Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga - Lesson I (of XI )

By Bhikshu

Karma Yoga: Lesson I

It was said by Yogi Ramacharaka (p. I17 of the Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism) that "many western seekers after truth have complained that the philosophies of the East were not adapted to the needs and requirements of the westerner, as the conditions of life were different in the two different parts of the world". . . The trouble with these objecting western students is that they have considered the eastern teachings to be fit only for those who could spend their life in dreaming, meditation and in seclusion far away from the busy life. But this is a great mistake. Every true Yogi recognizes that even in the East a life of activity is right and proper for those who are thrown into it, and that to shirk its duties or run away is a violation of the great Law Dharma called also "God's Law." And to that end is herein pointed out the beauties and advantages of that important branch of Yogi philosophy and praxis known as "Karma Yoga." The phrase "Karma" Yoga has passed through many vicissitudes in its meaning which has changed from time to time, and from creed to creed, till now it is treated as equivalent to what is known as the Doctrine of Non-attachment. In the East, in India especially, due to the peaceful occupation by the governing race, the depressing fact has come to prevail that so many Indians will do just what the actual requirements of their vocation demand and nothing else, unless the State makes it worth their while. To these, as also to the western peoples who on their part have to learn to appreciate more than ever the meaning of equanimity, to subdue their feverish haste with a little more evenness of the mind, the following lessons on the need of a new orientation towards the Doctrine of Work, KARMA YOGA, are issued.

The word "Karma" has been derived from the Sanskrit root "Kr" meaning "to effect" and it is interesting to trace the history of the word Karma. At about the time that the Bhagavad Gita was taught in its original form, there prevailed, even in that antique period, doubts as to what was Karma and what, not and the Lord Krishna settled the doubts by suggesting that Karma in brief was the emanation (Visarga) that gave rise to the Ideas (Bhava) which taking shape or form came to be (Bhoota) (Bhagavad Gita, VIII-3). Later teachers and religionists commenting hereon made it out that "Karma" referred to the acts enjoined by the Sacred Scriptures of their times and taught that "Karma Yoga" was the adoption of the religious life and praxis of Yoga as ordained thereby, against the perversion and exaggeration of which teaching still later thinkers said that "Karma Yoga" meant only submission to the duties and responsibilities of the normal life, which duties and responsibilities the Yogi was always to recognize; and the Yogi was not to feel enamoured of the life of the cloister or of the wanderer. In its most modern sense, the Karma Yogi is the Yogi who whether a Gnani Yogi or Bhakti Yogi or Raja Yogi or no Yogi at all, is still a Purposeful man or woman, having settled views, a Grihee (householder) practising Yoga while actively in with the world's turmoil; and it is in this sense that we shall take the phrase "Karma Yogi" and a scheme of life for such a "Karma Yogi" to be Kharma Yoga.

Prince Siddharta who was Gautama the Buddha (Enlightened) said the very same thing as did Krishna; in the first twin verses of the Kharma Pada, he says, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought, it is founded on Thought, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man acts or speaks with all evil thought, pain follows him as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the chariot." This is the world renowned "Law of Kharma," the law that is the fullest application of the Christian teaching that "as you sow you shall reap," the scientific axiom "that action and reaction are equal and opposite," pushed to its logical conclusions on the planes of thought that govern, regulate and underlie action. To the Buddhists this Law of Karma stands pragmatically for the God of the theists and for much more; for, whereas in the Christian religion, as in Islam, God can override "Karma" by His Great Power of Mercy, in Buddhism and in Jainism Karma can in no sense be appeased; evil must be suffered by pain; good acts are rewarded by subsequent pleasures. There is no way out of the situation than to submit to Karma, and to make the best of it, realising thus the meaning and use of pain, says the Jaino-Buddhist view.

This law of Karma governs the horizon of view of the ethics of the Asiatic peoples, regulating the ethics with its very stern hand. The Jain owes his transcendental altruism, whereby he forbears from injury of every living creature and prays periodically for forgiveness from sins unconsciously committed, entirely to his basic Law of Karma. To the Jain, man is continually by his actions pouring forth a "Karma" that colors him and colors his vision, that goes into his being and in time spends itself, in the reaction of effect equal to the cause, as pain or pleasure. The Jain carries his altruism so far as to maintain a rest house for aged domestic animals where they may die peacefully; he carries it so far as not to burn lights in his house lest moths be attracted thereby and die therein; he avoids taking meals at night so that living creation of the minute nocturnal type may not be interfered with; nay he even discourages travel during the rainy season when animalculae spring up everywhere in the tropical lands. Both the Jain and Buddhist have built up a most elaborate code of ethics, of what to do and what not, all based on the Law of Karma, and they have also divided themselves communally into the two classes, the laity who recognised the Law of Karma, and the priesthood who abided by the Law, subjecting their Rules of Life to the Law.

