Karma Yoga

“Karma” means “work”; and “yoga” means “peace of mind”. So karma yoga is the methodology by which the work we do can take us to peace of mind. But karma is also used for a different meaning. People also refer to karma basically meaning the past activity we have done and its effect; to say that something is karmic; like why were you born in Turkey and not in America? It is my karmic aspect. Why do I have to go through the suffering? It is karmic. But when we have a great pleasure and happiness, then it is not karmic. Then we easily say, “I’ve struggled hard! I struggled and earned and put all the effort in that work”. Whereas when a suffering occurs, when something bad occurs, then we say it is karmic. If you hit somebody, that is your effort. Somebody hits you it is karmic. That is why “karma” is used very conveniently, so we need to understand what karma basically is.

The second aspect is how karma can give us peace of mind? All agitations, disturbances and the stress all appear because of karma. Activity we feel brings about disturbance. This is the reason when somebody says ‘peace of mind’ people equate it to giving up work. When we simply say that we have to calm down the mind, listeners immediately react saying “if I calm down my mind, how I can work? And how can the work run if we keep quiet?” But that means that karma is the action that is responsible for our problems. And there is no way that I can come out of this activity, so there is no possibility for having peace of mind while I am engaged in work. Do you understand this basically? This is the first secret that Karma Yoga addresses us. It is not the action that is the problem; the problem is something else.

The Bhagavad Gita says “Yogasya karmasthu kousalam” which means “Perfection in action is yoga!”

One may think the idea of yoga is doing some thing extra ordinary. It should be like some thing challenging. How can simply doing an activity give us the benefits of yoga? Just as doing some humanly impossible rigors of discipline, and torturous practices on he body and mind etc are the ones which gives us the benefits of yoga, no pain no gain situation, how can ordinary activity give us the same benefits?

Gita explains this paradox. Work is external. Attitude is internal. Work belongs to the world. Attitude belongs to you. You cannot change work much because it is in the hands of the world out side! When it happens to change, fine, it happens. But attitude behind the work is in your hands. A certain attitude makes your work miserable and certain other attitude makes it pleasant. Change the attitude, and you will become spiritual. If you do not have the right attitude, you are non-spiritual.

It is not the work that determines whether you are spiritual or not. This point needs to be understood very deeply. In fact, we have such stories in Indian philosophy. A woman can even work as a prostitute, but she can be an extraordinary saint. It is not because of the kind of work she is doing, but the kind of attitude she has. Attitude is in your hands and that is a thing you can change. Nobody can force an attitude on you. People can only influence your attitude, but it is you who decides what attitude you should have. And the right kind of attitude can help you turn it into yoga.



PS: As i have been saying time and again, some of the posts are not written by me. Sometimes I only read and try to summarize in a crisp manner the ideas that i find relevant. I shall give link to the source in such cases. You can find the source of this post at www.nvraghuram.org.