Upadesh · Bhagavad Gita
Do the work. Let go of the reward.
Krishna's best-known line to Arjuna, from the second chapter of the Gita.
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana |
mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo 'stv akarmaṇi ||
तुम्हारा अधिकार केवल कर्म पर है, उसके फल पर कभी नहीं।
फल की इच्छा को कर्म का कारण मत बनने दो, और कर्म छोड़ देने का मोह भी मत पालो।
“Your right is to the work alone, never to what it yields. Do not let the reward become your reason for acting, and do not let that turn you away from acting either.”
Bhagavad Gita 2.47
Word by word
Reading the verse.
Where it comes from
On the field of Kurukshetra.
On the field of Kurukshetra, Arjuna has put down his bow. He will not fight his own teachers and relatives. In the second chapter Krishna begins to answer him, and this verse is the centre of that answer: Arjuna's duty is to act well, and the outcome is not his to own.
In daily life
Three ways to read it at work and at home.
Give the work your full effort
Preparation, honesty and care are in your hands. Put your attention there.
Hold the result lightly
Markets, people and timing decide much of any outcome. Worrying over it spoils the work itself.
Not a reason to stop
The verse's second half warns against the opposite mistake too: giving up action because the result is uncertain.
Where this comes from
The Bhagavad Gita is part of the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata: Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra. This is verse 47 of its second chapter. The verse is printed in the original Sanskrit; the Hindi and English meanings, the word notes and the reflection are written by IBF. No outside translation is used.