KARMA YOGA

By

Achala Bhakthan

In English “Karma” means Action or Fate.  If you analyse, action and fate are not same.  Action is any activity done by any person.  Eating, Running, Sitting etc. are activities.  Fate is described by English dictionary as “persons’s destiny or fortune”.   Here itse..\index.htmlf the contradiction is obvious.  Fate is the destiny or the pre-determined result of past actions.  Destiny, therefore, is the product (result) of actions and hence both cannot be same. Therefore, Karma literally means Action.   Yoga means joining (coming from the word “YOG”). So Karma Yoga means joining through actions.  Performing all actions with a Yoga spirit. This means joining or merging or reaching the ultimate Reality through Karma.  This sounds little paradoxical, since Vedas proclaim that to realize one should discard every thing, including Karma or action, because, we have seen action brings results as a rule.  If you act you are sure to get the result, the quality of it based on the attitude with which you do the action.  The result may be pleasure or sorrow, but a result has to be there.  The result again makes you enjoy or suffer it in your future life (which determines your fate as seen above). Then, how Karma Yoga can take you to realization, when Karma is said to shape up your fate?

Can we then avoid Karma?  We have already seen in  “Art of Living” that the very basis of our existence is ‘Action’.  The Reality is full of energy which is derived by us for all our actions.  The characteristic of the energy is constant vibration or action.  This Action is the base on which we build up our life.  If there is no Action, there is no life.  Am I correct?  Therefore, how it is said that through Karma Yoga we get realization?  .But as this is declared by Vedas, it cannot be untrue.  There is some hidden meaning.  Let us analyse. 

What happens when we do act?  We act at the dictate of the “Ego” in us, which again is giving the order based on the analysis carried out at the Intellectual level on the stimuli input by the sense organs.  The nature of Ego is always get attached to something.  The Ego is attached to the Body, Mind and Intellect.  When actions stem from Ego, which identifies itself with the BMI, the result (which again happens at the BMI level) affects the Ego.  This is as per the theory that every action brings a re-action to the doer.  The doer here is Ego and therefore, the result affects the Ego.  Thus, Ego shapes its own fate, through its own action.  If we don’ t act?  Oh! that is not possible; because we saw action is the very basis of our life. Then if we mould our actions, we can mould our destiny. But, is this what we want.  The destiny is shaped by every action and it continues.  It never ends.  What we want is an end to this destiny or fate, then only we can realize.   So, it is clear that we cannot avoid action but have to stop getting reactions.  How?  Geethaacharya in Bhagawat Gita declares :

           “Karmani Eva athikaarasthe Maa Bhaleshu Kathachana”

Understand that you have a right to do Actions, which you cannot avoid, but the results are pre-determined based on the nature of actions.   If you want to shape up the result the way you want it, you have to only manipulate at the Action level.  This is the meaning.  So, the reaction affects the doer.  If you act without the doer-ship feeling and without attachment to the results, what will happen?  The result will arise but it will not affect the Ego.  Thus, by doing action without attachment and identification with BMI, the Ego becomes free of re-action.  We have seen Ego exists by identification with BMI.  if the actions are done without identification with BMI, then the Ego is not present there.  Once the Ego goes, there is no doer-ship and, there-fore, no enjoyer-ship.  Therefore, casting away ego as above is the only way.  Karma Yoga explains how this process of “Act without attachment or identification” is to be performed so that the Ego gets eliminated.

In Geethopadesh in the Bharatha Yudha, Sri Krishna looks at Arjuna, who gets dejected at the thought that he had to kill his kith and kin and wanted to avoid participation in the war.  Here Kirshna wanted to establish Dharma through Arjuna by annihilating Adharma at the Kaurava side.  But when Arjuna is overpowered with the feeling of relationship with persons on the enemy side and holds the doer-ship of his actions in the war, he loses the intellectual power to distinguish and tries to avoid action.  Krishna is trying to show him his Dharma, as a Kshathriya and how his actions will not result in any sin by pointing out that he is not doing the action but he is made to act through the directions of Krishna, the Paramaatma, how he should act without having the doer-ship etc. etc.  There SriKrishna declares:

   “Sarva Dharmaan Parithyajya Maam Ekam Saranam Vruja”  

    Aham twa Sarva Paapebhyo Moksha Ishami maa sucha”

  Sarva Dharmaan = All Dharmaas (Duties) – Notion of Doership

   Parithyajya  = Discard                                      Maam Eakam = Me alone  

   Saranam Vraja = Surrender  HEY Jeeva

   Aham = I                                                            Twa = Yours 

   Sarva Paapebhyo – From all sins                   Moksha Ishyami =  Give relief

“Perform actions without doer-ship and attachment/identification with BMI and surrendering Ego to Me and I shall relieve you from all sins.”

