Human Development
Karma yoga
Description:
This form of yoga is based on the performance of right action under any circumstances. As such it is a part of all yoga practices. It may however also be viewed as a special method in its own right, distinct from the other major forms of yoga and based primarily upon renunciation of the fruits of all actions. As such it is an aspect of Raja Yoga.Karma yoga is used by persons of action-oriented disposition or, in the system of Master Da Love Ananda (formerly Da Free John), one who has reached stable maturity in the first three stages of life and is set on the path of self-transcending service to others. In this form the individual transcends himself through application to work, whether approached philosophically (under the jnana or knowledge mode), or with an attitude of love (under the bhakti or devotion mode). Work becomes a vehicle for self-transcendence for the individual, in the first case by identifying himself with the impersonal Absolute at the core of his being or, in the second case, by shifting the centre of interest and affection to a personal God, experienced as distinct from himself. In both cases, every act done without thought of self diminishes self-centredness until finally no barrier separates from the identification of consciousness with ultimate reality, however conceived.
Whether in the philosophical or devotional mode, both approaches effectively starve the finite personality by deflecting it from the consequences of the actions on which it feeds. As Krishna makes clear in the Bhagavad Gita, all beings in creation are forced to act under the operation of the three [gunas]. However, the follower of [karma yoga] sees actions occurring through himself rather than by himself, he is the observer not the actor, no longer a slave of the three gunas. Pain, loss, and shame become accepted with equanimity because they are seen to touch only the superficial levels of the individual, whereas his identification is progressively transferred (through the work experience) to the underlying immutable self whose limitless joy and serenity are not disturbed by the ephemeral consequences and possibilities of the world of action.
It is through the Bhagavad Gita that the principle of a yoga that can be practised by any individual during normal life and not simply by an ascetic is introduced, and this is perhaps the main distinguishing feature of [karma yoga].