[Advaita-l] Ma Phaleshu Kadha Chana

[Rammohan, Chandrashekar]

Pranams to all,

I would like to add on to what Viswhanath Ji has said regarding what Lord
Krishna has said in the Gita.   According to me, the phrase " Ma Phaleshu
Kadha Chana " does not mean that we cannot expect results from our action,
its just that we cannot influence the results, in the way we want it ,just
because we do some action.  The english translation of that means that  " We
can only take a horse to the stable, we cannot make it drink water " .

Say for example, a student studies hard for an exam and does well. Is he
right in expecting good marks ??? It may sound logical from the student
point of view to expect good marks. But once he has submitted his answer
paper, he ceases to have control over it.  He cannot influence the results
now. 

Consider scenario 1 ) Say for example, the examiner who corrects his paper
was  in a bad mood or had a headache and decides to award less marks , this
can result in the student getting far lesser marks than he deserves.

Scenario 2 ) The answer paper is tied loose and some papers in the answer
paper go missing before it reaches the examiner. So, the student does not
get what marks he thought he deserves.

Scenario 3) The examiner gets a news of a promotion at his school and is
very happy and becomes very liberal in awarding marks and this ends up in
the student getting more than what he deserved.

Scenario 4) The Roll numbers of a few students gets interchanged and so,
this could possibly lead to unexpected results.

Scenario 5 ) There was a question paper leak detected subsequently and so,
the entire exam process was called off and new dates get announced for a
re-exam.

So, we see that although, the input to the Examination paper-correction
process is the same answer paper submitted by the student, the consequences
are entirely different based on different scenarios.  This is what the Lord
tries to pin-point as " you cannot influence" which would be the result.
There will be some result but it could be influenced by a set of extraneous
invisible factors.

Although the scenarios listed above could be cited as trivial exceptions to
the norm, its more to higlight how helpless we are and it always helps to
maintain poise and expect  any outcome with equanimity.  


Regds

Chandrashekar