After giving divya Chakshus (eye) to Arjuna, He shows His Vishwaroopa where Arjuna notices all the universe and matters inside Krishna including Krishna and himself in the Viswaroopa and gets clarity of thought that everything is the play of the Lord Supreme, everything stems from the Supreme including all jeevaas and that every incident is pre-determined by the Lord himself and nothing is in our hands.  Sri Krishna elaborates on the duty of Kashthriya, which is concerned with establishing Dharma by annihilating Adharma but advises him to do it without doer-ship and without attachment or worry about the results of action.  Surrender the Ego and take refuge at the feet of the Lord and offer everything – including your actions and results – as an offering unto the Lord.   The Lord explains to him the Karma theory, the four routes to realize the SELF and the entire life principle as declared in the Vedas.  Arjuna, having got his doubts cleared and having obtained true knowledge of the SELF, is ready to fight in the Karma Yoga method. In short, Lord Krishna made Arjuna realize his real status.

Once we have surrendered our attachment to the actions and results, what sin is there to us?  All reactions or the results of actions do not belong to us, do not affect us (Ego) and where is the room for sin to us?  And where is the need for any one to relieve us from Sins?  Krishna is trying to make Arjuna realize that once he acts without attachment but with surrender, he will not get sins or punya and hence no birth and death.  “I shall relieve you” is only to show the assurance that is given.  There is no special relief given by HIM but it is automatic.

Thus it is the attitude with which we perform our actions which will help us to practice Karma Yoga. Change your attitude.  “I am  not the doer, I am not the enjoyer, everything happens as destined,”. The attachment/identification with BMI should be caste away while doing actions and no expectation on results.  Act for action sake, because that is your basic nature, which you cannot avoid.  Act, Act, but do not get attached with action or result. In this way your Ego gets subsided and surrendered to the Supreme SELF automatically.  All actions without the Ego is not our actions and hence the reaction also does not come to us.  This is the  crux of Karma Yoga..

This situation is not to be considered in a limited vision as between Krishna and Arjujna.  Krishna is to be taken as the Paramaathma (SELF) advising to the Jeevaatma (through arjuna as the model).  Thus it applies to all of us Jeevaathmaas. Each one of us has to act in the world outside as per our Dharma – what is prescribed by Vedaas.  This principle equally applies to all actions done by Brahmana, Kshathriya, Vaisya & Sudra.

The Chathurvarna (Four divisions) Brahmana, Kshathriya, Vaisya, Sudra are describing the division based on the nature of karma each one is doing and cannot be misunderstood as a caste system by birth.  Those who are engaged in transferring real knowledge are Brahmanaas, those who are concerned with annihilating Adharma through Dharma is called Kshathriyas, those who are helping the economy to grow through trade & commerce are Vaisyaas and those who are serving the above three are called Sudras.  It is based on division of labour principle according to the modern Management Theory and has no basis on caste by birth.  Thus, each one of us has to act as per the Dharma (duty) prescribed for our Varna and that too without any attachment or identification with the BMI and by surrendering ourselves (the Ego) unto the Lord.  In this case, the results will not affect us and therefore no destiny will be shaped up and therefore there is a relief from the cycle of birth and death.  Let me hasten to add, please do not interpret the words “Birth and Death” as the birth and death happening to the Body.  Birth of the Ego and death of the Ego, i.e. the attachment or identification with BMI and detachment etc. is referred as the birth and death.  Still the bodily living of the realized soul may continue but that Soul will be functioning not as Jeevaatma with Ego but from the realm of Paramaatma. This is called the Realization.