Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 18, Verse 24
Verse 24
The Yoga of Liberation through Renunciation
But action performed with desire for results, or with ego, or with great strain — that is called rajasic.
Context & Meaning
Rajasic action has three telltale signatures: it is kāmepsunā — performed with desire for results, with an eye on the payoff; it is sāhaṅkāreṇa — performed with ego-investment, with "I" at the centre of the action making it about the actor's pride, status, or self-image; and it involves bahulāyāsa — excessive strain, great effort, the grinding quality of action pushed by ambition and resistance. Rajasic action is not necessarily harmful in its external form — it may accomplish great things in the world — but it creates enormous karmic residue because every action is loaded with desire and ego. The doer of rajasic action is exhausted precisely because they are carrying so much of themselves into everything they do.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainMadhvacharya
DvaitaSāhaṅkāreṇa — with ego. The Dvaita tradition sees the ego not as inherently evil but as inherently limited: it is a real but finite self that mistakes itself for the ultimate author of action. When the ego drives action, it generates the friction of bahulāyāsa — great strain — because it is attempting to bear a weight it was never designed to carry. The finite self cannot be the ultimate cause of anything; when it tries to be, it suffers. The remedy is not self-annihilation but self-surrender to Vishnu: offering the action to the one who actually bears all things.