Illustration of Karma Yoga, A story

A saint by name Kaushik was sitting in the forest under a tree meditating deeply. A bird on the braches above was making noise which is natural for the bird. The sage Kaushik got disturbed from his meditation and with anger he looked at the bird with scorching eyes. The very angry looks burnt the bird and it fell dead on the ground.

Kaushik though felt sorry for the bird, on the other hand he was surprised at the power to burn the bird he acquired through the meditation and was proud too!

As his meditation got disturbed he found that he was hungry. He walked to a nearby house to ask for food and stood in front of the house and asked for food. It is the tradition those days that it is the responsibility of the society to take care of the needs of a student and a spiritual seeker engaged in meditation.

But they are supposed to ask in humility and not in arrogance. When he stood in front of a house and asked for food the house wife came with all respect and wanted to take care of the saint at the door steps. But she found at the same time her husband walks in and she invariable has to take care of his immediate needs as a devout wife. She therefore apologized to the saint saying, “Sir, I would like to take care of you. Please give me some time wait for about ten minutes. Let me take care of him and come back to attend to you”. With he words Kaushik felt irritated, “how can she neglect me in front of her ordinary husband when a great yogi like him who accomplished a great power is standing there. But he controlled himself for the time being and waited. On top of all this she took little more time than he expected. When she came out she sincerely apologized saying, “I am sorry I made you to wait”. But his anger did not subside. She apologized repeatedly. But the arrogance will not allow one to act with compassion.

When she found he did not change in spite of her repeated requests and also saying that it was no intentional and she could not help the situation, she said, “oh sir, come on give up the angry looks,” and she further added, “I am not the bird to fall pray to your anger like the bird in the forest”.

He was shocked to hear from her about the bird being burnt because he never expected that any one would know about an incident that happened between him and the bird in the forest where no other person was there. How could he believe she knows about it? How could she know if she does not have any yogic powers? He felt her power must be greater than the power he has to burn a bird just by the heat rays from his angry looks. The moment he realized that she is extra ordinary at once he fell at her feet and prayed her to pardon his ignorance and requested her to tell what kind of yogic practices she does so that she acquired such great powers. She simply smiled and said, “I don’t do any spiritual practices and all that I do is to do my household activity diligently and meticulously”. But he could not believe and thought she is hiding about her practices. She in turn replied, “If you want any more information please go to my guru, his name is Dharma vyaadha and he is in the next town, and find out from him”.

Kaushik then proceeded to the town in search of the guru she has referred to him. Expecting to see a great spiritual teacher may be having an ashram or a place like that, he looked around in the center of the town. To his surprise he saw no ashram or no sign board of a spiritual master around there but to his surprise he found a butcher shop with the sign board saying ‘Dharmavyaadha meat shop’. He thought it can not be because he is expecting to see a pious man and not a meat selling person.

As he was hesitating standing there the person in the shop called him, ‘hi gentle man, aren’t you Kaushik and aren’t you the person the lady next village suggested you to meet me. I am the Dharmavyaadha you are looking for.’

Kaushik was totally dumb founded as how could he know what happened between him and the lady next town. But he could not do any thing. He remained as a mute spectator as he found to his surprise the guru is cutting meat and selling meat collecting money and fighting with them for the money! After he finished the work in the shop he counted all the money and took Kaushik wit him to his home. There he took care of his parents joyfully and at the end he asked him, ‘yes gentle man, what I can do for you?’ having seen all the work he is doing yet having such great wisdom, he is now totally surprised and asked him ‘sir, what is the special sadhana or spiritual practice you do so that you are such a great master. Dharmavyaadha replied humbly, ‘all that I do is to do all the duties that I am supposed to do diligently. That is my meditation’.

The moral of the story is that when we are doing the normal day to day work with a special attitude, then the work itself is no inferior to the highest spiritual sadhana. The question now is about the attitude, which can transform our activities into sadhana or spiritual practices!

When you look at it this way, yoga is not doing a few postures. There are some people who have a wonderful body, which can bend in so many ways, but they cannot bend their attitude. They can hold their breath until eternity, but they cannot hold their greed, their arrogance and temper etc even to a small degree!

Now what is yoga and what is not yoga? What appears like yoga may not be yoga. There are many yoga teachers that we come across who do not have the right kind of an attitude, they can bend very well and twist very perfectly yet they are not in true sense yogis because they don’t have right attitude.

So karma yoga is not the work outside. It is essentially the attitude behind the work that we do. An attitude that takes toward peace of mind is a healthy attitude. An attitude, which brings about agitations of the mind, is not a yogic attitude. It is a worldly attitude. It is not the work that causes suffering but you and you attitude. If a right attitude is there, the work can give you peace of mind. If a right attitude is not there, then the work can cause tension to you.

Now, what is this “right attitude”???