Sean M. Clarke

Karma Yoga

The word path of Action or Karma yoga conjures images of social workers, charity workers and volunteer workers.

However, in most cases as the charity work done by most of these social and volunteer workers is done at an emotional level or for publicity or fame, it does not constitute path of Action or Karma yoga in the real sense of the word.

Some people think that going about their day to day duties or doing their jobs properly and honestly constitute Karma yoga or path of Action. But this is again not true, i.e. doing this does not translate into their spiritual growth.

So what exactly is path of Action or Karma yoga?

Some basic concepts –

 Law of Karma

As per the science of Spirituality, every action or deed that we do earns us a fruit. The fruit is in the form of a merit or demerit depending on whether it is a good or bad deed respectively and a give-and-take account with the person or persons involved in the act.

• Merits give us happiness and demerits give us unhappiness proportional to the intensity of the good or bad deed that we did.
• Nobody can escape from the fruits of his actions.
• If the fruits of our actions are not enjoyed or suffered in this very birth (and this happens in most cases) then we have to take another birth to undergo them. In such cases we have to wait till circumstances are conducive again on Earth region for us to undergo them. That is till such time that the other people we have to complete our give-and-take account with are also there on Earth and the times on Earth are also conducive for the type of life we have to undergo
• It is understandable that one would not like to undergo the results of demerits. However why would one not want the results of merits? One of the reasons we should not want merits is that in the course of enjoying the fruits of our merits either in this or subsequent births we would do further deeds which would then incur further merits or demerits. This would trap us in an endless cycle of life and death as a result of the incomplete give-and-take account with people.

Kriya are those actions of ours that do not result in either merits or demerits. Generally speaking these are our unintentional and involuntary actions like blinking, sneezing, etc. 

Karma’ literally means action or deed done with intent. Karma includes all actions of the 5 sense organs, 5 motor organs, mind and the intellect. From a spiritual perspective however karma refers to those actions that result in merits or demerits.

 Akarma-karma (Nonaction-action)

• This is the pinnacle of spiritual growth or the highest possible level achievable as per the path of Action or Karma yoga.
• This is possible only in the case of spiritually evolved people above the 80% spiritual level.
• Here (at 80% spiritual level) even voluntary/intentional actions like helping others happen as ‘kriya’.
• Examples of ‘akarma-karma’ type of deeds are the actions of these spiritually evolved people, when in complete communion with God. Also as these highly evolved people are so merged with God, whatever deed happens through them happen only as per God’s wish.

Definition of path of Action or Karma yoga

• The path of spiritual practice that gives guidance about
• Why we do actions or deeds?
• Why our actions or deeds trap or bond us?
• How to do actions or deeds without getting trapped in their fruits?
• Which actions or deeds liberate us from the bond of Maya, i.e. cycles of birth and death?
• What is the importance of continuing doing actions even after attaining the state of Liberation (jeevanmukta)? and bestows Final Liberation (Moksha) is known as path of Action or Karma yoga

Even seekers following other paths of spiritual practice like the paths of Meditation or Devotion benefit in their spiritual practice if they complement their regular spiritual practice with Karma yoga.

One may think that giving up of doership would result in irresponsible behavior or lack of efforts. However we must understand that path of Action or Karma yoga advises us to make all efforts as if everything is in our hands, but to think about the fruits of these actions as if nothing is in our hands.

More at: Karmayog

Article Tags: Karma Yoga, Give-and-take Account, Spiritual Practice

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