What would a Karma Yogi look like? Lessons from performing Karma Yoga in India

Ana's Sunday Roaster- 24th Mar 2024

If you would have asked me a few weeks back how a karma yogi would look like? I would have described a man of formidable strength and muscular build, with a serious demeanour that exudes confidence, someone with unwavering focus and determined attitude toward action. Driven by a deep sense of responsibility and unyielding desire to succeed, this man walks the planet with fervour and grace of a doer and no challenge in the world can stop him from doing. In compiling this definition I also realised how a Karma Yogi is always a man in my head, when I know many women who have been actively working, nursing and paving the way for mankind.

This leads me to another deep question I have been asking myself ever since I quit my job. What is work? Why must one be working? Over many years as a worker myself, I have met several people from all walks of life. When queried about their reasons for working, the majority tend to cite extrinsic motivations like money, prestige, status, etc. There are some who also some intrinsic motivation, like a genuine interest in the subject matter, personal fulfilment, curiosity etc. Whereas there are some who are just doing the things because they don’t have anything better do to, and claim to have no other creative hobbies or interests. In many intrinsic cases however, if the extrinsic factors like money is taken care of, people would opt to either work in the same subject with more creative freedom, or would choose a different approach altogether.

When I volunteered at Sadhana Forest, I was asked to perform 2 to 3 sevas each day. All of them were different tasks and required different levels of physical labour. My mind instinctively began selecting things I enjoyed while disregarding those I did not. I enjoy teaching, so I immediately took up morning circle stretches, but when it came to cleaning the toilets, I tried my best to steer clear of that one. On an evening of general wanderment in the forest, I had an epiphany! I became aware of my behaviour and comprehended that my aversion to performing certain seva stemmed from unpleasant memories associated with them. This small incident led me to a profound understanding of karma, a concept I had only read, but never understood. Our eyes possess the ability to perceive, yet their vision is often biased due to the influence of memory. Constantly, we filter our observations through the lens of past experiences, leading us to form judgments and assumptions. When we are picking favourites according to said judgements, we are essentially not looking at things the way they are, we are covering it with a mask, a thin film of sorts, which differentiates the nature of the very thing in front of us, thereby accumulating karma. There is no good or bad karma, just like there is no good or bad deed, there are only consequences. The essence of understanding the universe is to evolve an eye, a thoughtless eye, an eye that is not tainted with memories of the past, one that is not making conclusions every second. Only then can we see everything for what it is.

Cycle of Life

For the longest time, I thought that Karma Yoga is this path which only doers pursue; people who have innate bias toward action and that this path is supposed to be followed at a certain place in a certain way. So then what is karma yoga. Is it just mindless doing? Drowning oneself with work without thinking about anything else? No. It is doing what is required of you at the moment. And it is not just the doing that matters, how of the doing is equally important. It is best described by the sanskrit word “seva”. It literally means, selfless service, a disciplined action. Action that is performed with utmost involvement and focus, as only in absolute involvement, there is life! We could be in the best of places , enjoying with the best of people around us, but if we are not completely involved, we will miss the rasa, the juice, the essence of life. Life exists in moments, you and I are living in this moment, no that’s gone, its this moment, no this moment, this moment! Karma is not about getting positive points for good deeds and negative points for bad ones and throughout life, trying to balance both so one can appear good in the face of God. It lies in every tiny act we perform each day. We all start to act, from the very moment we are born, and like the cinema, starts the cycle of life and karma.

There is a very popular saying in the eastern cultures, “Either everything is divine or nothing is”. This has also manifested in the great minds of the likes of Albert Einstein who famously said: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle”. In this path, every action is an offering to the divine, even the ones taken for the self. How one conducts oneself within is also an offering to the divine self and how one conducts with the surrounding is also an offering to the divine in others. If on a fine day, your deity were to appear before you and request assistance with a heavy load or requests you to drop them at the Bengaluru Airport because they have got no cab, what would you do? What if someone you resent asks you the same favour? Would you address both with the same compassion and smile in your face?

Picture of an auto ride

Now work! The modern world is designed in such a way that number of man-hours is directly proportional to the amount of money earned by an individual, a wage- based society of sorts. Profits have higher economic value than well being and real growth of an person. All of us fed with this idea of the default path of getting a university degree, finding the most payed job, getting married, having children before hitting 30. It makes us feel like a cog in a huge machine, that in the grand scheme of things, we don’t matter. I want to re-imagine work such that humans can naturally, freely evolve to pursue the kind of work they want to perform. A world where a person’s natural instincts guide the kind of profession they opt and not get moulded according to industry demands. A world where people’s identities are not dependent on their work, rather work is a natural expression of their interests. And there is enough leisure time to pursue friendships, relationships and other higher human possibilities, such as meditation and samadhi. I want to mention Naval Ravikant’s interview about the same- “Let the machines take over and do the mundane tasks, so that the man is free to pursue all the creative endeavours human life has to offer”.

This leads to the main question- How would a Karma Yogi look like? A person with any kind of build, who is profoundly involved with life, sort of in a love affair. A person with clarity in their eyes to see everything as it is, doesn’t discriminate and has a unwavering determination toward action. A person who is energised with work and is tremendously compassionate toward self and others alike. In many ways, as long as we are walking this planet, it is our responsibility to take enormous care of ourselves, so that we can be available when action is needed. At Sadhana Forest, I ate less and worked more. I stopped complaining of the petty inconveniences. I wore a smile all day, even with my aching muscles, not to impress but to express the profound gratitude I was feeling for people. Once I started to involve myself fully to action, it energised me, charged me in a way with prana(vital life energy), and got me drunk on life. I laughed with my mouth wide open and hugged tightly with all my strength. This is when I became the doer and the dancer became the dance!