-4th chapter: verses 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
The lecture was given by Swami Tattwamayananda on May 29, 2020.
-A karma-yogi is free from kama (desires) and sankalpa (mental worry about results). He is also free from the sense of doer-ship and enjoyer-ship. He may have a high spiritual ideal as goal, he may work with total efficiency, but he works non-attached. His body and mind are always under control, and he is not affected by the success or failure of his actions.
-Karma Yoga helps us work with a sense of total relaxation. It allows us to work with more focus and concentration, and thereby achieve better results. Work done as karma-yoga, purifies our chittam, and takes us a step forward in fulfilling our spiritual goal of lasting inner contentment.
-For a karma-yogi, work becomes play, and work becomes an experience of relaxation. To achieve this state, one has to give up desires. One should start by first developing higher, noble desires – it helps open up the spiritual path. Once desires are promoted, in the next stage, one can go beyond desires.
-A karma-yogi is always working, but always contented. A lazy man who claims contentment is a hypocrite. Epoch makers - Buddha, Shankaracharya, Sri Ramakrishna, Jesus Christ, Vivekananda – were always active and worked for the good of others.
-22nd verse: “Such a karma-yogi is always content with whatever comes to him; he is unaffected by pain/pleasure, good/bad, misery/joy, profit/loss; he is free from envy; he is unperturbed in success or failure; he is always active, but free from bondage.”
-Shankaracharya discusses the characteristics of a spiritually enlightened person in second chapter. These characteristics constitute the road by which we should travel to reach the goal that the enlightened person has reached.
-One should read scriptures that provide a picture of such enlightened Yogis, and their characteristics. Then one should try to develop the same qualities.
-The real test of spiritual values happens in secular contexts. How we interact with people who do not share our ideas, how we handle success and failure in secular contexts – these are real tests of our spiritual values. Equanimity of mind during ups and downs in secular contexts, is proof that we are spiritual.
-For a jeevan-mukta (liberated), samatvam (equanimity of mind) is natural and automatic. We can practice samatvam, by doing everything with enthusiasm, mentally offering it to God, and then forgetting about it. Then we get total relaxation and contentment.
-A karma-yogi, after reaching highest state, won’t have any external transformation. However, his whole life will be different, and he will be free from kama, sankalpa, and mental vrittis.
-There is no obligation for a spiritually illumined soul to work, as he is not bound by a sense of duty. He works only for the good of others, and he has no desires of his own. If he decides to live an introspective life, that is also his own choice. One of his important characteristics is total freedom.
-Gita presents Yajna as a higher approach to work. Yajna has two meanings: (1) Vedic rituals for harmony and peace of the world and material prosperity (2) Any noble activity done with a sense of sanctity and sacredness, for the good of others. Gita discusses Yajna in its broader sense of noble activity, which becomes a royal highway for spiritual prosperity.
-23rd verse: Who is liberated and whose mind is immersed in Brahman, whatever he does, it is Yajna. It doesn’t bind him – rather it shatters away the chain of bondage.”
-Selfish actions bind us to the world. Unselfish actions, done as Yajna, break the chain of bondage. Everyone can practice Yajna, by doing their actions for the good others, and by surrendering the results of all actions to God. When actions are performed as Yajna, we feel harmony within and with external nature.
-24th verse: This verse illustrates the attitude of someone who has reached the highest stage of spiritual evolution. To him, everything is Brahman, his whole life is spiritualized, and his every action is sanctified. In the context of eating food, he thinks – the act of offering, what we offer, who offers, into what it is offered, the goal to be reached – everything is Brahman.
-Ancient mantra chanted at time of sannyasa: “Now onwards, every word is a mantra, every movement is a circumambulation around the deity, every thought a meditation, and the whole life is an offering to God”
-This attitude of highest spiritual seeker is similar to concept of highest devotee of God in Bhagavad Purana. The highest devotee is one who sees God in everything and everything in God.

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