Teachings
Essential Disciplines in Karma-yoga (Part 6)
Study of Scriptures (Continued)
Study of Our Own Mind
Svadhyaya also means study of oneself. It is necessary for a spiritual seeker to assess his strengths and limitations. He needs to be aware of the weaker links in his character and try to strengthen them by directing his thoughts and actions to the spiritual ideal. We cannot expect to easily concentrate our mind on God during the time of prayer and meditation if we have given it free rein during the rest of the day. We need to be vigilant to understand how the mind functions and what it is after: how inclined it is toward spiritual practices and how resistant it is to change. Such a study is very important in spiritual life. It helps us in disciplining the mind: holding on to what is beneficial to us and giving up what is not favorable to spiritual growth.
Surrender to God
According to Patanjali, Ishvara-pranidhana, or surrender to God, is the third essential discipline in Karma yoga. Swami Vivekananda speaks of two kinds of Karma yoga: work for work's sake and work for God's sake. In the first kind the seeker does not have to even believe in God or worry about any philosophy or metaphysical doctrines, but has to be absolutely unselfish while doing work. He should be free from attachment to work and to its fruits. Swami Vivekananda held Buddha to be the exemplar of this kind of Karma yoga, but taught that work for work's sake is easier said than done: "I would go twenty miles on my hands and knees to look on the face of the man who can work for work's sake. There is a motive somewhere. If it is not money, it is power. If it is not power, it is gain. Somehow, somewhere, there is a motive power." He taught that Karma yoga is easier for those who believe in God. They perform their actions for God's sake, looking upon God as the Master and themselves as a servant. They do work as service to their Beloved.
Devotional schools of Vedanta teach three kinds of surrender in Karma yoga: surrendering the work to God, surrendering the fruits of work to God, and surrendering the sense of agency to God. Until the seeker is fairly advanced in spiritual life, self-effort and self-surrender go together. Total self-surrender is the result of intense self-effort practiced for a long time. It is the result of the realization that one's own efforts are inadequate for God-realization. The seeker is conscious of his ego and at the same time tries to perform work as worship. When he repeatedly offers the work and its fruits to God, his strong, "unripe" ego gives way to a "ripe" ego, making him feel that he is an instrument in the hands of God.
Sri Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita (9.27) how to transform every activity into worship by remembering God amidst work: "Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you give away, and whatever you practise in the form of austerities, O son of Kunti-do it as an offering to Me." In the very next verse He speaks of the efficacy of such worship: "Thus you will become free from the bondage of actions, which bear good or evil results. With your mind firmly set on the yoga of renunciation, you will become free and come to Me."
Desire-prompted actions leave good and bad impressions in our mind, which determine what we are at any given moment. They hinder our spiritual progress. Sri Krishna teaches that work done as worship frees us from work-related bondage and from good and evil effects of work. That is to say, such work does not leave any impression in our mind, good or bad, but purifies it, leading us to the supreme goal of God-realization.
(Concluded)