Karma Yogi @ Work

I recently read Swami Vivekananda's book, Karma Yoga. While for the older generation, Swamiji needs no introduction, for youngsters today, his learnings and works are still unknown. I can say this with confidence because in spite of my father being an ardent follower of Swamiji and I grew up in a house brimming full with his books, it took me decades to start reading his works. Now that my 'eyes have opened', I thought it's important for me to 'do my bit' to share his learnings with a wider audience.

The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action is Karma. Technically, this word also means the effects of actions. In connection with metaphysics, it sometimes means the effects, of which our past actions were the causes. But in Karma-Yoga we have simply to do with the word Karma as meaning work. The goal of mankind is knowledge. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal.

In today's world, where technology has overpowered over lives and most of the people are just chasing life rather than enjoying it, it's important to give philosophy a shot, slow down things a bit, and take a break. Talking of breaks, there cannot be a better one than what has been thrust upon us due to CoVid-19. Why ''knowledge" is important, is because many people misconstrue 'pleasure' or 'having a luxurious life' as a goal and are chasing the mirage all their life.

Swamiji further says that our mind is very strong. Citing Newton's famous discovery of gravity, he states: We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not in the apple nor in anything in the center of the earth. All knowledge, therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind.

We are always looking outside for support. Parents are looking for the best (read most expensive or most popular) school for their kid's education. Young graduates are trying hard to find jobs in the biggest and most well-paying companies. Athletes and sports teams are seeking the best coaches to help them scale records and get wins. They are NOT giving enough opportunity for 'internal development', strengthening the mind, increasing focus, and concentration. There is a 'rat race' for almost everything.

So with all our feelings and actions--our tears and our smiles, our joys and our griefs, our weeping and our laughter, our curses and our blessings, our praises and our blames--every one of these we may find, if we calmly study our own selves, to have been brought out from within ourselves by so many blows.

We may go on accumulating things for our physical enjoyment, but only what we earn is really ours. A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library, but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to, and this deserving is produced by Karma. Our Karma determines what we deserve and what we can assimilate.

While we are all familiar with the adage "There is nothing called a free lunch", we are all the time looking for 'freebies' or 'easy way out' or 'jugaad' or 'short-cuts'. There is no alternative to hard work. In the short-run, one might enjoy pleasure from other's effort, but in the long-run, what one is able to achieve out of his/her own hard work is what really matters.

A man works with various motives. There cannot be work without motive. Work for work's sake. The motive for name and fame seldom brings immediate results, as a rule; they come to us when we are old and have almost done with life.

Name and fame might be outcomes, but they cannot be 'goal' for one's life. This reminds me of Victor Frankl and his famous book, "Man's Search for Meaning". It's important to have a clear goal and objective for any work, activity and the result to be derived from the same. Whether its a task, new project, or a new job, one should be clear why one is doing it. That makes things easier at the end when one assesses his/her performance.

Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal because in them lies such a manifestation of power. We must do the work and find out the motive power that prompts us; and, almost without exception, in the first years, we shall find that our motives are always selfish; but gradually this selfishness will melt by persistence, till at last will come the time when we shall be able to do really unselfish work.

I realized this is by far the biggest tenet of Karma Yoga. To be in equilibrium looks easy, as it allows one to vacillate between the two extremes (assuming at Will), but the transition is not easy at all. We have far many 'workaholics', who with or without pressure from their bosses, are badly overworked. On the other hand, we have many who are either don't have a job or not trying hard to get one.

A man must go about his duties without taking notice of the sneers and the ridicule of the world.

If a man's wants can be removed for an hour, it is helping him indeed; if his wants can be removed for a year, it will be more help to him; but if his wants can be removed forever, it is surely the greatest help that can be given him.

The more contemporary adage for this is 'Give a man bread and you feed him for a day. Teach him baking and you feed him for a lifetime.' Knowledge is power and there can not be a bigger gift than giving someone the knowledge to work for life. We are too engrossed in our own daily lives and the mentality to help others does not come naturally for most of the people. It's sad that doing charity is considered an activity for 'post-retirement'. It ideally should be initiated right when one starts earning.

By work, alone men may get to where Buddha got largely by meditation or Christ by prayer. Buddha was a working Jnani, Christ was a Bhakta, but the same goal was reached by both of them.

Work is Worship: It's not easy for everyone to become Buddha or Christ. But to consider one's work as one's Karma and to do it diligently, its nothing less than what Buddha or Christ achieved. The moment we look down on our job or undermine it, it will cease to yield the intended result.

Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there the matter ends. In whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a state, assume the same attitude towards it as you have towards your children--expect nothing in return. If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then will your work bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.

Karma-Yoga means even at the point of death to help anyone, without asking questions. Be cheated millions of times and never ask a question, and never think of what you are doing. Never vaunt of your gifts to the poor or expect their gratitude, but rather be grateful to them for giving you the occasion of practicing charity to them.

• We must do good; the desire to do good is the highest motive power we have.
• We are all debtors to the world and the world does not owe us anything. 
• There cannot be any action which is perfectly pure or any which is perfectly impure.

Swamiji talks about two Sanskrit words.

1. The one is Pravritti, which means revolving towards, and
2. The other is Nivritti, which means revolving away.

The "revolving towards" is what we call the world, the "I and mine"; it includes all those things which are always enriching that "me" by wealth and money and power, and name and fame, and which are of a grasping nature, always tending to accumulate everything in one center, that center being "myself". That is the Pravritti, the natural tendency of every human being; taking everything from everywhere and heaping it around one center, that center being man's own sweet self. When this tendency begins to break, when it is Nivritti or "going away from," then begin morality and religion.

Both Pravritti and Nivritti are of the nature of work: the former is evil work, and the latter is good work. This Nivritti is the fundamental basis of all morality and all religion, and the very perfection of it is entire self-abnegation, readiness to sacrifice mind and body, and everything for another being. When a man has reached that state, he has attained to the perfection of Karma-Yoga. This is the highest result of good works.

We cannot do good without at the same time doing some evil or do evil without doing some good.

Swamiji says that good and bad are two signs of the same coin, one is not possible without the other. If we do not see evil, we will not be able to appreciate the good. We need to prepare ourselves for all kinds of situations and people. An 'ideal' world is a myth and impossible to achieve. For a parent, it's very difficult to introduce the child to 'bad', 'evil', 'unjust' and 'unfair' things in life. However, the sooner these are explained, the faster will be the mental growth of the child.

Seek no praise, no reward, for anything you do. No sooner do we perform a good action than we begin to desire credit for it. No sooner do we give money to some charity than we want to see our names blazoned in the papers. Misery must come as a result of such desires. The greatest men in the world have passed away unknown. The Buddhas and the Christs that we know are but second-rate heroes in comparison with the greatest men of whom the world knows nothing. Hundreds of these unknown heroes have lived in every country working silently.

Fortunate are those, whose deeds and actions were captured and their stories were known to people. But people whose stories were not captured, their deeds and efforts were not anyway less. One needs to detach the adulation and praise that would result from an action.

THE grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalized into four, viz. those of work, love, psychology, and knowledge. Karma-Yoga, therefore, is a system of ethics and religion intended to attain freedom through unselfishness, and by good works.

Overall, it's impressive how Swamiji, in the late 19th century India, through his study, travel across the globe and meeting and talking to thousands of people, was able to build such a clear understanding of the meaning of life and the true essence of Karma Yoga. It's amazing how the principles of Karma Yoga still hold true today, well into the 21st century. With increasing cases of mental issues due to the lockdown and work from home, people will benefit if they can apply these simple tenets of Karma Yoga in their daily lives.