Isn't doing one's duties without mental attachment, the highest yoga according to the Gita?

Actually, it is just the beginning of yoga. By merely doing your duties, you are attached to action. If you start by cutting the mental attachment, to the duties (actions) that perform, you are detached only in mind and in words. This is only one percent detachment. There is ninety nine percent attachment in the action. However, it is at least a humble beginning.

The essence of the Bhagavad Gita is ‘Nishkaama karma yoga’, which means detachment in mind and action. The detachment in action is proved by two ways:

1. Karma Sannyaasa yoga, which means the detachment from the work aimed at benefiting just yourself or your family. The work that you do should instead be aimed at the Lord.
2. Karmaphala tyaaga yoga, which is the detachment from the fruits of work done for yourself and your family. The fruits should be sacrificed to God.

If you only have mental detachment, it becomes Nishkaama yoga. Of course, between mind, words and work, mind is the king since it is the subtlest among the three and controls the other two. However, between words and work, work is a better indicator of your mind. You may speak something and have something else in your mind. However if you are sincere in your mind, it definitely shows in your work. This is the reason why the Lord advised ‘Nishkaama karma yoga’, which means detachment from mind and work.

He did not give any place to words. The mind and work are always in the same phase. What is in your mind is clearly reflected by your action; whom you really love is evidenced by to whom you sacrifice the fruit of your work. You may feel so much for God in your mind. You may speak or sing so much in His praise. You may claim that all the work you do is for none other than the Lord. Yet, when it comes to giving up the fruit of your work (money) to Him, your real mettle is tested. Therefore, sacrifice of the fruit of work is the real essence of the Bhagavad Gita.

Sometimes when you don’t have anything else to do and are unable to earn money, you may surrender your work for God by volunteering to do His work. However if you have a real job that yields plenty of money and you are still able to sacrifice that money for the mission of the Lord, then your sacrifice is genuine. You have proven your love or devotion to God. That is why, the Veda says “Dhanena Tyaagenaikena”, which means that only by the sacrifice of the fruit of work, can one attain the Lord. That is the real test of Lord Datta. Shaktuprastha was also tested in this very aspect. That is the touchstone, which will tell whether your mind is cheap glittering brass or real gold.

Your present family is bound to you only in this birth. All family members are like drama actors. They are only temporarily related to you. The relations with them are not even temporarily real. Even in the present, they are unreal. You should think of this carefully that they are not only temporary, but also unreal. You are worrying about your duties to such a dramatic association! God is the director and producer of millions of such family dramas. In each birth of yours, you are an actor in a new drama. You pass through all of them as an actor acts in different dramas. The Lord is the employer and He maintains you as an employee. This relationship alone is real and permanent from the beginning of this creation.

Madhva said that this relationship is the only relationship between the Lord and the soul (sevya-sevaka sambandha). Therefore, what is your real duty? The primary duty is to serve your employer. You are forgetting the real duty and attending false duties. You are saying that attending these false duties is the essence of the Gita! Shankara left His mother, Prahlaada condemned his father, Buddha left His wife and son and Meera left her husband for the sake of God. Such souls are fully liberated since they are detached from this world by mind, words and even work. They have reached the end of yoga. You are just in the preliminary stage of yoga. If you don’t know this truth, you will sit on the first step itself thinking that it is the final step. Of course you are better than the people who are attached to this world by both mind and work. A score of one mark is better than zero marks. Yet one mark is not a hundred marks. To progress in the spiritual effort you must look at the ninety-nine steps to be climbed up and not at the first step, which you have already crossed.