Geeta Saar - I

In India, it is very normal to come across calendars and table tops which write down “Geeta Saar” (the essence of Geeta). This gives the opportunity to get introduced to this great philosophy in some ways. As a young child when I first read those, a few things just gave me ????QUESTIONS???? and a journey began.

One of my questions: “Karm kar aur phal ki chinta na kar” which is to say that you do your duties but do not worry about the result. This is one of the lines which is given in some of the geeta saar. It left me wondering that if I have to just focus on my duty alone without keeping the goal in mind, how effective will be that action?

To add to this confusion was that I had also read a story about Arjun exemplifying his powers of concentration. The story says that once Arjun’s teacher, Guru Dronacharya decided to test his students in their skill of archery. He hung a wooden bird from the branch of a tree and then summoned his students. He asked the first one to aim for the bird's eye but not shoot just yet. He then asked the student what the student could see. The student replied that he could see the garden, the tree, flowers, etc. Drona asked him to step aside and not shoot. He repeated the same process with a few other students. When it was Arjun's turn, Arjun told his Guru that the only thing he could see was the bird's eye. This satisfied the Guru and he allowed Arjun to shoot the bird. The lesson here is the power of focus.
From this story what I took away was that you need to focus on your goal to be able to achieve what you had set out for. Now, this story and Geeta saar – both of which have Arjun as an important character left me confused as it seemed to be saying contradictory things.
Over the years I seem to have understood that what these are saying is NOT contradictory. The first exemplifies the power of focus and the geeta saar actually helps in doing that. When you focus on action alone, you are not bothered by what the result of that action is going to be and your being is completely immersed in that action. What Arjun saw was the eye of the bird but not that he has hit the eye. He was not distracted by things in the vicinity of his goal and focused on how best to aim at the bird’s eye. If he would have been bothered by the result of his action, he would have started getting anxious about his success. That would have channelized his energy away from the task at hand and the possibility of failure would have increased. It’s a similar thing with all of us, when we start doing something, we focus on the work at hand but again the anxiety of failure keeps eating away our energy. The outcome is in the hands of the higher power but the action is the right and duty of all human beings. When Arjun shot the arrow, he still could have been a failure if suddenly the wind direction would have changed, but more importantly, he did whatever was in his power.
When we are taking care of a loved one, we do our best so that the person is nursed back to health, but that will happen only if the higher power wills it. If it is the end of life or suffering for that being, there is nothing that you can do. You can do only as much as is in your power and that is your “Karma” or action. At the end you need to feel that you have done whatever was possible and that is the “Karma”.