Karma yoga is the process of yoking oneself to God while
continuing to perform actions. Really, karmayoga is at the core of any
spiritual process, but on its own is incomplete and meaningless. Karmayoga is a
perfection of other yogas such as jnanayoga (yoga of knowledge) and bhaktiyoga
(yoga of devotion). An understanding of karmayoga can be made only with
knowledge of the laws of karma. Some jnanayoga is thus required for an understanding
of karmayoga.
Karma is nature’s simplest law, understood by spiritual
amateurs and even atheists. All actions produce reactions. What goes around
comes around. Good actions produce good results and vice versa. One reaps the
fruit of the seeds he sows. Just as man is bound to gravity, he is bound to enjoy
or suffer the fruits of his actions. Even his apparent inaction is an action
which will bear results.
One is thus bound to this chain of karma, acting and facing
the reactions. At the end of his life, he takes rebirth according to his karma
(deeds). One is thus bound to the cycle of birth and death, as well as that of
action and reaction. To achieve release, or liberation from this material
bondage, and attain spiritual realisation, one must break free of the cycle of
karma. Doing so requires a deep understanding of one’s actual existence as a
spiritual entity separate from the body.
One needs to understand, or rather, realise, that he is
beyond the conception of the body and its associated limited, material personality.
He is an eternal being, independent of the body, and he does not belong to this
material world. With the proper understanding of this fact (which is a truth so
profound and deep that actually realising it is called self-realisation), one
finds himself trapped in material surroundings, and does not identify with his
body. He knows that this ‘person’, say, Mr A.K. Chawla, BA Pass, is just
another material living entity in the macrocosm of the universe, possessing a
peculiar mix of the three modes of material natures (gunas) which give him
particular tendencies to act in certain ways. Knowing that his actual self is
transcendental to the three modes of material nature, and that there is nothing
in this fleeting material world that he wants, the sage loses interest in the
fruitive activities he was previously engaged in. Attaining spiritual realisation
and seeing his true nature of infinitude, he sees the relative futility of
work, which is transient. He realises that he is unborn, immortal, and has no
mother, father, family etc.
He then understands that all that he did was in fact done through
the modes of material nature. He was all this while a puppet in a play, but a
puppet with a free will. He was an actor who had choices and could desire.
Nonetheless, the decision-making and even the desires were somewhat dictated by
the modes of material nature. Thus, although technically all these action of
the person were carried out by the modes of nature, the soul thinks himself the
doer, by associating with the material personality.
Upon self-realisation, one becomes transcendental to the
modes of material nature, i.e. nistraigunya. He is therefore now in an awkward
position, knowing his eternal situation, yet continuing his existence in the transient
material world. In deference to the material creation, and also to lead people
on the right path, he continues to work, although there is no need for him to
engage in material duty. Nonetheless, he carries out his duties to perfection,
fulfilling the role of his character he has to play in the material world.
The most important difference is the mode of consciousness
in which he is now working. He is doing whatever he is doing as a mere duty
with no desire as he has already transcended the material plane and finds
nothing desirable there (naavaptavyam). Thus he has no selfish interest, and no
attachment to the fruits of his actions, which don’t affect him in the least. Success
and failure, joy and grief, pleasure and pain, life and death, are all the same
to him who has become non-dual, or nirdvandva. He knows that the dualities
concern only his material personality and the results of his actions are
inconsequential to his actual being.
Therefore, although he is engaged in actions, the fruits of his actions don’t affect him when he acts this way, and he as good as does not act at all. The person now realises that he is an actor in a play, and does not get attached or involved to his character’s deeds. This never-ending play, or movie, is creation. Its producer is God or one of His potencies, the scriptwriter is dharma. However, the actors do not always act according to the script, but are instead directed by the modes of nature. An actor who knows he is an actor is a better actor than one who thinks he is Hamlet or MacBeth, and gets involved without knowing the script too well, or even the fact that there is a script. An actor who associates with his character and body, believing he is the character and not an actor, will act (pun unintended) with the selfish interest of his character.
In this highly complicated way, the multitudes live out their existence in this endless, fascinating, complex and dynamic play, never realising that the are merely actors in a play, with a separate off-stage existence from their characters.
