Duty with detachment vs. renunciation

When lord Sri Krishna explained Arjuna how one should not run away from his duties due to his emotions and also explained the concept of renunciation, Arjuna got confused and asked "Oh lord, you are telling about duty and also about renunciation. Please do not confuse me and tell clearly which one of these two Is good for me."

Lord Krishna explained "No doubt they both lead you to salvation. But, performing one's duties without attachment is always better than renunciation. It is almost impossible for an earthling to renunciate all deeds. In fact no one should renunciate three duties-Yajna, Daana and Tapa. But when one performs his duties with detachment towards the result, it leads him to salvation/Moksha."

Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to say leading a family life is easier for attaining moksha than taking sanyasa. He used to compare family life with a train in a station and sanyasa with a train on a bridge. If the train derails in a station it causes little damage and there is every possibility of getting it back on track. But when a train derails on a bridge, it plunges into the river and certainly kills everyone on board. Similarly when one commits a mistake in family life there is always a possibility of correcting it and proceeding in the path of nirvana. But when a sanyasi commits a mistake it leads to his downfall from the path of nirvana.

There is a story in the Jataka tales of buddhism. There is a lake full of lotus flowers and a tribal man jumps into it, swims and plucks lot of flowers, enjoys and leaves. A sanyasi watching this goes near the lake and smells a lotus flower. The Yaksha guarding the lake reprimands the sanyasi for doing this. The confused sanyasi asks the yaksha why he did not say a word to the tribal man who casued a lot of damage and finding fault with him just for smelling a flower. The yaksha explains that the tribal man is an ignorant one and his sins will be excused, but you renunciated all your duties and desires and you have no right to desire a smell. When a paper is already dirty, even a big stain doesn't make a difference. But, a tiny stain on a pure white paper makes it impure.

Coming to duty with detachment our Gurudev used to give a nice example. A cashier in a bank transacts money worth millions daily through his hands. But he never shows any attachment towards those millions and only yearns for the salary worth thousands he gets each month. The moment he shows an attachment to any money that's not his, he lands behind bars.

Same way we should perform our duties with detachment and be content with what god provides us. That leads to moksha and it's the easiest way as shown by many of our Rishis.