Act Without Claiming; Do Everything, Own Nothing

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

Now the questions of the second stanza get their answers, and the first is the key to everything: Egotism is bondage; as Gurmukh, one is emancipated. What binds a person? Not fate, not other people, not circumstance — haumai, the ego, the felt conviction of being a separate, claiming self. That is the rope. And what frees you is not a technique for untying the rope but a turning of the whole self toward the teaching, in which the rope simply loosens. The Gurmukh is emancipated because the Gurmukh is turned away from the very self that does the binding.

From this follows the escape from the cycle: the Gurmukh escapes the cycle of coming and going. The restless circling was driven by the ego's endless wanting; quiet the ego's grip, and the engine of the circling loses its fuel.

And then the subtle answer to the karma question: the Gurmukh performs actions of good karma, and the Gurmukh is beyond karma. How can both be true at once? Because the Gurmukh acts — does good, works, serves — but without the ego's grasping attachment to results. Action done from the separate, claiming self builds up karma, because it is always mine, always keeping score. Action done from a heart turned toward the One flows freely and leaves no sticky residue. Whatever the Gurmukh does, is done in good faith — bhana, in glad acceptance of the One's will. This is the secret of being in the world of action and yet beyond its binding chain: do everything, claim nothing, and let it all be offered rather than owned.