Fruits of Our Karma or Not?

Long lost but evident truth of the world. Everyone keeps repeating this whenever someone is questioning his/her acts. ” You must never expect the fruits for all the acts you did.” 

I won’t say I never understood this sentence. I do. Even beyond understanding, I have felt that or to be precise, I have experienced it. There have been so many times when I didn’t expect anything against some act I did. And voila! I was gifted with some unexpected, better and amazing opportunities in my life. I did not see it coming. But, somehow, something lead to another thing and I had some amazing experiences on my way. I have been thinking, that is what or how people define life. Even in Bhagwad Geeta, Krishna said the same thing to Arjuna – Chap 2 Verse 47,

“कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ||” 

In particular, Krishna says, “You have a right to perform all of your duties and responsibilities but we are not entitled to the fruits of our actions. Do what you are entitled to but do not expect anything in return for your acts…” 

Sometimes, for everyone, these are very small things, but it questions a lot of my own acts. Even after having experienced what Krishna says, it is difficult to act on it. There are days when I want to start something new or something I had been dreaming to do for a very long time and I start to dream of it and me achieving it. I see myself reacting to it after completion. If you ask me, the reaction is a type of fruit. When we see or dream the fruits, 1) we expect that particular thing to go that way, and 2) we feel what we will feel after its completion. 

The problem here is that we don’t know if that thing is going to take place in that certain way only. It is what we are hoping to happen. But we don’t know if there might be different things that might take place between the day we dream and when the thing is actually completed. And there is no enormous harm in dreaming about what we will feel when it is completed, but the harm lies in what things we expect to happen after that. I don’t know about you all, but there are so many times when I dream of the completion of certain things and how I will feel and I will also imagine how my life would be after that. 

Now, I am unsure, but many can say this is Manifesting. You manifest- you see what you want to manifest – you achieve what you dream of. I am still unsure of how manifesting works. I know the Law of Attraction (though never experienced it on my own). But, still in the end I think expecting something to happen just because you did something a few days/months back doesn’t make it all. For example- you helped someone on the road 2 months back does not necessarily give you something good materialistic thing back. 

I know all my above thoughts can be very contradicting and I don’t say Manifesting doesn’t work. Manifesting works, it is How I am unsure of. I do not even say everyone should follow or do everything I wrote above. It is in the end over to you, what to do, how to act, when to do something or whether to do something or not.

(P.S.- It is just a piece from my diary thoughts. Let me know what you think about it. Thanks for reading!)