WHAT IS KARMA YOGA?

Path of Work

814. Karma Yoga is communion with God by means of Work. Ashtanga Yoga or Raja Yoga is Karma Yoga, if practised without attachment. It leads to communion through meditation and concentration. The performance of the duties of householders (i.e., self-regarding or altruistic work, social and political)—doing them without attachment, to the end that God may be glorified—is Karma Yoga. Again, worship according to the scriptures, silent repetition of the name of God and other pious duties of this kind, is Karma Yoga if done without attachment, for the glorification of God. The end of Karma Yoga is the same (as of other Yogas), namely, the realisation of God, impersonal or personal or both.

815. In the case of a person endowed with the quality of Sattva (purity of being), action naturally falls off. Even if he tries, he cannot engage himself in action. God would not allow him to act. For example, the daughter-in-law who is with child is gradually relieved of her household work, and when the child is actually born, she is given nothing to do and is left exclusively to attend to the child. Those who are not endowed with the quality of Sattva have to attend to all worldly duties. With complete dedication to the Lord, they should behave like the servants in the house of a rich man. This is what is called Karma Yoga. Its secret consists in repeating the ' name of the Lord and meditating on Him as much as one can, and at the same time attending to one's duties in the spirit of dedication described before.

816. Whatever you offer to God would return to you a thousandfold. So at the end of all Karma (sacrifice), one has to pour a handful of water, dedicating the fruit of the Karma to Krishna.

817. When Yudhishthira was about to offer even his sins to Krishna, Bhima warned him saying, " No, no, you should not do so; whatever you would offer to Krishna will come back to you a thousandfold.'