It is very well known that all of us act in our own given fields of activities with all enthusiasm and deep interest, all day through, every day of the year and all through the years of our entire life-time. An average member of society is seen to wear himself out in the strain of constant activity. Irrespective of his health, careless of the severity of seasons, through joy and sorrow, man constantly strives to earn and to hoard, to gain and to enjoy.

Here Krishna says that a Man-of-Self-realisation also works in the world with as much diligence and sincerity, tireless enthusiasm and energizing joy, burning hopes and scalding fears, as any ordinary man striving in the competitions of the market-place. The only difference between the two is that, while the ignorant acts and is motivated in his actions by his “attachments and anxieties for the fruits,” a man of Godly intentions or complete Perfection will work in the world, without attachment, only for the purpose of the redemption of the world.

This subtle difference between the activities of the “wise” and the “ignorant” may not strike the modern reader as very important unless his attention is directed towards its universal application. It is the anxious “desire for the fruits” that dissipates the finer and nobler energies in the worker, and condemns his activity to utter failure. No doubt, even a Man-of-God, when he acts, must bring into his field of activity his own mind and intellect.

The mind can function only when it is attached to something. It cannot remain alive, and yet, detached from every thing. “Detachment of the mind” mentioned here is only its “detachment from the FALSE irresistible fascination for objects” and this is gained through the process of “attaching itself to the NOBLER.” Thus, when Lord Krishna sayshere, that the “wise” man should work “without attachments” he immediately indicates how this can be achieved. He advises Arjuna to act, “Desirous of guiding the world”

(Loka-sangraha).

Attachment becomes a clog or a painful chain on us only when it is extremely ego-centric. To the extent we work for larger schemes to bless a vaster section of humanity, to that extent the attachment loses its poison and comes to bless the age. Many poisons serve as medicines in their diluted form, while the same in a concentrated form can bring instantaneous death! The ego and ego-centric desires bind and destroy man, but to the extent he can lift his identifications to include and accommodate in it, larger sections of the living world, to that extent the attachment gathers an ethical halo, a divine glow, and becomes a cure for our subjective pains and imperfections.

Here the practical method suggested is that Arjuna should work, unattached to his own ego-centric, limited concept of himself and his relations, and he must enter into the battle-field as a champion fighting for a cause, noble and righteous, against the armies that have come up to question and challenge the deathless ‘values of higher living’ as propounded and upheld by the Hindu culture.

TO SUCH A MAN-OF-WISDOM WHO IS WORKING IN SOCIETY FOR THE SERVICE OF MAN, THE FOLLOWING ADVICE IS GIVEN:

O scion of the Bharata dynasty, yatha, as; some avidvamsah, unenlightened poele; kurvanti, act. saktah, with attachment; karmani, to work, (thinking) ‘The reward of this work will accrue to me’; tatha, so; should vidvan, the enlightened person, the knower of the Self; kuryat, act; asaktah, without attachment, remaining unattached. [Giving up the idea of agentship and the hankering for the rewards of actions to oneself.] Whay does he (the enlightened person) act like him (the former)? Listen to that: Cikirsuh, being desirous of achieving; lokasamgraham, prevention of people from going astray. ‘Neither for Me who am a knower of the Self, nor for any other (knower of the Self) who wants thus prevent people from going astray, is there any duty apart from working for the welfare of the world. Hence, the following advice is being given to such a knower of the Self:’