Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Verse 49 – by Swami Chinmayananda

|| 2-49 ||
doorena hy avaram karma, buddhi-yogaad dhananjaya
buddhau saranam anviccha, kripanaah phala-hetavah || 49 ||

Swami Chinmayananda began:

“Doorena – by far. hy – indeed. awaram – lower. karma – you are sweating and toiling at your actions, your selfish actions, prompted by your ego and ego-centric selfish desires in which the millions are sweating and toiling from morning till evening. That karma, it is only prompted by instincts and impulses. It is like animals suffering or running about. It is pure labour. he’s not the man of acheivement. mere labourers, doorena by faaaaar lesser is this unnecessary sweating and toiling in the world outside. Complaining of the tension stress and strain of life.
That is not real work.
Work is inspired. Where the worker never understands tiredness, exhaust. The joy of that work itself replenishes the true worker. Doorena hy avaram karma.
Buddhi-yogaad dhananjaya. Hey Arjuna please understand, as compared with the Buddhi-yoga, buddhi-yoga where you’ve got an ideal and you’re pursuing to reach the ideal it is an inspired enthusiasm with which you’re living. That joy of true work is any day nobler than all the amount of buckets of sweat and toil that you bring out of you, exhaustion and fatigue you bring about physical. That is only labour, that is not work.
buddhau saranam anviccha. my dear boy, work in the world outside who said no but buddhau saranam anvecha. maintain your ideal and work on and on i say. and when you’re maintaining an ideal let not the ideal be a small ideal. Say that 1 million dollars i want, if the moment i earn one million i am retired. hey because you make it. Thereafter in life you’re dead, you’ve nothing to do. Never. Keep the goal highest. So high that you will never reach. “Swamiji why should i keep an ideal which i cannot reach” ha reaching the ideal is not the goal. striving to reach it, that is the moment when you grow. Once you’re reaching your goal your ideal everything is ended, thereafter you’ve to enquire how to die decently, because you’re finished, everything has been done. Never should you reach the goal. Keep the goal high. Don’t say that is an impractical method. No. Because reaching the goal is not the goal. striving to reach there is the goal. Try to reach out to the goal. You grow day by day week by week. Buddhou saranam anvecha.
kripanaha phala hetavah. those who are seeking only the phala the result.and wanting only that you sweat and toil only to get something. They are kripanaha. krippanaha meaning miserly. miserly means mhmh. miser is a guy who’s got money in his pocket but even though he is very hungry, he doesn’t want to eat. he goes in front of the restaurant and smeells the various food [sound of smelling] because that is free. why don’t you go and eat if you’re hungry. “look, it’s a new note 20 dollars, if i eat i will have to break it. no keep it. ” why? to spend the money is painful, therefore you keep it. And drink cold water from the local tap, why? “anyway i’m going in the evening home. home there will be food. so i will eat there. till then you suffer” this is called a miser. a miser is one who has the ability and capacity and yet he doesn’t use it because he doesn’t want to give up that money or that what you’ve got.
There is a wonderful chance of living your life of inspired enthusiasm at all times at the peak, and yet you and i will not do that. why? because of our attachment to the ego and selfish desires and make a mess of our own life. YOu’re kripanaha. OK
when you’re inspired under working you won’t know the exhaustion of work. ha ha. Doctors will have to take ECG to understand whether I’m overstrained or not. YOu ask me I am never overstrained. why? i am inspired in this work i am doing. anybody who is inspired, they won’t have worries and anxieties.
ha ha. In our own homes when there is a marriage aiyayaa the ladaies work work day and night and night and day with over enthusiasm and when the marriage is over and the girl has walked away you find everybody collapsing in wherever they are standing. For three days they won’t get up from there. Neighbours will have to come and feed them. How is it that at 8 am you collapse but till 8 am you are all enthusiastic. ha that is because the shaadi. the marriage. and that the girl has now gone haaa bhum.
is it?
inspired work, you work but you will not know the exhaustion or the fatigue. tirelessly you work when you’re inspired. “

Thus spake Gurudev