Karma yoga

zकर्मण्ये वाधिकारस्ते म फलेषु कदाचना
कर्मफलेह्तुर भुरमा ते संगोस्त्वकर्मानी॥

In English transliteration:
Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachna
Karmaphalehtur bhurma te sangostvakarmani.


In English translation:
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action। Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.

I sought out to say some words on Karma Yoga of Bhagawad Geeta but something striked inside my head and that was the above shloka. I grew up listening this verse as it was the opening verse of then famous T.V serial Mahabharata. The reason i am posting this verse is because if its possible to boil down karma yoga in four line then it will be "Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachna Karmaphalehtur bhurma te sangostvakarmani." which literally means you have a rights to perform your prescribed duties but u are not entitled to the fruits of the action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the result of your work and never be attached to not doing your duty.

Everyone has some prescribed duties, u may be somebody's father, somebody's son, somebody's hubby etc. You have your duties to perform because we are always bounded by our duties for eg I being a father cant let my childnren and wife die in starvation because its my duty to give them protection and provide them with there basic needs, Prescribed duties is a broader term because it not only implies duties based on caste but as a whole of humanity. Without work the creaation cannot run, doing your duties is inevitable. Fighting for justice with kauravas was also one of the duties of pandavas being a kshatriya, kshatriya prescibed duties is to fight against injustice and for protection of dharma but Arjuna on the battle field of Kurukshetra decided not to shower arrows to his brothers, uncle and grandshire because he got entangled in the web of attachment to his relatives and not killing them in which the Lord replies that in this world nobody can kill anybody because we all are souls and soul is eternal. So even if Arjuna shoots arrow he is going to take lives of the body not kill them. So, the lord told him to lift Gandhiv and fight because he was not klling anybody in these process and on top of that its Arjuna prescribed duties to fight for the right cause. The line "but u are not entitled to the fruit" means that when one does his prescribed duties, he  must do in  a sense or in the mindframe that its a duty and the duty has to be done watsoever, duties has to be done even if it leads to profit or loss, happiness or sorrow, so if u do something in the mindframe that it has to be done whether favourable or not then it reduces your attachment to the very work u are doing which is called Deattachment. If u do your work not caring about the result then there will be no attachment left and any kind of unfullfilled desires.

"Karmaphalehtur bhurma te sangostvakarmani."means "Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.", well every series of work that u do leads to another and that leads to another and that leads to another, so the results of the work that u do is never ending because the fruit itself is like a cobweb as any person attached to it cant get out of it, the more struggle it does the more entangled it gets, so to save Arjuna from the miseries Lord Krishna advised him to not take himself as the cause, but from a simpleton view how can that be possible when i do a work and it leads me  to some results and i say i am not the cause of the whole thing. The Lord dispels his doubt by saying u can do ur duties not expecting the fruit and not taking urself as the cause but me. He says take the lord himself to be the cause of everything that he does and he is just acting for the gratification of the lord or he is just a means for the lord to do some of his leelas, so when a person just takes himself as the means but takes lord as the doer then how can the karma bind him, for a karma to bind him there has to be a doer and the doer is the lord and karma cant bind the lord and whenever u dont do ur duties because of the motivation of fear and attachment then its a kind of attachment in itself because the basic human emotions is involved, so when emotions are involved bondage is there. So the lord says to Arjuna that he is a kshatriya and his duties is to fight for justice and dharma which means righteousness. So, he tells Arjuna to lift gandhiv and fight thinking that he is doing his duties and that has to be done anyway and also that he is not taking lives from his relatives bodies but he is acting as a means for the lord to annihilate injustice and maintain equanimity.