II: 49

[Krishna Jaya]

Chapter 2, Verse 49

 

"Those who work selfishly for results are misers.

Work done for a reward is far inferior

To work done with the Yoga of discernment, Arjuna.

Seek refuge in awareness.

 

Eckhard Tolle:

 

“Many things in life matter, but only one thing matters absolutely.  It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world.  It matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated.  It matters whether you are rich or poor…it certainly makes a difference in your life.  Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking, but they don’t matter absolutely.  There is something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence of who you are.  You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”

 

Carl Rogers:

 

“In successful psychotherapy, a person adds to ordinary experience the full and undistorted awareness of his experiencing, that is, of his sensory and visceral promptings.  He becomes aware of what he is actually experiencing and not simply what he can permit himself to experience after a thorough screening through a conceptual filter.  In this sense, the person becomes for the first time the full potential of the human organism, with the enriching element of awareness freely added to the basic aspect of sensory and visceral functioning.  The individual comes to be…in awareness…what he is…in experience.  We have then an organism which is just as aware of its desire for friendly relationships as it is of its desire to aggrandize itself and just as aware of its sensitive tenderness towards others as it is of its hostilities towards others. 

 

When a human being’s unique capacity of awareness is thus functioning freely and fully, we find that we have, not an animal whom we must fear, not a beast who must be controlled, but an organism able to achieve, through its remarkable integrative capacity, a balanced and realistic behavior as a result of this quality of awareness.  To put it another way, when a person is less than fully human, when he denies to himself various aspects of his experience, then indeed we have all too often reason to fear him and his behavior, as the present world situation testifies [these words were written in 1952…perhaps they ring even more truly today].

 

But when he is most fully human, when he is a complete organism, when awareness of experience, that peculiarly human attribute, is most fully operating, then he is to be trusted, then his behavior is constructive.  It will not always be conventional and conforming.  It will be individualized, but it will also be socially affirming.”

 

Sri Eknath Easwaran:

 

"Even after we have selected a selfless goal and the right means, and have thrown ourselves whole-heartedly into the endeavor, we have to free ourselves from anxiety about results, which is the most difficult part of the discipline for all of us.  If I may take an example from our own work, when I started looking for an Ashram over ten years ago, I could not help being somewhat entangled in the results.  Now, through long, strenuous years of reminding myself that the results are not in my hands, that the world does not belong to me, that not even a leaf on the tree in my back yard belongs to me, I have been relieved of much anxiety and agitation.  Today I take a great deal of interest in finding a suitable site for our Ashram.  I read the papers, underline the property that is likely to be of interest, go to these places, and ask, 'What is the temperature like?  Do many motorcycles come this way?'  I do everything possible to further our work, but I do not get apprehensive.  I do not get anxious about the results because I know these are in the hands of the Lord, and it is for him, who knows our needs and difficulties, to give us the right place at the right time.  This is detachment, throwing oneself completely into selfless work, and yet knowing the results are always in the hands of the higher power."

 

Srila Prabhupada:

 

“Misers do not know how to utilize the assets of riches which they acquire by good fortune or by hard labor.  Like misers, unfortunate persons do not employ their human energy in the service of the Lord.  Everything is to be done for the satisfaction of Krishna.  That will make one’s life successful.”

 

[Now there’s a definition of “success” I can get behind.]