It is Sunday evening, and your stomach is already tight. Tomorrow there is a meeting, a deadline that moved up, a target that has not been met. The weight feels like one big thing, and it sits on you before Monday has even begun.
The Gita has a plain answer. The weight is not one thing. It is three, and each one has its own handle. Do the task in front of you. Loosen the claim on how it turns out. And bear the wave of panic until it passes (Gita 2.47, Gita 2.14). Pulled apart in this way (this is the Gita's action without claiming the fruit joined to evenness), the load is lighter, and the work does not suffer.
Pressure is three weights, not one
The first weight is the work itself: what has to be done. The second is the fear of how it will turn out: what if I fail, what will they think. The third is the wave in the body and mind: the tight chest, the racing thoughts.
Lord Krishna's counsel to Arjuna comes on a battlefield, where the pressure could hardly be greater. He speaks to each weight separately. The work is yours to do (Gita 2.47). The fear belongs to the result (Gita 2.47–51). And the panic is a wave (Gita 2.14).
Weight one: do the task in front of you
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥ २.४७ ॥
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are never entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to inaction.
The verse says that your right is to the action and not to its fruit. You are not to think of yourself as the cause of the results, and you are not to slide into doing nothing. Action is better than inaction (Gita 3.8).
In practice this means choosing the next piece of work and not the whole mountain. The hub Action Without Claiming the Fruit takes this teaching in full.
Weight two: the fear lives in the result
Fear is about something that has not happened and is not wholly in your hands. That is why it weighs so much. The Gita asks you to keep caring about the work. It asks you to loosen the claim on the result, and it says that this gives peace (Gita 5.12).
It also warns about the other way. Those who work only for the result make their peace depend on what they cannot control (Gita 2.49). And the Gita promises that even a little of this discipline protects from great fear (Gita 2.40). The fear shrinks as the claim loosens.
Weight three: panic is a wave, and it passes
आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ॥ २.१४ ॥
O son of Kunti, the contacts of the senses with their objects give rise to cold and heat, pleasure and pain. They come and go and are impermanent. Endure them patiently, O Bharata.
When we meet the world, we feel pleasure and pain. They come, they go, and none of them lasts. Lord Krishna asks Arjuna to bear them. The tight chest on Sunday night is such a wave. Bear it, and do not decide or reply at its peak. The hub Equanimity goes further into this.
Two ways of working under pressure
The Gita draws two portraits of a worker. The first is passionately attached, craves the fruit, is greedy, and is thrown about by joy and sorrow (Gita 18.27). His work is driven by desire, ego and much strain (Gita 18.24). The second is free from attachment and free from boasting. He has firmness and enthusiasm, and success or failure does not unsettle him (Gita 18.26).
Look at what the second worker keeps. He keeps the firmness and the enthusiasm. The Gita does not ask for a flat, tired worker. The difference lies in where the mind sits: on the work, or on the result.
How do we move from the first to the second? In small steps. When the mind runs ahead to the result, bring it gently back to the next task, and do it again the next time it runs ahead (Gita 6.26). The mind is restless, and the Gita says it is held by constant practice and by letting go (Gita 6.35). No one is scolded for needing many returns.
Offer the work and put down the fever
निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः ॥ ३.३० ॥
Dedicating all your actions to Me, with your mind fixed on the Self, free from expectation and the sense of ownership, and free from mental fever, fight.
The verse asks Arjuna to dedicate his actions, to be free from expectation and the sense of ownership, and to be free from mental fever. Then it says: act. The work is a duty offered, and not a verdict on you. The fever of worry goes, and the full effort stays. More on this is in Offering All Actions.
Your own mind can help or hurt
Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that a person must lift himself by his own disciplined mind and never let himself fall. The mind can be a person's greatest friend, and the same mind can be the greatest enemy (Gita 6.5). For one who has mastered it, it is a true friend. For one who has not, it behaves like an enemy and causes downfall (Gita 6.6).
Under pressure the enemy speaks in a familiar voice: "I will fail, and they will all see." The practice is small. Speak to yourself as you would to a friend whom you want to see do well. That friend would say: "Take the next step. You have done harder things."
There is one more place where pressure shows: in what we say. When you must reply to a message or a call while tense, check the words first. The Gita calls speech that causes no distress, that is truthful, pleasing and useful, a discipline in itself (Gita 17.15).
An example
Take Ravi, who sells for a living and is a week from the quarter-end. On Sunday night the dread comes. He writes three lines on a paper. "My task tomorrow: call the five clients who are still waiting. Not in my hands: whether they sign. The wave: my chest is tight, and it will pass."
On Monday he makes the calls. One client says no, and Ravi feels the sting. He lets it be there, and goes on to the next call. He misses the target by a little. But he slept on Sunday, he worked with a clear head, and two of the five signed the week after.
Take a piece of paper and write three lines.
- My task tomorrow, in a line.
- What is not in my hands.
- The wave I feel, and that it will pass.
Then take one slow breath and start the first small task. Keep your food, rest and sleep in measure, since a tired mind shakes more easily (Gita 6.17).
Questions readers ask
Does the Gita say I should not care about targets?
No. It asks you to do the work fully, because your right is to the action (Gita 2.47), and action is better than inaction (Gita 3.8). What it loosens is the clutch on the result.
Isn't fear what makes me work harder?
Fear narrows the mind. The Gita calls skill in action yoga (Gita 2.50), and skill grows in a steady mind. It also says that even a little of this discipline protects from great fear (Gita 2.40).
What if I miss the target anyway?
The Gita asks for the same evenness in success and in failure (Gita 2.48). You bear the sting like any other wave (Gita 2.14), and the effort you made is not lost (Gita 2.40).
Is resting wrong when the deadline is close?
No. Measure in food, rest, work, sleep and waking is part of the practice, and it makes yoga a remover of sorrow (Gita 6.17).
Where to go from here
The verses are taken one by one in the detailed reading.