The Yoga of Action - Relinquishing the Fruit

Krishna told Arjuna repeatedly, "Arjuna! Do your duty. Engage yourself in rightful action. But do not aspire for the fruit of your action." Krishna's intent was to turn all of Arjuna's actions into sacred actions, into karma yoga, and thereby help him to reach his spiritual goal.

Embodiments of Love,

In the world, all actions are performed for the sake of the rewards, or what can be called the fruits. If there were no fruits resulting from their actions, if they were not compensated or paid in some form or other, the great majority of human beings would not undertake any work at all. What is Krishna's objection to Arjuna aspiring for the fruit of his labor? When almost everyone performs actions for the sake of the reward, what is the deeper meaning in Krishna directing Arjuna to perform all his actions without expecting any reward? Krishna's sole interest was to see to it that all of Arjuna's actions be transformed into yoga, in other words, that Arjuna's will be aligned with the divine will. This would happen when Arjuna surrendered himself fully to the divinity, offered all his actions to the divine and gave up all his attachments to the results. Then his karma became karma yoga.