Chapter 5, Verse 10
brahmaṇyādāya karmāṇi
saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ
lipyate na sa papena
padma-patram ivāmbhasā
Just as water does not cling to the lotus leaf, he who abandons attachment and dedicates all his activities to Brahman, the ultimate Truth, is not stained by sin.
When one is surrendered to the Divine, to Brahman, whatever one does – like devotional service to God, offering worship to the deities, rendering service to humanity, practising charity, doing one’s duty, controlling what one is eating and drinking – is done for the sake of pleasing God. One is not attached to anything worldly, because one is constantly remembering Him. One does everything realising that it is God Himself who is doing it through one. One is being truly guided. In such a state, one belongs completely to God. Therefore, one is not stained by sin. This means that one doesn’t create any karma; one is not bound by any karma, whether it is past, present or future karma.
Here Lord Krishna uses the example of the lotus leaf. The lotus is born from muddy water, which is very dirty, but when it rises to the surface of the water, the water doesn’t touch it. Have you ever seen lotus leaves? Even if you put water on them, it quickly falls off. He meant here that you have to be like the lotus leaf, so that nothing can cling to you. When you do your sadhana, only God should be there. If God is your aim, if God becomes everything for you, no negativity will be able to cling to you. Like water can’t stay on a lotus leaf and runs off it, if one is completely surrendered to the Divine, all the negative qualities, all the kinds of attachments which one has in this world, will disappear. Even the attachment to gaining Heaven will disappear.
Krishna is reminding Arjuna that a true karma yogi does every action in a state of surrender, without fear of being contaminated by sin, because he knows that it is God, who is doing all actions through him; so he is free. On the other hand, every action which is done with expectation, with the aim of self-gratification or with ego, will bring pain to oneself. And due to the karma created from this one binds oneself to the cycle of birth and death and this will destroy life itself. And the more one is attached to this karma, the more difficult it is to remove it. It’s like creating and building up layers of karma. In the previous chapter you’ve heard the story of the demon Sahasrakavacha. He had one thousand layers of armour around him. It would take one thousand years of fighting him and another thousand years of penance to remove just one layer of armour, one kavacha. That’s why in that incarnation, Narayana didn’t manifest Himself alone. He came in two aspects – Nara and Narayana. While one of them was fighting against the demon for one thousand years, the other one was meditating. Then they would alternate. In this way, after many thousands of years, the layers of armour around the demon were destroyed and he was killed. Those who are free don’t have all these layers of karma with which they have covered themselves through many lives. Through the attitude of surrendering all to the Divine, they don’t create any more layers of karma and all the layers of past karma are removed. As water doesn’t cling to a lotus leaf. If one is surrendered to God, karma runs away from that person.
Bhagavad Gita
