How can one perform all duties and stay detached from the effects of karma?
The answer lies in how you engage yourself in action. Well, this can only be known by the performer. Look deep within yourself and you will know the motive force behind your actions. If you say no, then you are lying. We apply so much brains to trifle matters and fail to apply the same to fine personalities subtly operating within—your own thoughts.
Krishna doesn’t say you remain detached from the outside world and you will have no negative impact. It will have. It will continue to have till you see your mind’s world and learn to detach from it! In fact, Krishna is interested more in the inner engineering than the outside comsmetism. The world that you see outside is being perceived inside. Correct the inside and the outside will change itself in the course of time. Mark my words—till there is 100% detachment within, you will continue to see little change outside.
- Know it for sure that body is just an instrument of action, nothing else. But, we think we are bodies and bodies are to be enjoyed. Have you ever thought the body is an instrument? No. Now instruments should be kept clean, usable and manageable. But, you attach yourself to the instrument! Now what? So first keep one idea in your mind—the body is to be used as an instrument and it is not mine. Now instruments can be good and bad. Accept it! Don’t deny it. Because, denial only shows that the seed of possession is still there.
- Unload your mind from what you have gathered as yours. When you practise the above, you will realise that your body gets heavier sometimes, unusable and it depresses you. Why? Because the body is just a machine which is piloted by you and the engine is your mind. The mind has gathered too much of carbon and exhaust that it has become to shift the burden on the body. So, your first work should be your mind. Observe it and you will find that this is the mind which is attached to so many things and that attachment is making it heavier and your body a bad instrument. What to do? Tyaktapaprigrah —unload it.
- To stop future burden, train your mind to remain in a state of unexpectation. When you do it, you will find that your mind begins to expect, gather attachments and then you are back to the square one. What to do now? The only way to get it out is—train it to remain in the state of non-expectation—it doesn’t expect, desire or run after anything. Now you practise it. It will not be magicked in one day. It takes time. But, keep working on it. Now the demand to keep it in that state has brought into play a number of ways—meditation, japam, psychic control and so on and so forth. All these methods are meant to train your mind to remain in a state of non-expectation. The moment you have attained this state by recurrent practice, it will become your best and disciplined friend. Engaging yourself in any action with such a non-demanding, non-expecting friend will not only keep you happy but also without negative effects.