What is the importance of sacrifice of work and sacrifice of fruit of work?

Shri Hrushikesh asked: Please give the importance of sacrifice of work and sacrifice of fruit of work?

Swami replied: The path to please God is of two parts:

i) Theoretical and ii) Practical

Theory is again of two sub parts:

i) Knowledge related to intelligence (Jnana yoga) and

ii) Devotion related to mind (Bhakti yoga).

The practical is again of two sub parts:

i) Sacrifice of work (Karma samnyaasa) and

ii) Sacrifice of fruit of work (Karma phala tyaga)

Both theory and practical are important. Theory is the source of practice. Practice is like a mango plant. Knowledge (theory) is like water. Devotion (theory) is like fertilizer. If you supply a little water and a little fertilizer to the plant, the fruit will appear in the plant only. Even if you have hundred tanks of water and hundred bags of fertilizer, fruit will not appear. Therefore, theory is essential but you should not stop with theory. I am not condemning theory. I am only telling you not to stop with theory only, since practical fruit can’t come for the theory. For theory, theoretical fruits alone will come. For practice, practical fruits will come. God told that He will give the fruit in the same way in which your effort proceeds (ye yathaamaam…). I am not criticizing LKG class to be very low and that it should be removed from educational institution. I am only telling that you shall not sit in LKG class only throughout your life. If you spend all your effort in knowledge only, God will give you more intelligence. If you spend all your life in emotional devotion only by singing songs, God will grant you higher emotion and better sweet voice to sing the songs. Your efforts are theoretical and hence the fruit is also theoretical. Swami Vivekananda asked God that why Indians suffer with poverty in spite of lot of spiritual knowledge and lot of devotion. The answer is that we are experts in theory but zero in practice. The foreigners are very good in practice even though they fall back in theory. Hence, the foreign countries were blessed with wealth.

In the practical devotion, sacrifice of fruit (matter) is higher than sacrifice of work (energy). This is because matter is condensed form of energy. Lot of energy is equal to small amount of matter. We respect our employer because he is giving us matter (money) for our sacrifice of work or energy. In this exchange the donor of matter is highly respected by the donor of work or energy, which proves that matter, is higher than energy. When we go to a shop we purchase some material (matter) by giving money (matter). In this exchange of matter for matter, we are not respecting the shop keeper so much as we respect our employer. This clearly proves that the value of matter is certainly far higher than the value of energy or work. Hence, the Veda says that sacrifice of money alone pleases God (Dhanena tyaagenaikena…), which is turned into a general saying that God is in money (Paisa me parmaatmaa hai). Krishna polished this concept to still higher level by proposing that sacrifice of fruit of your work is highest. It is easy to sacrifice the wealth given by forefathers since it is not earned by your hard work. You will know the value of money, which is earned by your hard work only. Hence, sacrifice of fruit of your work is finally considered to be the highest and real love. Since we have real love to our issues, we sacrifice work to them from their childhood and give our properties to them at the end. But, in the case of God, by expecting fruit in return from God, the devotees come under two categories:-

i) Prostitutional devotion (Veshyaa Bhakti): In this we want practical fruit from God for our theoretical devotion to Him. This is the love of a prostitute, who aspires money from a person by exhibiting sweet theoretical love in the form of praise and songs.

ii) Business devotion (Vaishya Bhakti): Here we exchange matter for matter, which is expecting a practical fruit for our practical devotion. The above two types of devotion are false love. Business devotion is somewhat better than prostitutional devotion since there is some ethics in it.

The real devotion or love is surrendering our practical devotion to God without aspiring any fruit in return and even if God gives us difficulties. The best example for this is our love to our issues. We do practical service to them and give all our wealth to them without aspiring any fruit in return and even if they insult us! To praise God as everything and everybody (Tvameva sarvam mama deva deva…) is a total lie because God is not equal even to our issues! Such theoretical phase with zero in practice pushes us into the cadre of prostitutional love. You cannot say that practical love is impossible if difficulties are given. But it is possible in the case of our issues. If it is impossible, it shall be impossible everywhere. Can you say that you can lift hill in Mumbai but not in Delhi?