Hinduism texts

Bhagavad Gita

A.    Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, and victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty. By doing your duty this way you will not incur sin. (2.38)

B.     You have control over doing your respective duty only, but no control or claim over the results. The fruits of work should not be your motive, and you should never be inactive. (2.47)

C.     Do your duty to the best of your ability, O Arjuna, with your mind attached to the Lord, abandoning worry and selfish attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure. The selfless service is a yogic practice that brings peace and equanimity of mind. (2.48)

D.    Work done with selfish motives is inferior by far to the selfless service. Therefore be a selfless worker, O Arjuna. Those who work only to enjoy the fruits of their labor are verily unhappy, because one has no control over the results. (2.49)

E.     The mind and intellect of a person become steady who is not attached to anything, who is neither elated by getting desired results, nor perturbed by undesired results. (2.57)

F.     Delusion or wild idea arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down from the right path when reasoning is destroyed. (2.63) A disciplined person, enjoying sense objects with senses that are under control and free from attachments and aversions, attains tranquility. (2.64)

G.    There is neither Self-knowledge, nor Self-perception to those who are not united with the Supreme. Without Self-perception there is no peace, and without peace there can be no happiness. (2.66)

H.    One who abandons all desires, and becomes free from longing and the feeling of 'I' and 'my', attains peace. (2.71)

I.       One does not attain freedom from the bondage of Karma by merely abstaining from work. No one attains perfection by merely giving up work. (3.04) Because no one can remain actionless even for a moment. Everyone is driven to action - helplessly indeed - by the forces of Nature. (3. 05)

J.      Perform your obligatory duty, because working is indeed better than sitting idle. Even the maintenance of your body would not be possible without work. (3.08)

K.     Because whatever noble persons do, others follow. Whatever standard they set up, the world follows. (3.21)

L.     Do your duty dedicating all works to God in a spiritual frame of mind free from desire, attachment, and mental grief. (3.30)

M.   The one who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is a wise person. Such a person is a yogi and has accomplished everything. (4.18)

N.    A person, whose desires have become selfless by being roasted in the fire of Self-knowledge, is called a sage by the wise. (4.19) The one who has abandoned selfish attachment to the fruits of work, and remains ever content and dependent on no one but God, such a person - though engaged in activity - does nothing at all, and incurs no Karmic reaction. (4.20)

O.    A Karma-yogi - who is content with whatever gain comes naturally by His will, who is unaffected by pairs of opposites, and free from envy, equanimous in success and failure - is not bound by Karma. (4.22) All Karmic bonds of a Karma-yogi - who is free from attachment, whose mind is fixed in Self-knowledge, and who does work as a service to the Lord - dissolves away. (4.23)

P.     One who does all work as an offering to God — abandoning selfish attachment to results — remains untouched by Karmic reaction or sin as a lotus leaf never gets wet by water. (5.10)

Q.    A Karma-yogi attains Supreme Bliss by abandoning attachment to the fruits of work; while others, who are attached to the fruits of work, become bound by selfish work. (5.12)

R.     Those who are free from lust and anger, who have subdued the mind and senses, and who have known the Self, easily attain Nirvana. (5.26)

S.     The transcendental knowledge of scriptures is better than mere ritualistic practice; meditation is better than scriptural knowledge; renunciation of selfish attachment to the fruits of work (Karma-yoga) is better than meditation; peace immediately follows renunciation of selfish motives. (12.12)