do work; do good work; do very good work. Once the work is done, you will not be able to withdraw the results. So one must act carefully; the action is in your hand. And if, after acting, you start to worry about the consequences of the action, that will be meaningless. Remember, the reaction will come in a natural way, as a natural dharma [property (of the action)].

Karttrtva karma karmaphala [“Doership, action, result of the action”]. Human beings do the actions, and the results come according to the law of nature – the Lord has nothing to do with it. So when people are in trouble, they say: “Oh God, what have You done to me? What put this into Your mind?” But the fact is that Náráyańa, God, has done nothing, and had nothing in His mind. You have done something and are suffering the consequences. You are in trouble and you are crying out. Many people are like this. But Náráyańa has done nothing. As you have sown, so you now reap. This is the plain truth.

So before doing anything you should think carefully, because the action is in your hand, but not the result – that is in the hand of Prakrti [Cosmic Operative Principle]. Náráyańa neither performs the action nor administers the results. He simply gives Prakrti the opportunity to work within Her own limited sphere; Prakrti does Her duty accordingly. She does not aim to satisfy either your mind or the mind of anyone else. She only aims to please the mind of Náráyańa. Whatever work Náráyańa has given Her the right to do, that is what She does. She has no right to do more than that.

Footnotes

(1) Bhagavad Giitá. –Trans.

(2) Four lazy people were resting in their house when a fire broke out. The backs of those idlers soon started to be licked by the flames. One of them said, Pi (in spite of his pain, he was too lazy to utter the full word pit́ha, “back”). Another said, pu (instead of saying purche, “is burning”). A third said, phi (short for phire, “turning over”). And the fourth said, shu (“lie down”). In this way, through a concerted effort, they more or less completed the sentence Pit́ha purche, phire shu – “Our backs are burning, so roll over, but remain lying down.” –Trans.