There is a nice and often quoted sloka in Bhagwat Gita.
Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana । Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani ।।
This means that we have the right to our actions but not to the fruits they bear. Hence, keep working without thinking about the results. This is the most unpractical advice I have ever heard in my life. It makes no sense,......till recently.
During the lockdown in 2020, my father would explain Bhagwat Gita to me over Zoom. During that one of the slokas we discussed was the 5th sloka from chapter 18.
yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyaṁ kāryam eva tat | yajño dānaṁ tapaśh chaiva pāvanāni manīṣhiṇām ||
It says that one can give up all actions besides three types of actions, viz. yajna, daana and tapah. There are various interpretations of this. My father pointed me to the interpretation given by Indian saint-reformist Vinoba Bhave in his Talks on the Gita (which is a compilation of his talks in a jail explaining Bhagwat Gita to his fellow inmates).
He points out, very logically, that we are all born with three debts.
First of all, the earth and the environment contributes to our growth. We are indebted to it. Secondly, our parents, families and society also contribute to our growth. Thirdly, our own body. We are all alive. This means numerous processes and organs are working seamlessly in our body.
We have not done anything to pay back these loans. Any work we do to pay back the debt from nature and the environment is called yajna. Yajna is not just seating in front of a fire and chanting mantras. That is just one way about it. That is actually done to please all the Gods. And Hindu Gods represent forces of nature. So better yajna would be to serve nature directly. Plant trees, use less/no plastic, do not use products with a known track record of butchering the environment etc.; all these are acts of yajna.
Similarly, anything we do to pay back the debt from society is daana. E.g. volunteering to teach kids from a disadvantaged background, donating to societal work, even something as simple as doing your job to the best of your ability; all these contribute to society.
Lastly, anything we do to take good care of our body is tapah. E.g. doing regular exercise and meditation, taking a jog, eating healthy, eating less, doing intermittent fasting etc.
A beautiful conclusion emerges when we combine the two things we discussed above. If you are doing anything to pay back a debt, do you expect results from it? It is debt anyway, something you owe! How can you expect any fruits from those actions? The moment you are mindful of the fact that a certain action you are doing falls into one of the three categories, viz. yajna, daana and tapah then automatically you lose interest in the results.
Let us try to be grateful for all the debts we have got from nature, society and our own body. Being mindful of this will help us to forget about the results of our actions. And it will also make our actions better.
