Karma Yoga: For People in the Real World
The first thing you need to know about Karma Yoga is what the word means.
I know you’re familiar with yoga but what you may not know is that all that stretching and twisting and bendy people doing impossible things is just one kind and not even one of the major ones in the history of the whole thing. The posture form of yoga that’s familiar to you is no more than 150 years old — far from the ancient magic that some people try to claim it is. Yoga itself, as an art form, does go back centuries though. I’m going to tell you about some of the other forms and clear up some misunderstandings. First I want to tell you about Karma Yoga. The first thing you need to know about Karma Yoga is what the word means. You’ve probably heard people talk about good and bad karma, like it’s some magic tally that tracks how good or bad you are and gives out punishment and rewards. It isn’t that. How could it be? How could the bad things that billionaires do lead to private jets and caviar when all the times you looked after your granny and said please and thank you, led to not being able to afford eggs or electric? Money isn’t everything but if you don’t believe in eternal rewards and punishments like heaven and hell, how could karma work? Karma doesn’t really mean any of that. Karma is a Sanskrit word, Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, and it simply means ACTION. Karma Yoga is the yoga of what you do.
How important are your profits when you’re choking on your own fumes?
Karma Yoga is different to the yoga you may be more familiar with. Karma Yoga is the Yoga of Action. It means that you perform actions as a kind of spiritual devotion, with an attitude that everything you do is for something bigger than you are. When people say good and bad karma all they may think of some magic that keeps track of the stuff you do but really, if you do things that are all for personal gain, they will make the world a suckier place. All you have to do is remember that you live in the world too. If all your interested in is profit then climate change is an example of the sort of thing that can go horribly wrong. How important are your profits when youre choking on your own fumes? Same for you. If all you care about is the stuff that you want right now, what else are you neglecting? Family? Friends? Health? Karma yoga means doing everything you do purposefully, like it has a reason, and doing it with all the care and attention you’d give to performing heart surgery. In some ways Karma Yoga says whatever you do, do it with all your might, all your power and all your concentration. Karma, Action, Yoga, Concentration.
…there’s a higher will, a higher nature, a part of you that knows the short term difficulty is worth the long term progress of your life.
Karma Yoga is the Yoga of action — doing things — all things with concentration and purposefulness. The key is to do it without thinking of personal gains or some fear of the future. The idea is the central theme in one of the most famous books in Indian history — the Baghavad Gita. The Song of the Lord as it translates tells the story of a man who’s about to go into battle and he looks across the field at the friends, cousins and countrymen that he’s about to fight and he thinks it just not worth it. He’s going to give up but the God Krishna happens to be there in disguise and he tells him that it’s his duty. He’s here to fight and to win and although he doesn’t want to do it, although there’s going to be suffering, he cant possibly know how much worse the suffering will be if he doesn’t fight. It’s his purpose and he has to devote himself to it — no half-ass measures. Even when things are unpleasant and you find yourself having to do things you don’t want to do or even that are somehow against your will, there’s a higher will, a higher nature, a part of you that knows the short term difficulty is worth the long term progress of your life.
Karma Yoga is when you turn whatever you’re doing into yoga and lose all the hesitation, pesky emotions and barriers out of your life. When you have a big pile of washing up it’s very easy to get upset about the amount of housework that you have to do but here’s the secret to that big pile of washing up — you can only wash one plate at a time. That isn’t hard, right? You can do one plate can’t you? If you’re living in the present then there’s only ever one plate. And what is the washing up for? Does it contribute to your health, to your happiness to that of your family. It eases the burden of others who may have to do it instead and it may be an opportunity to listen to that music or watch that TV programme whilst the rest of your life is filled with chaos and people wanting your attention. One plate at a time. Your whole life, one plate at a time. Do each plate with devotion and concentration and all the other stuff, the intrusive thoughts, the hesitation, the fear of consequences, can all go away.
Karma yoga is the first thing you can do to take your yoga OFF THE MAT
Karma yoga is a way of turning everything you do into an act of yoga. You know that situation where someone goes to yoga and talks about spirituality and love and compassion and kindness and then shouts at the barista for giving them the wrong coffee or at the children for behaving like children, or spends their time being eaten alive by some fear of the future. Karma yoga is the first thing you can do to take your yoga OFF THE MAT. To take it with you at all times. There was an Indian saint called Ramakrishna who had a visit from a woman who wanted so badly to be spiritual, to be religious, to find that comfort in her life but, she said to Ramakrishna, I find that I cant love God. Ramakrishna said well what is it you do love? That you’d give your life for, that you shed every last drop of blood for? The woman said her nephew was was her world, that she would do anything in service of him. That, said Ramakrishna is how you serve god, that is where you’ll find your religion. Karma Yoga means doing things that you need to do, that you love to do, that you’re somehow driven to do, and doing it with every fibre of your being. Nothing else is necessary to find peace, to find your yoga.