Three Types of Action
Action performed as duty, without attachment to fruits, without love or hatred, is sattvic.
Actions too fall into three categories. Sattvic action is done from duty without attachment to results—neither craving success nor fearing failure. Rajasic action is motivated by desire for results and requires great effort while the doer identifies as the agent. Tamasic action is undertaken in delusion, without regard for consequences or one's own capacity. This analysis helps us examine our relationship to action and gradually purify it.
That action which is regulated and performed without attachment, without love or hatred, and without desire for fruitive results is said to be in the mode of goodness.
Flow states in psychology describe sattvic action—absorbed in the task itself, free from distraction by anxiety about results.
Bhagavad Gita
Written about in
- What the Bhagavad Gita says about letting go of results
Action done as duty, without craving the result and without love or hatred for the task, is the clearest of the three kinds described. The others are driven by wanting, or by disregard.