We as humans are constantly in search of Happiness, we try many different ways and things to achieve that fulfilment but it all feels like an illusion and never seems to leave us, we continue to seek, we continue to search to fill that little void, which after heaps of money, beauty, travel, holidays still seems to deepen more and more.
With this feeling of limitation, we keep on trying many different things in order to find that evading happiness which is so near yet so far. It’s like we put in effort to dig for water, and easily get discouraged when we don’t find it at the superficial level, we move to a newer pasture and dig again and then another. This moving from one to another is what Gita calls the wavering intellect. The restless mind which is always jumping from one thought to another , makes us anxious, confused and blinds our vision.
The intellect that is undecided is branched in many directions and it keeps losing its steam. In order to purify our mind and make it one–pointed, we first have to withdraw it from the external world and focus it on one object.To be successful in any task, we need to have a focussed intellect, Gita calls it, ‘vyavasatmika buddhi’
The more focussed our thoughts are, greater would be the clarity. Just like when the concave mirror converges the earth rays to a single point and generates enough heat to burn the paper. A single pointed effort brings in the virtue of selflessness in our efforts and further purifies the effort.
By being a witness, we can prioritize our attention towards healthy, important and constructive thoughts patterns while letting go of the undesired ones
To achieve anything in this world be it some exams, a job or any mundane work a concentrated effort makes us free from its expectations, our total effort is towards doing the job at hand and we can do it best when we do it as a YAGYAN, giving our best by being selfless and fully available for the job at hand. This is what gita calls Karma yoga.