“We are robots as long as we don’t realise that we are robots, the moment we realise, we stop being robots.” – nice!

“No action should be done with an expectation,” – this reminds of an Ahadith of Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS). I paraphrase, “Oh Allah, I don’t worship You for the reward of heaven, for that’s the worship of the market-trader. Neither do I worship You for the fear of Hell, as that’s the worship of the Slave. I worship You, O Lord, because You are worthy of worship, that’s the worship of the free man.”

Its not that we stop doing what we did, just that we become more conscious of our actions.
I guess this is what you call as ‘Zikr’ or remembrance of God, where you do your normal duties while remembering God in all our actions and no action becomes an unconscious reaction.

‘No action should be done with an expectation’, is one of the main themes of Bhagwat Geetha where you have to dis-associate with your actions and any returns that comes along with it. Its only with this dis-association that you break free from the cycle of karma (cause and effect).

I see you use the word ‘our action’ or ‘your action’, any action that we do is based on who we think we are.

Right from birth our name,religion,caste, mother-tongue, culture is fed or’input’ into us. And we assume our identities based on these inputs, and any action we do is only based on these identities. These are not the actions of our real ‘I’ but of our assumed ‘I’.

I forgot to add one last line to the first para in my previous comment. This is how it should read

“All your actions and thoughts are a reaction to another thought or action which has happened or is happening or will happen.
In reality you did nothing or COULD EVER DO ANYTHING”

Thoughts of my assumed “I”.

Thank you very much for the insightful comment.

If every actions and thoughts is merely a reaction and truly in reality we did nothing, then does that mean we are effectively just glorified mindless-robots that have been set in motion by our Lord at birth and are now moving along a pre-determined path with no will/control of our own. Surely we must be More than that. Thoughts and actions that have happened or are happening sure may set the pasture where we would perform our subsequent action, but it’s still “Our” subsequent action. Done (or not-done) by our will, our choice, our decision, for which we are wholely and solely responsible.

Rajkumar “Die, before you die.” is indeed one of my favourite Ahadith of Prophet Mohammed (SAW). Thank you so much for quoting it and you are right it is not stressed enough. Also I had not heard of the sankrit equivalent “Dwij” thank you for introducing it to me. Here’s a Quranic Verse in the same vein:
Chapter 3:Verse 92 “By no means shall you attain Piety/God Consciousness unless you give of that which you love.”

Not sure why the following words by Prophet Mohammed is not stressed enough
“Die, before you die”

The sanskrit equalivalent is ‘Dwij’ or the twice born.