Karma Yoga – Karma means action, and karma yoga is the yoga of action. It’s one of the 4 principles yogas (methods for attaining union) in Hinduism. Of course it is applicable for people of any faith, but the Hindu’s do a really good job of breaking down methods and explaining them.
So about 5,000 years ago on the battlefield of Kurukshetrea in India (known then as Bharat) Krishna, a great avatar of Visnhu, spoke to Arjuna his dear friend and one of the leaders in the Pandava army before this great battle took place. We won’t get any further into the story here, but one of the principle teachings Krishna expounds to Arjuna on this day is the teaching of karma yoga. It’s so essential to have at least a basic grasp of because for anyone on the spiritual path who is not living in a monastic order, because you are most likely in the world working in some way or another.
Karma yoga means you use your work, your action, your own karma to get free and come to God. How do you do that Arjuna asks? Krishna says well when your doing your work act as if it is all worship, dedicate it all to me (to God) and serve each life form and being as God. Serve each being knowing that the Atman or Soul exists within them. Another way of saying this is due what you do in the world without attachment. Ram Dass says – you can do everything in life like it’s a big burden on your shoulders or you can do it as part of the dance. So what does all of this mean? How do you actually do it? A huge predicament I run into in the West is that almost everyone, even those on the spiritual path misunderstand nonattachment. They think that if you aren’t attached it means you don’t try, don’t care and wouldn’t do anything. However, quite to the contrary the master who is unattached is the most effective in their work, frees themselves and frees others in the process. Why is This? When we act with attachment we are focused on the fruits of the action, we are seeing ourselves as separate from the other beings and things involved and our mind is fixated on outcome. This outcome could be making someone like us, making money, impressing our parents, winning a lover, gaining power, making our ego feel better about itself, anything. The bottom line is attachments color our actions and the vibrations they send out are less conducive to freedom. Ultimately attachment of the mind is what binds us to the wheel of birth and death (samsara).
When we act without or with less attachment we are actually more effective in our work, have more energy to throw towards things, and we don’t treat those we are helping or working with as objects but as souls like us. Acting without attachment we still throw ourselves into life and are carried along to do our duties, but our mind isn’t as clingy to how it all turns out. How it all turns out is in Gods hands, not ours. And this liberates us from creating new karma. No attachment = no karma. But it gets deeper than this. Krishna says if you really want to be free, don’t even think of yourself as the doer or the actor. Realize there isn’t even a “you” acting. Similar to what has been found in modern quantum physics, Krishna states “all action takes places by the interweaving of the forces of nature, but man in his selfish delusion thinks himself the actor.” So if you can hear that (and we keep forgetting because it’s hard to hold that remembrance) then you’re well on the way. Ram Dass says “not only is there nothing to do, there is no doer to do it anyway.” Meaning when your totally free, awareness is and things just happen. Just like the universe blew into existence, and trees grow and storms happen and salmon swim upstream and wars occur. So you are a part of it all. So karma yoga is a way we can get free by consecrating our daily activities, by serving all as God and offering everything up to God. We still work with a goal in mind, we still make plans, but how quickly can we shift and accept if they don’t turn out how we expected?
Now its also important to remember this is a path and a practice. It’s very hard to remember and hard to apply, that’s why we practice. We all have huge attachments to jobs, social roles, food, life and death, the body, family, friends, everything. Unless your completely enlightened beings only take human birth on earth because they have attachments.
These run very deep, they are very subtle and they don’t go away overnight or by simply realizing they exist or reading a blog like this. However it can be a game changer to realize that not only can we seek God and spiritual growth in church, temple, or in prayer and meditation, but that ultimately we can make our entire life a sacrifice and use our life circumstances in order to get free. When I first read the Gita about 7 years ago I thought “oh this is easy, I just do everything for Krishna, without attachment and I’ll be free”. The application of this has been much much harder, and I still often question myself as to my progress in Karma Yoga. All paths fit together and my path of Bhakti Yoga (devotional/love yoga) seems to fit right in with karma yoga, because the deeper I enter into love, the more beings I see as Love and in love, the more I slowly become purer and more refined.
Through this I can see that the helper and the one being helped are not as separate as they seem and it’s just God helping itself. The less attached our minds are, the more we see and know God. As Lao Tzu Says in the Tao De Ching “Truth Waits for Eyes Unclouded by Longing”.
