One of the enigmas of Geeta (Gita) philosophy is NISHKAMA KARMA, which means action without expectation of a particular result.

How can you perhaps do anything without expectation of a result, when you see that everything is associated with result?

Excepting perhaps involuntary actions and activities during sleep, every action and its planning are associated with anticipation or projection of its result.

It is understandable that if you focus on; or get obsessed by a particular result or start day dreaming about it, then it can distract you from the procedural skills and concentration. But how can you completely forget or get rid of the thought or idea of the result?

It is also true that you should not get involved in the result, because it can disappoint you if you don’t get the expected result. This is also fair and pragmatic. It can protect you from imminent reactive depression or psychiatric maniacal elation.

But still, how can you totally dissociate the vision about the result from the action?

While thinking about these questions; suddenly I realized that even as most actions are associated with results, all the actions and their results i.e. cause and effect relationship; do not follow the same logic. This is especially true of subtle actions; for example, my thinking or feelings are not describable in terms of their physicochemical details and hence their cause and effect relationship/s with their results and the nature of their also can not be defined!

It is true that actions are roughly and in general; associated with successes and failures.

But the human civilization is evolution of actions (including the thoughts and feelings and the vision). As they evolve further; they become subtler and cosmic. Their nature and results; can not be qualified or quantified by routine gauging and assessment. Further, neither the actions nor the results remain personal or subjective and hence their “Ownership” or “Credit” ceases completely! So we no longer remain attached to it. This is NISHKAMA KARMA!

Geeta (Gita) inspires us for evolution of our actions from crudity, tight attachment to or insistence on cause and effect relationships, arbitrariness and subjectivity; to; subtlety where subjectivity and objectivity and the procedure and the results conceptually merge and the ownership ceases!!

One such absolutely evolved action is NAMASMARAN i.e. remembering God or one’s true self! Billions are already practicing it in different religions and billions more are most likely to practice it and emancipate themselves and others!

One can ponder over these explanations and decide about the option of NAMASMARAN!

DR. SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR