Your right is for action alone, never for the results. Do not become the agent of the results of action. May you not have any inclination for inaction.

Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 47

(1) This thought has always haunted me since I first encountered this shloka in ISKCON when I was 14, after I entered a storytelling competition there. From that point, I have seen so many people giving similar translations of this.

(2) The problem with most people is, they tightly translate the shlokas without experiencing them. A person who hasn’t adopted it comes and yaps about Krishna saying:

Karmani eva adhikarh te –> To act is your right (your duty)
Ma phaleshu kadaachana –> Not at any time to the fruits of action
Ma karma phalaheturbhuh –> Let not the fruits be your motive to act
Ma te sangh astu akarmani –> Nor let thy attachment be to inaction

(3) And they conclude by saying, “We have a right to our actions, not the results.” But it bugs me. What does right to our actions even mean? Does it mean our thoughts are confined only to action? No, absolutely not.

(4) Some people even say that it translates as: “We have to work without expectation, and God will take care of the results.” But what bugs me more is that, with or without expectation, it’s ultimately divine energy that decides the outcome after you perform your duty.

(5) Then what does the shloka really mean?
Before getting to that, I want to illustrate two incidents:

(a) I was 16 when I gave my 10th exams, and I never thought about the results. I was just curious about what it might be, but it never bugged me no thoughts like “if this happens, then that,” or “what if my results are bad,” etc.

(b) I was 18 when I gave my 12th exams. But this time, from the moment the exam was over, I was thinking about the results. It was bugging me deeply.

(6) Now, when I was 16, had I adopted the thought, and at 18 I didn’t? Haha, certainly not. Then what happened?

(7) When I gave my 10th exam, I did well. But the second time, I didn’t.

(8) So, what I conclude  and what the shloka also loosely translates to  is:
“If you do the work the right way, you will never think about the results.”