Acting Without Expectation for the Fruits of Action

The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, v. 47-48, as translated by Sri Aurobindo, states: “Thou hast a right to action, but only to action, never to its fruits; let not the fruits of thy works be thy motive, neither let there be in thee any attachment to inactivity. Fixed in Yoga to thy actions, having abandoned attachment, having become equal in failure and success; for it is equality that is meant by Yoga.”

For the most part, we act in the world in expectation of some result or benefit accruing to us. This benefit may be something tangible in the form of income, family or material possessions. Or it may be something not directly tangible but perceived as a benefit to our ego, or convertible over time into tangible results, such as social power, prestige, fame, gratification of desires, etc. We become ‘transactional’ in the way we perceive things. If we do something, we want to get something positive back, sooner or later.

The transactions can be quite subtle. In many instances, we enjoy praise and positive encouragement from others for what we do or how we speak or act. If we are seeking the ‘fruits’ of our acts, we may tend to respond with a sense of anger, frustration or hostility of someone gives us back ‘negative fruits’ or feedback such as direct criticism. We may then discontinue what we were doing in relation to those individuals since the feedback we received was not encouraging. The ego will try to ensure that it gets ‘credit’ for what it does. Even anonymous actions can create a positive feedback to the ego for its ‘selflessness’.

The same type of ego-support that we seek for individually also applies to the groups, functions and collective efforts we undertake. We desire to see the work we are doing recognised and supported.

In each of these cases, while we may have larger aspirations, motives and goals, the ego tries to insert itself and gain benefits, recognition and support. If we become upset, or despondent, about a lack of positive recognition we can be sure that the ego is involved.

We train our children to do positive things through a process of reward and punishment generally. We define what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ and assign results that align with these good or bad definitions. We thus create a transactional viewpoint that expects a return. We take this to our more mature reflections either as our path to heaven or hell, or as a return of karmic consequence upon us.

Acting without expectation of any benefit to ourselves, and regardless of possible negative consequences to ourselves, based solely on a principle to be upheld to carry out the larger divine intention, is the attitude of the divine worker as described in the Gita.

The Mother writes: “When you begin to advance towards inner and outer perfection, the difficulties start at the same time.”

“I have very often heard people saying, ‘Oh! now that I am trying to be good, everybody seems to be bad to me!’ But this is precisely to teach you that one should not be good with an interested motive, one should not be good so that others will be good to you — one must be good for the sake of being good.”

“It is always the same lesson: one must do as well as one can, the best one can, but without expecting a result, without doing it with a view to the result. Just this attitude, to expect a reward for good action — to become good because one thinks that this will make life easier — takes away all value from the good action.”

“You must be good for the love of goodness, you must be just for the love of justice, you must be pure for the love of purity and you must be disinterested for the love of disinterestedness; then you are sure to advance on the way.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 168-169