Practice of Karma Yoga

Kishore C.S. (November 2001)

In my spiritual pursuits, I have attended many spiritual lectures and always tried to learn a few tips to progress in spiritual life. Some simple lectures made good impressions on me and I recollect those lectures very frequently.

The following is a small example of one small aspect I learned in such lectures

Karma Yoga is the main teaching in Bhagavad Gita. First time I read about principle of Karma Yoga was in my 12th standard where there was a lesson in our English Language course which contained the lecture by Swami Vivekananda as lesson "Work and its secret"

It sounded very simple to me to practice Karma Yoga. Do your duty and leave the result to God. This is easier said than done. During our everyday activities we indulge in so many activities. I thought if I keep doing my duty sincerely, I am practicing Karma Yoga. But I realized that for every small work I do I tend to have attachment.

We have expectations for every small act we perform. Even when we smile at others we expect them to smile back. If others fails to smile back or acknowledge our greeting, we get upset and think the other person is very rude. Sometimes even the smallest service we perform we do with expectations. Common expectations are acknowledgement of our activities by recognition and praise.

I was listening to lecture by Swami Dayananda Saraswati who happened to give a lecture at our office when I was working in Ramco. He explained how Karma Yoga works with a simple example. When we want to clap we have control on the action till the time we bring our hands together. After the action is done, what kind of sound will come is governed by natural laws. The environment, air etc will determine what happens next. After we have clapped we can't stop the sound that comes through the action of clapping.  Till the last second before clapping you have the will power to decide and stop committing the action. Once it is performed, we just have to wait for the nature take its course and accept whatever may be the result.

In similar manner whenever we perform an action in our daily life, we can't control the result because it is governed by natural laws prescribed by God. There are so many variables that influence the final outcome of the action. Understanding this phenomena, we need to perform all our activities and leave the result to God.

This explanation made sense to me. This idea stuck to my mind. This helps me to reason when some work I do does not have results that match my expectation. I realize that some thing other than my work influenced the final outcome and I can't do much than accept the result.

I realized, I should be sincere in doing my duty and do the work with fullest attention and leave the result to God. Intention is always to do good.

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