The Hindus, however, retained their antique modes of life while recognising the Law of Karma. To them the law of Action and Reaction was paramount and conformance to the law necessitated the observance of a code of ethics which, however, they made very complex, and extremely elaborate. Mankind, said the Hindu, was to be found in four classes: (I) Brahmins, Priests, workers with God, or workers with the Law, (2) Kshatriyas, rulers, warriors, maintaining the Law, (3) Vaisyas, artisans and agriculturists abiding by the Law and (4) the Panchamas, the slaves or serfs outside the pale of the Law, who knew not the good Law, or would not abide by it, and thus continued slaves. Each class had its own code of conduct, its own rules of life; and so long as each member observed these rules, he was free to continue to be a member of his class, with the rewards and punishments, rights and responsibilities thereof, and free to enjoy the "club" life of his class in each commune. Any member of any class may take up any occupation of any class lesser than he in the social rank which was, of course, governed by birth, but whether he would be accepted as member of such lower class depended on the goodwill of the community whose occupation he was taking up; certainly he could not remain a member of his own community thence- after. Nor could any one easily take up the profession of a higher class at all; Hindus, it has been observed, did not endeavour to admit proselytes, because their religion depended much less on creed in which they are latitudinarians than upon the fixed customs of their "castes," the character of which customs, being derived from birth, could not be transferred to strangers.

It cannot be forgotten that the orderly state of the community suggested by the caste system of the Hindus was governed by scriptures that recognised the rights and duties of men to each other, of men to animals and plants, as well as to all dumb living existence, of men to the mightier Powers manifested or latent in Nature, in Fire, Air, Water, Earth as well as in the Thoughts of Men. For generations, in various tongues, as the ancient people moved on, from Egypt, and Persia (Iran) to India and the Further East, they saw, and sang of how man should act towards the world around him, of how he should praise glory and appease power, of how he must put down evil and nourish the good, and they chanted it and taught it all in the Gathas, in the Vedas, in Puranas and in many other forms of poetry and prose. The text books of the Karma Yoga of the ancients were legion, but the teachings thereof are still living and we shall enquire into their rationale and use the best of what is available to us.

Look you, in very ancient times they did not call on any God at all! In the beginning, said they, was the Deed, (the Act)! There was no God necessary to stand intermediary between the Act and its effect (reward or punishment). Every Act had its effect or Reaction, equal and opposite; yes, equal and opposite. Herein is the evidence of all Scriptures which say in effect, "thus did they," "thus sang they," "thus thought they," "thus" as in these Puranas, relating of noble deeds and valiant conduct, "thus" as in these phantasies and songs of the Gita and Gatha, Vedas and (Zend) chandas; "thus" as in the heights of speculation of the Upanishads and Brahmanas. "Go thou, then, neophyte 'Karma Yogi' and do likewise. Sing thou chants like unto the ancient chants, sing thou out the joy or pain in thyself, but let it be a song; work thou out deeds or the deed before you as the best of them, learned in the law, would do, as the ancients are said to have done; think thou out the thoughts of the Upanishads, of how thoughts themselves lose in the stillness of silence all their sting and return strengthened to solace the aching soul."

"The forging of earthly chains," says a Master, "is the occupation of the indifferent. It is folly to re-duplicate these by persistent regrets for the past, by present cowardice or by fear of the future. It is eternity that man mistakes for Past, Present and Future." You are what you did in the past, you here are Lord of the present, your future will be inseparable from yourself. Such is the teaching of the Hindu-Yogi Philosophy which combines both Freewill and Predestination in its excellent system of ethics and in its world scheme. Predestined are you by the weight of force of your own Karma, your past Acts (Thoughts, words, deed); Freewill have you such as you are, to Act; and you will be as you Act now. "As you sow you will reap" is truly an universal axiom which the Christian takes to refer to this world of effects only, whereas the Hindu takes it to have force on the moral plane governing the physical, as well. Act Thou, therefore, when opportunity confronts you; responding to it, meeting it bravely, utilising it, actively. "Do what thou wilt," say the Masters, "Shalt be the whole of the Law," of Dharma of Karma only he who doeth is the Karma; he who wills to do and doeth is the Karma Yogi; the Deed is the Karma, his future, his Destiny the harvest of his Thoughts and Acts. Your Deed is the expression of your will, the will in you; say then to yourself "I will" and Act. So acting shalt thou not sin, says the Lord Krishna.

