Na māṁ karmāṇi limpanti na me karmaphale spṛhā… (BG 3.14)
The actions (karmāṇi) do not (na) pollute (limpanti) Me (mām), nor do (na) I have longing (me… spṛhā) for the fruit (phale) of (any) action (karma)

Action and its actor are entangled, NOT action and its result

In the first quote from BG, replace “I” with you…  As long as you do not long for the results of your actions, the karma of those actions do not stick to you.  Because, the action and actor are entangled through the emotional attachment (or relation) to the result. (the second quote)  When there’s no desire, there is no attachment. or linkage  Voila!  The doorway to Moksha!!

Tenet 1: Don’t bet on results

This is a very influential tenet in Karma Yoga, and the reasons are very simple – we cannot predict the results. We will use the dialog between Yoga Guru Krishna and our model seeker Arjuna to go through this tenet and the lifestyle model. Again, one of the attractions of Karma Yoga is that it is for everyone – no a priori assumptions or beliefs needed! Just like Yoga… it’s for all!

Here is the famous, most-quoted, verse from that dialog (Gita, 2.47):

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥

Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,
Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani – 2.47 BG

Through this verse, Krishna tells Arjuna three things:

1. You have or can gain conscious authority over selection of the course of action. (loaded statement, right?)
2. But, you have no authority or control over the ensuing results (So, don’t bet on them – Tenet 1).
3. This should not discourage you from undertaking actions (pretty straightforward actually).

We will focus on 2 in this post, and hold off on 1 and 3 for later with one comment. Do we truly have a conscious authority over our action selection, or our unconscious picks them for us based on our habits and instincts? Will come back to that later, but #2 first.

Q: So, no authority or control over results – why not?

A: Because we neither have all the information required nor the computing power to achieve any reasonable forecast that we can hang our hat on. The causality of Specific Action (A) → Specific Result (R) we assume, is a guess at best. Here are the key reasons why we can’t predict the complete result (R) to any satisfactory degree:

1. For beginners, not all results are tangible – we predict only the tangible result/s that we desire. What about the rest of the results sequence extending into future? If we knew all the impacts, maybe we would have chosen a different action.
2. We will need karmic records of the actor initiating A, because “now”-part of the karmic residue account is what sets a part of the background.
3. Iccha-Jnana-Kriya Triangle: The actions occur within the context of the entire scene (“NotMine”), with all others involved – their karmic residue information should also be available to us for an accurate R forecast. There’s no way we can control every detail on how they all act/react. This is the other (significant) part of the background.
4. Even if we have all the important information, that information has to be of high accuracy. In digital representation, we are talking about this as round-off and precision. By precision, we mean digital precision (e.g., 15th or 16th digit in 16-digit decimal numbers). We still cannot control the round-off errors, and that depends upon how our brain functions (which is different from how a digital computer works, but accuracy is not it’s forte anyway).

We covered first three already in the previous posts; we will discuss the fourth one here.

Q: Why do we need so much accuracy in determining all the input parameters?

A: Modern science can help us here – “Chaos theory”.

According to this theory- a small change in initial conditions or input information can have a huge impact on the result/s. Let’s take a simple example for Action (A) → Result (R) sequence:

Consider hitting a nail into a log. Since it’s a simple action with desired result in the immediate future, yeah, we can predict the first order result, which would be that the nail would go into the log. But the devil is in the detail. At what angle, to what depth, with how much (seen and unseen) damage to the log’s integrity? And in addition, can we guarantee the entire results-chain that follows on? As we try to forecast that R with any precision, we realize that it’s a complex problem, and predictions become “chaotic” [again, chaos means high sensitivity to input information, and does not mean random]. And by the way, for intangibles, did the sound wave from the hammer hitting the nail knock off something or chase away any birds or butterflies from the surroundings, for example? This can have unintended impact on other relevant events.

Speaking of butterflies, in scientific literature, this effect is called the “butterfly effect“, and it was first studied by a famous scientist named Edward Lorenz at MIT, and this effect is typically mentioned in relation to weather prediction. This effect got it’s name because, even a butterfly flapping its wings somewhere at a distant location, like in Africa, could have a significant impact on next week’s weather here in the US. And also, the prediction patterns of this simple three variable system (pressure, wind speed and location) in the phase-plane look like butterfly wings. If you are interested in the details, watch the attached 2 min video or refer to this Wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect). Another example for such a “chaotic” process is what we routinely call “learning”; much more on this later.  What we learn from what the professor just taught depends upon what the brain already has stored so far, and which preexisting knowledge constructs are active at that time…

In summary, we neither have all the required information, nor control of all that information. So, if we cannot know outcomes with any significant confidence – then why get attached to something that you know very little about? That is Yogis’ rhetorical question, and Krishna tells Arjuna in no uncertain terms that he should not hark on such futile exercises, and pick actions with an intention to maximize common good, even if those actions result in unintended negative consequences at the end, since we could not have predicted them.  How about the karmic residue from such actions?  That’s next.

Video Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBZhHElfDho