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What is Karma Yoga?
Is it working tirelessly, consistently and perfectly well? Is it just
discharging duties effectively?
The answer to this lies in the Bhagavad-Gita.
The Gita defines Karma Yoga as the path of right action performed without any
desires or expectations. In the 3rd chapter titled
“Karma Yoga” Lord Sri Krishna says “With me in your mind dedicate all
your actions to me without worrying about the fruits of action”.
Our mind has powerful likes and dislikes. When we cater to the whims and fancies
of the mind we generally avoid or procrastinate what we don’t like. As mind has
endless desires the action that we perform will lack direction and energy. When
we entertain these desires our work will naturally lack energy and we do not
have mental stamina to do the work and end up getting stressed, taking holidays
etc.
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Not only these worries of the past, craving for the fruits of future and
tremendous excitement or fever for doing the present activity dissipate energy
and leave us mentally fatigued. The mind can’t program or plan a determined
path. It is the intellect or the logical reasoning part of the brain which can
steer us in the right direction. For example if we are on a diet and we are
prohibited from eating sweets the mind will sill tempt us .But there is the
little voice or the intellect which tells us “Don’t
This is not good for you."
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Lord Krishna lays out the formula for performing right
action.
He says “Pitch your mind to higher ideal in life. Let intellect direct all your
efforts to that. Then you get tremendous energy and enthusiasm to do the work.”
How true this is. When mind entertains selfish desires we drain out. The
moment we identify an unselfish goal and work towards it we gain more energy and
power. Thus one should identify an unselfish goal and let the intellect direct
all actions towards the goal. By listening to the intellect we become objective
in action and not get entangled in our activities. |
So when we are unattached, drop our ego, not worry about fruits of action and
just do our work without fever of doing it, then it becomes karma yoga.
MK Gandhi had boundless energy till his dying days. The reason is obvious. His
goal was to selflessly serve the nation and the people. Hence he was a true
Karma Yogi.
Contributed By:
Usha Hariprasad,
usha_hariprasad@yahoo.com
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