KARMA YOGA path of selfless action

1. KARMA YOGA
(PATH OF SELFLESS ACTION)

2. 3.2. Karma Yoga (path of selfless action)
• The word Karma, derived from the root (Kri) to make or to do, has many meanings.
• It can signify action, work, product, effect, and so on. Thus Karma Yoga is literally the Yoga of
action.
• But here the term Karma stands for a particular kind of action. Specifically, it denotes an inner
attitude towards action, which itself is a form of action.
• What this attitude consists in is spelled out in the Bhagavad Gita, which is the earliest scripture
to teach Karma Yoga.
“Karmany ev’ adhikaras te ma phalesu kadacana /
ma karma-phala-hetur bhur ma te sango’ stv akarmani // [B.G.- II – 47]”
• To work alone you have competence, and not to claim their fruits. Let not the longing for fruits
be the motive force of your action.
• At the same time let not this attitude confirm you in indolent inaction. So that one should work
always without any selfishness.

3. • Who is doing his duties without any attachments that leads to attain the supreme means the
individual soul starts to join towards supreme soul.
• Who is controlling the organs of sense and action by the power of his will and who is doing
his duties with controlled sense and action organs, and then he is called as Karma Yogi.
• Patanjali also defined in his yoga sutras about karma yoga.
• Tapah svadhyaya- isvara-pranidhanani kriya-yogah [PYS-II-1]
• To Patanjali, the practice of yoga is the ‘yoga of action’, ‘kriya yoga’, comprising ascetic
(tapah), self-study (svadhyaya) and surrender to God (isvara-pranidhana).
• Kriya yoga delineates the basic actions of the mind and body, how to purify body’s three
constituents by means of action, knowledge and understanding of the self.
• Kriya yoga cleanses and constitutes the path to perfection.