Question: This question is in response to digest 84 on “How to make good decisions and priorities?”
You have raised my curiosity about the following statement: “… scriptures place our day-to-day duties in three categories viz. daily or obligatory duties, emergency duties, and preferred or occasional duties.”
I absolutely agree with this statement. But I do not know if there is some scriptural reference to it? The author of the Seven Habits of Successful People, Steven Covey, teaches this approach to prioritizing, but I don’t know where it is in Srila Prabhupada’s books. Could you please share with me just what scriptural reference you are referring to?
I was hoping to find more information regarding how to properly discriminate between “Our Duties”, “Emergency Work” and “Desired Activities”. Needless to say what one person would claim as duty, another might call Emergency, or even just “Desired Activities.” How we make those distinctions is what makes us so different.
Answer by Romapada Swami:
These three categories of activities are mentioned in various contexts within Vedic literatures and Srila Prabhupada makes a direct reference to it in his purport to Bhagavad-gita 2.47.
Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur also makes this classification of the three types of karma within his writings: nitya (daily), naimittika (occasional) and kamya (desired).
Of the three, `kamya karma’ or desired activity is more or less selfish, and in the Vedic context, usually refers to karma-kanda sacrifices performed with some specific desired results. In any case, it does not really fall under the category of “prescribed duties”. Emergency duties are commonly referred to in Vedic culture as “apad-dharma”. Prabhupada describes this in SB 1.17.16 p, and more direct references can be found, such as in SB 7.11.17 which describes how the various varnas should determine their duty during social upheavals or emergencies. Mention is made of them also in SB 5.26.15,19.
As Srila Prabhupada indicates in Bg 2.47 purport, routine duties are to be executed as obligatory, and desired activities should be regulated and done for Krishna – but both of them should be in line with scriptures. Determining what constitutes one’s obligatory or desired duty is definitely complex and has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Hence the necessity for consulting and taking superior direction from one’s spiritual authority. (Please see Digest 80B)
