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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

About Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga Basically means yoga of actions. It is a very important path that can purify ourselves internally and externally. Once we are purified, wisdom will arise in us naturally.

Karma yoga is also being explained as selfless service. It is a very efficient way to eliminate our ego. It is performing any actions for ourselves and other beings to evolve spiritually and becoming happy, selfless, compassionate and wise beings without any selfish intentions and without any expectations towards the results and rewards to be or not to be in certain way.

It is renouncing from the fruit of actions. All the actions are not different from inaction (free from the bondage of good or bad karma, even though the nature's law of cause and effect is still being what it is) if all the actions were being performed without the selfish ego attached onto and identified with the actions and the fruit of actions.

All actions are being done as a selfless service for serving 'God' for those who believe in 'God', or the universe for those who disbelieve in 'God'. We all are just an instrument for 'God' or the universe to be what it is, in this transitory world of names and forms, including the action of eating and drinking, as well as taking care of its good health to maintain the life existence of this mortal physical body that is existing under the support of ether, fire, water, air and earth, for us to serve 'God' or the universe.

Karma Yoga is not only limited to perform selfless service of helping other beings and caring for the nature without expecting any rewards in return, but allowing the fruit of actions being there as it is. It is also performing all kinds of actions that are necessary and beneficial for oneself to evolve spiritually.

Such like Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi are beneficial actions that will lead one to the ultimate goal of liberation by attaining the wisdom deriving from self-realization towards the truth of selflessness and impermanence.

Before one attains the wisdom from within ourselves, we all have to perform all actions or practices that will bring us to the wisdom in us. Once we have realized the wisdom within under the serenity that derives from all the actions of yogic practices, then we can renounce all actions or yogic practices, but we still can continue to perform any actions or yogic practices that are necessary and beneficiary to all and everyone, without attachment or identification towards the actions and the fruit of actions.

By performing Karma Yoga, we will be free from fear, worry, selfishness, depression, ill will, greed, anger, hatred, jealousy, pride and arrogance. We will be endowed with loving kindness, patience, forbearance, generosity, cheerfulness, gratefulness, appreciation, humility, fearlessness, compassion and wisdom.

Karma Yoga is being performed with great enthusiasm of giving and sharing. It is free from frustration and disappointment. It is about non-attachment and letting go. It is nameless and formless. It is beyond the duality of good and bad, success and failure, give and take. All actions are being done with full effort and attention, and are letting go instantly during and after the action.

It is free from discrimination of good beings and bad beings, all beings are being respected and being treated same and equal under the practice of Karma Yoga. It is free from judgment, comparison, competition and expectation. It is freedom while performing a lots of actions in the world.

If it is being practiced with the right attitude and correct understanding, it will bring us joy, happiness and peace.

All actions are being done with a balanced state of mind without attachment towards the results or success and failure. There is nothing to be gained or loosed in all actions of selfless service but the invisible merits are there as it is, without us expecting to receive any merits.

Be kind to all. Perform or carry out all our duties and responsibilities in a positive and cheerful attitude towards ourselves, towards our family, towards our friends, teachers, students, and the society,
without attaching onto the actions and the fruit of actions, are the basic Karma Yoga.

Beside all the obligated duties and responsibilities, there are many other actions that are not an obligation for us to perform, but we still can give and share with others. These are the higher Karma Yoga that we perform out of pure compassionate heart, not because we have a duty or responsibility to carry out.

If we perform all our duties or responsibilities and any selfless service and charity acts without attachment, and renouncing the fruit of actions, then it is considered pure Karma Yoga. But if we are attached onto all our duties or responsibilities with certain expectation towards receiving certain rewards and are being determined and affected by the result of success and failure, then it is not Karma Yoga anymore, but it’s merely some actions that will bound us to good and bad karma.

It’s the same as when we do any charity works to help others. If we do everything with the selfish intention of getting good karma or merits, and are attached onto the fruit of actions and are being affected by the results of our actions, then all these are not Karma Yoga.

If we truly understand this, then when we sit for meditation observing the breath without performing any movements or physical actions, it’s also an action of Karma Yoga for attaining liberation from ignorance and the consequences of ignorance. It is a nameless and formless action in inaction in a beneficial way. It is a pure action that will bring us the “fruit” of self-realization. At this point “self-realization” is still a name and form. There is still something that we attached onto. Until we attain self-realization, then we can go beyond self-realization. At this point, self-realization is nameless and formless. There is no “self-realization” but just being what it is.

If we are sitting there doing nothing or not moving the body, but the mind is busy planning for this and that, scheming and indulging in random lustful thoughts, then it is an action in inaction in a non-beneficial way which we are actually  generating lots of subtle cause that will turn into effect, even though we didn’t perform any movements or physical actions.

May we all be free by performing Karma Yoga.
 
Inquire towards the truth of all these teachings coming from the teachers or the books of yoga.

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