Karma Yoga- The Beginner’s Guide
Karma Yoga or Karma Marga is the yoga of action. It is one of the 4 yogas mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita after Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga and Raja Yoga.
Yoga traditionally does not mean any form of exercise or any physical training. Yoga, in simple words, means Union. Anything that unites the body and the mind is called yoga. Bhakti yoga unites the devotee with the Supreme Lord; Jnana Yoga unites the human beings with his scriptures. Karma yoga unites the heart with our good actions.
Karma yoga teaches us to do our good without any form of expectation in return. By keeping the heart free from expectations, it becomes clean and free from ego. This increases our thoughts of kindness, consideration for others, and selfless service and sets us on the path of enlightenment.
There are a lot of ways to practice karma yoga in our lives. Selfless service towards the world counts as karma yoga. It can be as simple as putting a feeder out for birds or helping a neighbor with a smiling face. It may be as complex as being globally involved for a noble cause. If we do it without any hope of reward and it helps bring cheer to another person’s life in return, then our work is complete. You can know more about this by taking online Bhagavad Gita Course by Giridhari Das.
What is the purpose of Karma Yoga?
The purpose of yoga is to achieve unity. The purpose of Karma yoga is to unite with our true selves through actions. Every action which brings us closer to ourselves, which increases the awareness of our soul, is the purpose of Karma Yoga.
If we look at it in another way, yoga aims at making us perfect in life. Karma Yoga, in this respect, aims at making us perfect in the act of selfless service. The more we practice Karma yoga, the more perfect we will be in the art of giving, and the purer will our heart and soul become.
There is a lot of inner range of emotions. But the most important of them is Faith. Karma yoga keeps our faith in the Supreme one alive by daily making us experience the joy of positivity and piousness. It keeps the fire of humanity alive in our hearts.
Another thing that Karma yoga teaches us is the art of patience and a pure mind. For us, it isn’t easy to keep practicing good deeds without any form of rewards or expectations in return. But when we keep working selflessly, we cultivate patience. This patience helps purify the heart and soul of ego and conceit and makes it a purer place than before.
The final but equally important purpose of Karma Yoga is to practice devotion. By dedicating himself selflessly to the service of humanity and the world, he proves that he is the true devotee of the Lord. That is, after the devotee has tirelessly practiced kindness and compassion and sacrificed the rewards of his actions, he proves himself capable of devotion and walking on the path of enlightenment.
What are the qualifications of a Karma Yogi?
The main qualification of a Karma Yogi is to practice the art of selfless giving. But there are other qualifications as well. Let’s have a look.
1) Less Desires
No matter how hard we try, we end up not practicing Karma because of our hidden desires. This is not the case with a true Karma Yogi. He has extremely reduced Desires. Because of it, he is not bound by desire-ridden actions. That makes it easy for him to be free from the cycles of life and death, unlike others whose desires make them go through endless life cycles without attaining enlightenment.
2) Noduty negligence
Being a Karma Yogi does not mean he is free from his daily duties. It means he strikes a good balance between his actions and the path of spirituality. He practices spirituality as action and tries to incorporate it in all his day-to-day activities. A true Karma Yogi practices his daily duties sincerely no matter how unpleasant or painful they are for him to perform.
3) Practices the art of detachment
A Karma Yogi knows that our actions govern our entire existence. Whether they are good or bad determines the next step of our Karma. The higher Consciousness of the Universe created life, and it is our Karma that keeps it going. He practices his duty but with detachment. Without any sort of worldly connections or attachments to his subjects, he practices the art of detachment to enable him to prepare for the road to Nirvana.
4) A sacrificial attitude
He realizes that Detachment and Renunciation do not mean leaving his worldly duties and taking up Sanyasa. Shirking his duties would add to his negative Karma and make it difficult to get free from the cycles of life and death. So he has a sacrificial attitude. He sacrifices all the hopes of getting rewarded and even the rewards of his actions. He keeps up the good work but remains in an absorbed state without letting the illusions of life affect him in any way.
5) Upholds his Dharma
For him upholding his Dharma is his biggest goal and his Dharma consists of attending his daily duties with devotion and sincerity without getting tangled in their worldly charm. He is completely free from desires and attachments but upholds his Dharma sincerely. He has given up on the fruits of his Karma and surrendered to the will of the Universal One.
What are the types of Karma yoga?
There are three types of Karma Yoga in this world. They are
1) Sanchitta
Sanchita means storing. It is the storehouse of all our unresolved past actions of our current and previous births, which are waiting for judgment or resolution.
2) Prarabdha
Prarabdha means the present action or the karmas that we are doing now. The karmas of our present life are our Prarabdha, and their result will be judged in this life as well.
3) Agami
Agami means Future. The future actions which are the result of our present Karma are called Agami. Every day we create new Karma. If we don’t resolve them in this life, they will get accumulated in some other life as Agami or our Future Karma.
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You can learn more about Karma Yoga by taking any online Bhagavad Gita Course under an expert. It will help you achieve great heights in the path of self-realization with ease.
