The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

Selfless Service ╯
to the responsibilities and opportunities of the worldly life
and forgetting our spiritual dimension altogether.
In chapter 3 Krishna begins to tell Arjuna the way out of
this maze of cause and effect. It is not to avoid work, especially
the duties required by his station in life, but to perform those
duties without selfish attachment to their “fruit,” or outcome.
If Arjuna follows this path of selfless work, Krishna explains,
he will enjoy this world as well as the next. More important,
he will gain a spiritual blessing and will be lessening his debt
of karma. Only when he is free from every bond of karma –
every consequence of past action – can he achieve life’s ultimate
goal.
The world is bound in its own activity, for all creatures
except the illumined man or woman work for their own pleasure
and gain. Because they act selfishly, they are bound by the
results, whether good or bad. We must act in a selfless spirit,
Krishna says, without ego-involvement and without getting
entangled in whether things work out the way we want; only
then will we not fall into the terrible net of karma. We cannot
hope to escape karma by refraining from our duties: even to
survive in the world, we must act.
True, the Hindu scriptures do hold out another path
– jnana yoga, the path of wisdom – which does not enjoin
action. But Krishna does not really offer this to Arjuna as an
alternative; it is acknowledged and then dropped. Perhaps
101 ╯