The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ introduction
of karma yoga, for it is addressed to the person who wants
to realize God without giving up an active life in the world.
In the Gita the four traditional yogas are not watertight compartments,
and in practice, all of them blend and support
each other on the path to Self-realization.
Nishkama karma means literally work that is without
kama, that is, without selfish desire. This word kama – indeed
the whole idea of desire in Hindu and Buddhist psychology –
is frequently misunderstood. These religions, it is sometimes
held, teach an ideal of desireless action, a nirvana equated
with the extinction of all desires. This drab view is far from
the truth. Desire is the fuel of life; without desire nothing can
be achieved, let alone so stupendous a feat as Self-realization.
Kama is not desire; it is selfish desire. The Buddha calls
it tanha, “ thirst”: the fierce, compulsive craving for personal
satisfaction that demands to be slaked at any cost, whether
to oneself or to others. Thus the concept also includes what
Western mystics call self-will – the naked ego insisting on getting
what it wants for its own gratification. The Gita teaches
simply that this selfish craving is what makes a person feel
separate from the rest of life. When it is extinguished – the
literal meaning of nirvana – the mask of the transient, petty
empirical ego falls, revealing our real Self.
Work hard in the world without any selfish attachment,
the Gita counsels, and you will purify your consciousness of
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