Offering All Actions

What can a person do with the worry that comes after the work is done? These verses give a plain answer. Do the work with the whole self, and then hand it over, together with the hope, the sense of "mine" and the restlessness that go with it. The third chapter gives this as an instruction to Arjuna (Gita 3.30). The fifth chapter shows what follows: action done this way touches the doer as little as water touches a lotus leaf (Gita 5.10), and the mind finds peace that lasts (Gita 5.12).

The topic comes on The Path of Karma Yoga after Action Without Claiming the Fruit, which taught the right to the work and not to its fruit. Here that teaching becomes an inner practice of offering. The next step is Equanimity.

The Gita also says what offering is not. It is not carelessness, because the whole person is in the work (Gita 5.11). It is not a bargain for success. And it is not a reason to stop asking questions, since the Gita welcomes honest asking and sets aside only fault-finding that refuses to try (Gita 3.31–32).

The topic can be read in three ways. A simple reading starts from the worry that follows finished work. A detailed reading takes the six verses in order, with an example and a practice. A deeper reading sets out the commentators' streams and answers seven objections.