Bhagavad Gita 3.27
prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni
guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ
ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā
kartāham iti manyate
“All actions arise from nature’s play,
The modes of matter lead the way.
But the deluded, in ego’s sway,
Think, ‘I am the doer’ day by day.”
My dear Lord, the concept of doership—of who is the doer—is a complex philosophical question with immediate practical implications. Please, O Lord, help me to gain a balanced understanding that is aligned with the reality of how things work in the world. When I think I am the sole doer, I am clearly in illusion. So much of what I do is beyond my conscious control or even awareness. When I speak, I have no awareness of how exactly the vocal muscles in my throat work to produce sound. And when I cough, I produce a sound even when I don’t want to. Thinking that I do everything is clearly a delusion of the ego.
Help me, O Lord, to develop the humility that aligns me with the reality of my embodied condition. At the same time, let me not go to the other extreme of utter apathy, where I claim to be doing nothing at all and therefore evade responsibility for things that I am clearly involved in. Your entire teaching of the Gita is meant to inspire Arjuna and, by extension, all living beings, including me, to take responsibility for our actions. Bless me, O Lord, to take responsibility wherever things are in my control. And help me to become a detached observer when it comes to things beyond my control, which are simply mechanical functions of the body and of material nature.
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03.27 The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature.
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