21. Unattached Work Liberates You (3.33-3.43)

When you take responsibility, when you start expressing authenticity, you get a thousand times more benefit than what you calculate through your small logic. To the unattached worker, all duties are equally good. He takes responsibility for every act with the same enthusiasm. He is authentic to his authenticity and does the action to his peak capability.

Arjuna then asks Kṛṣṇa why even a centered person is led to commit sinful acts, as if forced by unknown powers. Arjuna's question is the eternal dilemma of expression or suppression.

Just like smoke veils the fire, just as dust on the mirror masks your reflection, we are not able to see our true nature of bliss because we are caught in base emotions like lust.

Kṛṣṇa closes his dialogue with these words, 'Use intelligence to control your senses and curb your lust, which is your most dangerous enemy, on the path to completion.' Kṛṣṇa guides Arjuna to lead a purposeless life, free from obsession for the final goal and be detached from the result of action. 'Authentic action is our nature,' He says, 'not inaction. Act, work, but surrender the result of action to Me.'

Now, Kṛṣṇa says clearly, 'Control your senses, be complete and give up lust.' Lust, here, not only refers to sexual desire but also to all desires related to the outer world. It is our sense of identity, possession that drives us to acquire and enjoy.

To be blissful we need to keep our inner space clean and empty. Only then can bliss fill that space. As long as the outer material space is filled without attachment, the inner space remains empty. We drop expectations. We move into the space of completion.

This is the whole essence of Karma Yogaḥ. Be complete and drop your attachment to the goal and the fruit of your actions, and live an enriching life with integrity in words, with authenticity in thinking and action, and with responsibility in feeling.

Live life blissfully. Kṛṣṇa says, 'You will achieve the Supreme.' You will achieve the eternal consciousness, Nityānanda, eternal bliss.