न मां कर्माणि लिम्पन्ति न मे कर्मफले स्पृहा | इति मां योऽभिजानाति कर्मभिर्न स बध्यते || 14 || |
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“Actions do not cause attachment in Me, nor do I have longing for their fruits. He who is identified with Me, who knows My nature, is also free from the karmic fetters of works.”
Commentary
An analogy can be helpful for this verse. A seed that is sown in the soil consumes water and sunlight, protrudes out of the soil, grows into a tree, performs certain actions according to the season and bears fruits. Similarly the soul takes birth as a seed in the soil of the womb, consumes the water of life currents (prana) and the light of intelligence (chaitanya), comes out of the womb, grows into an adult and performs actions that produce the fruits of experiences. The result obtained from action produces experience. It is not the result that is binding but the longing for the resulting experience that creates karma. One fruit may be good, the other may be bad. One experience may be good, the other could be bad. The tree is not attached to its fruits but matures in the process. In the same way a human matures if there is no attachment to the pleasurable or sorrowful experiences.
Keeping an end result in mind is important but one should not get attached to the experience that will come from the outcome otherwise extraordinary actions cannot be performed. In the anxiety to achieve the end result, the process is compromised. Man’s duty is to perform actions in the best way possible but the results are given by the Law of Karma that watches over all births. Fruits are produced in the right season so karmic experiences will also automatically manifest in the right moment without any delay.
Karma is the adhesive filled with attachment to past influences, experiences and habits that ties a person to the body. When karma is removed, the body will not exist. God and His realized devotees are untouched by all influences and perform actions if and when needed in the most extraordinary way only to please God not ego. They do not long for the fruits of sense experiences but if the experience comes, they remain untouched. Each experience ripens like a fruit and falls from the tree of the karmic body. The devotee eventually matures and attains the permanent state of Paramahansa – one who works in the material world, untouched by the longing for any experience and always in a state of Sat-Chit-Ananda: Eternal, ever-Conscious, ever-new Bliss.