Bhagavad Gita 18.12

aniṣṭam iṣṭaṁ miśraṁ ca

tri-vidhaṁ karmaṇaḥ phalam

bhavaty atyāgināṁ pretya

na tu sannyāsināṁ kvacit

 

Unwanted, wanted, mixed—results arise,

Threefold fruits of actions under the skies;

These bind the doer after life is done,

But touch not the true renouncing one.

 

My dear Lord, I spend so much of my energy and life in worrying about what kind of past karma I have and what kind of results I will get accordingly: good, bad, or mixed. Yet all I can control is what I desire (my kama) and how I translate those desires into action.

O omniscient Lord, help me remember that these two—my desires and my actions—matter immensely in the ultimate picture, even if they often do not seem to in the immediate one. I often desire many things in this world and act to obtain them, yet I do not receive most of them. And when I rarely do, they turn out to be not as enjoyable as my fantasies about them.

O merciful Lord, help me instead to desire you, the supremely liberated and supremely liberating reality, and to focus on what I can do to seek you—through inner remembrance and outer service. When I make you the focus of my foremost desire and endeavor, you reciprocate by enriching my heart with your remembrance and, eventually, your presence.

O supremely benevolent Lord, when I experience you, I stop craving all other experiences. As my kama thus becomes directed toward you, the desires that fuel my entanglement in karma diminish and disappear. May I thereafter enter into a life of endless love with you—the Lord who sustains karma, transcends karma, and liberates from karma.

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18.12 For one who is not renounced, the threefold fruits of action – desirable, undesirable and mixed – accrue after death. But those who are in the renounced order of life have no such result to suffer or enjoy.