Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 2: The Path of Understanding

Bhagavad Gita 2.47

karmaṇyevādhikāraste mā phaleṣu kadācana | mā karmaphalaheturbhūrmā te saṅgo'stvakarmaṇi ||

Your right is to the work alone, never to its results. Do not let the results of action be your motive, and do not become attached to inaction.

Modern context

This is the best-known verse of the Gita, and it makes four statements. Your claim is on the work. It is never on the results, which depend on many things beyond you. Do not make the result your reason for working. And do not slide into doing nothing. It does not tell us to stop caring how things turn out or to work without goals. It tells us where our power actually lies: in the quality and sincerity of the effort. A surgeon, a student and a farmer can all give their full skill, and none of them owns the outcome. Seeing that clearly removes a great deal of anxiety and lets the whole mind go into the work.