How to work without attachment to Result?
To understand this rightly, it is first necessary to know that there are two kinds of action in our life. One of these is what we do today in order to achieve tomorrow as a result. Such an action is future oriented. It is the future which is leading us to action. While action takes place in the present, its fruit lies in the future. And the future is unknown and uncertain. Future means that which is not in existence, which is only a hope, a dream, an expectation. In that hope we are being dragged like cattle by our future.
The Sanskrit word for animal is ‘pashu’. Pashu is derived from ‘pash’ which means bondage. Hence pashu is one who is captive, a slave. In that sense we are all animals, because we are captives of future, we live in future hopes. The reins of our lives are in the hands of the future. We all human always live today in the hope of tomorrow. And likewise we live tomorrow in the hope of day after, because when tomorrow comes, it will come as today. So in reality many among us never live really, we go on postponing living, for the future. And the whole life pass away unlived and unfulfilled. And the greatest sorrow of these types of people at the time of death will be that the future is no more, there is no hope of achieving result in the future. If there was a future and a hope beyond death, they would have no regrets. That is why a dying man wants to know if there is any chance of reaping a harvest of hopes in the future, because it was only hopes that he had sown in the soil of life. He has wasted all his today in hope of a tomorrow that never came. And on the last day of life facing the cul-de-sac beyond which there is no tomorrow, no hope of any fruits of action. That is the despair of future- oriented life.
There is another kind of action which is not future oriented, which is not done with the motive to achieve some future result, which is not based on any ideas and patterns. Such an action is natural and spontaneous. This action arises from the depths of our being. It springs from what I am, not from what I want to become. Let us say, I am passing down a street when I come across an umbrella dropped unaware by a person walking ahead of me. I pick up that umbrella and hand it over to that person without any fuss. Like these type of action we don’t look around for a press reporter or a photographer to report to the public our great act of selfless service to a fellow traveller. We don’t even expect a simple “thank you” from the person concerned, nor hope for any results in the future. This is what is called a natural and spontaneous act. But if the owner of the umbrella goes his way without thanking me, and if I feel even slightly hurt thinking how ungrateful the man is, then my action is no more natural and spontaneous, it is not without motive. Maybe I was not aware of my expectation of a thank you, when I picked up that umbrella and handed it to him, but it was very much there in my sub-consciousness. An expectation even of a thank you destroys the spontaneity and purity of action. This action is no freer of attachment to its fruits. Then it is a contaminated act, contaminated with the desire for result.
If action is total in itself, if it is self-fulfilling, a love’s labour- if it has no other expectation outside of it, then it is what Krishna calls, “action without attachment to its fruit.” This action is complete in itself like a circle it has no expectations for the future. It is an end unto itself. In that case we will feel thankful to the person for giving us an opportunity to act totally, to do something without desire for results.
Let us introspect about these two types of action. More answers to come in weeks that follow!
Wishing you good health & happiness,
Dr. Dwarakanath, Director, Mitran foundation- the stress management people
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