On no account hesitate. The Yogi teachers are very distinct on this point. Reflect, certainly, before the Act, but let not indecision foul the Reflection. If the authors of the French Revolution had been arguing it out, repeating, reflecting, doubting, hesitating about the consequences or about the Act, the expression of their High Principles, they would have become gray-haired without accomplishing anything. "The doubter perishes," says the Hindu Yogi, he rots, becomes good for nothing. Alas, doubt is the characteristic of the majority of persons, men whose actions cancel each other out. One goes on from day to day doing a little of this and a little of that, thinking a few kind and a few unkind thoughts but not thinking any thought at all out thoroughly. Nothing gets done indeed till nightfall and body and mind are changed, changed beyond recall. What meaning hath any of this change, asks a Yogi. The doubter is really an ignorant person in many ways, for he doubts the efficacy of the unerring Karmic Law, the Law of Righteousness (Dharma) on which all the universe is founded; he doubts himself, he doubts whether he who can think, who has to act, can act; he doubts the world around, he doubts the great Purpose of Nature, of Nature that thrills with Motion, with Activity, that buds out and expands, becomes great and greater (Brahma) continually, always. And what after all is Doubt but Asradha, want of Faith, weakness of the will, evidence that the man is puny, that his "I" is the "I" of a weakling, of a decrepit, of a coward, not of a God, not of a Lord of creation born with the Right to Act, that man is.

In this then shall be the Ordinance (Sastra) for you Karma Yogi, in the dictum of "Do what thou wilt" which shalt be for thee the whole of the law, teaching you comprehensively what to do, what to avoid, this the only ordinance; "do what thou wilt, then do nothing else"; we shall repeat it constantly, without end, that you may be unified of will, that in all your act you may bring all the universe that is of you, that in your act the whole of you and not the puny portion of you miscalled the "I" at the threshold, at the outer gate of consciousness, may act, and impress itself on the event that anyhow must be.

And it is an excellent thing no doubt to make up your mind definitely; it gives all your arguments a certain sharpness, a certain definiteness till a point is reached and in time reached automatically, habitually, at which they suddenly issue forth to produce a definite result; and herein look you it is a matter of comparative indifference whether your ideations are true or not, whether your ideas are exact representations of the thing; what is of the highest importance is that whatever you believe in, should be believed to be true; the Hindus speak, from very ancient times, specially about this; they distinguish between Rita what is accepted as true and hence is superior, more useful, more effective than Truth, Satya; God himself in the Hindu concept is the Truth that is greater than truth.

Says the Gita, each man shall have only the value, the Power that is equivalent to his Sradha, his Faith, that is to say, only that portion of man's mental makeup is to be taken into our calculations as effective as is the sum total of his settled convictions, of his will to power, Sradha. Says the Taittiriya Upanishad; "Of the Vijnanamaya sheath of man that interpenetrates the mental sheath (Manomaya Kosha) Sradha, the Believing in order to know is the head; Rita, the judgment as to whether anything is proper or righteous, is the tolerant (dakshina) view; Truth is its saving (uttara) aspect; application (Yoga) is its embodiment (atma or self); its remainder is greatness (Mahah)."

Of course the ancient Sanskrit is difficult to translate into modern Sanskrit and harder still to translate into modern English, but what may be stated is that man is considered as a composite of an essence with five coats, of which the outermost is experience (Anna), the next life (Prana), the third mentality (Manomaya), interpenetrating all of which is the Higher Man, the transcendent portion of man, of the thinker out-of-the-herd, called Vijnana. Such a man believes a thing not because it is true but because it has to be believed to be true for the purpose of the Act-necessary; this is his Sradha; the faith that moves mountains. Such a faith should not go against truth; it may transcend the literal truth, but truth is its saving grace (uttara paksha); such a faith is founded on the charity of righteousness; it is countenanced just because, for the sake of righteousness, for the sake of the Act, it has to be believed in; a concrete instance would be the faith of the soldier that killing the enemy in war is not slaughter. And such a faith does find application in everyday life; it finds ecstasy (yoga) in fulfillment, says the Upanishad. And how Great the power of the faith is can be seen, it is so great that it leaves greatness as its tail, as its remainder. Yes, this is the first lesson of the real useful Karma Yoga. "As each one Believes shall he know and Be"

This articles is from a series in eleven lesson in Karma Yoga, From "The Yoga Philosophy of Thought Use" and "The Yogin Doctrine of Work"

ÒThe kingdom of Thought is truly yours; you can select values, reject vanities, eliminate dross, live as the uncrowned and crowned Emperors have lived in the utmost independance, ordering for yourself Happiness, distributing the flowing surpluses thereof to all around you.Ó

Chicago, U.S.A., Yogi Publication Society, 1928

See - Yoga Lessons - for the other Yoga Lessons I - XI