There is a kind of idealism that we carry with us all the time; when you idealize, you also get frustrations.
I have said several times that "the success is a dual course," when you are doing yoga; because even if you succeed, you are going to beget a un-yogic disposition. Failure also gives the same. Success gives you arrogance, pride, self-conceit, self-assertiveness. When you do the actions, there can only be either success or failure. Therefore, in karma yoga, your action should be done as if you were not doing. When you don't do, you don't expect; there is no question of failure and success, if you have not done at all! Suppose you don't study and you appear for the exams. If you fail, you don't feel for it, because you have not studied. So that is why the inaction, the non-action in action, is important; if you are carried away in action, if you are in the storm of action, the results are going to be there, either positive or negative.
That is why you should not be acting. Not to do is yoga. To do is not yoga.
You mean to do without acting?
Doing in a non-doing state is yoga. So the things are done as if they were not done. That should be the state. Suppose you have done something very physically, you have struggled physically, you have worked very very hard; if you get failure, your frustration is great. But if you have not worked physically, it's a mental endeavour; if you fail, the trauma is not big, because you have just worked mentally on it. So, if the physical effort is bigger, repercussions are that much stronger and more negative: when you fail in your own physical endeavours you have perspired, you have sweated, you have lost your energies, you are down after the action. You are no good for anything, you are just flat and you fail. Imagine the trauma.
But if you have done something mentally and you fail, the trauma is not so big. So particularly when something is done very physically, you must take care that if you fail your trauma is going to be very strong because you have exerted; but there is not much question of mental exertion compared to physical exertion. And therefore, try to do the things more mentally. Then, do as if you have not done, and the effects won't touch you at all.
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