Gita Chapter Two 03

Verses 2.40 – 2.53
According the knowledge derived from the Yoga of Desire-free Action, when one acts without any desire to enjoy the fruits of actions one frees oneself from the bondage or slavery of action. In this Yoga one does not calculate any lose or gain anything but is able to come out of even the most dangerous type of fear that may weaken the minds. Those who practice this Yoga with resolve are focused on the single aim of being engaged in activities without any attachment to the fruits of actions. Those who do not have the resolve to practice this Karma Yoga suffer from dilemmas. Persons may be easily attracted by the tempting prescriptions contained in the nicely worded verses of the Vedas to engage in fruit-yielding activities to obtain material pleasures of various types including wealth, power, and sensual gratification. The minds too attached to sense enjoyment and material opulence, the resolute determination of devotional service through desire-free activities does not appeal.
One has to transcend and go beyond the activities linked to the three Gunas/ properties of material nature recommended by the Vedas if one has to get liberated from all dilemmas, dualities and anxieties for gain and safety, and get established in the Self. Just as the various purposes served by small ponds can all be served by the great reservoir of water, all the purposes of the Vedas can be served to one who knows the basic purpose behind them. The basic knowledge is that one has only the right to perform actions prescribed as one cannot remain without actions, but one cannot have guaranteed entitlement to the desired fruits of actions. It is not correct to consider oneself as the cause of the results of one’s activities, and therefore ceased from doing one’s duty. A Yogi steadfast on this method of desire-less action performs duty giving up all attachment to success or failure. Such evenness of mind is required in the practice of yoga of devotional service by complete surrender to the Supreme Consciousness and to get rid of all result-motivated activities, by devotional service, and surrender fully to that consciousness.
A person engaged in devotional service rids himself of the concept of good and bad actions: that is the essence of strategy of carrying out activities. The wise engaged in devotional service take refuge in God and free themselves from the pangs between birth and death by renouncing the fruits of action in the material world. That is the technique of acting without suffering miseries. When all delusion has been cleared by the intellect, one become indifferent to all that has been heard and all that is to be heard. When the mind is no longer enamored by the tempting language of the Vedas, and when it remains fixed in the trance of self-realization, one will be able to attain the divine consciousness.
Verses 2.54 – 2.72
Arjun at this stage enquired to know the symptoms of one whose consciousness is merged in Transcendence in terms of behavior. Krishna responded that when one gives up all varieties of sense desire that arise from mental concoction between senses and the objects of sensual pleasure, the mind finds satisfaction in the self alone in pure transcendental consciousness. The sage in the steady state of pure consciousness is unperturbed by events that cause miseries to others, is not elated by what could cause happiness to any other, and is free from attachment, fear and anger. The person without attachment and perfect knowledge fails to rejoice or lament on any happening. True knowledge enables withdrawal of senses from sense objects, as the tortoise draws its limbs within the shell. Even after the embodied soul is restricted from sense enjoyment, the taste for sense objects may remain. But, the new experience of a higher taste, the mind gets fixed in consciousness. Even then, the mind of a person controlling the senses may be overpowered by the strong impetuous senses. A person with senses restrained and consciousness fixed on God is a person of steady intellect.
When the mind contemplates the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust for sensual pleasure develops, and from lust anger arises. Anger leads to delusion, delusion affects access to memory that leads to loss of intelligence. With intelligence lost, one gets trapped into the material whirlpool again. But the person who gains control over the senses through practice can become free from all attachment and aversion. A person who attains such freedom of Divine consciousness is able to lift oneself beyond material existence; in such a state, one's intellect remains steady in peace, unperturbed by external events. But the person not in transcendental consciousness does not have control over the mind and does not have steadiness of intellect to remain in peace. Just as a boat on the water is swept away by a strong wind, even one of the senses on which the mind focuses can destabilize the intellect. It is only the person with senses restrained from sensual objects that can have steady intellect.
What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage. Only the person unperturbed by the incessant flow of desires (like rivers entering into the ocean that remains still) can achieve peace. Real peace can be achieved only by the person who has shed all desires for sense gratification, lives a desire-free life and is free from desires, abandoned all sense of proprietorship and is ego-free. This is the way of spiritual life is attained and one can proceed to merges with God.