Karma Yog, and the matter of being good
Questioner: I just wanted to request you to help us in knowing something about being Yogi and how it is different from being Karma Yogi?
Acharya Prashant: Yog is one. It's just that it is expressed in various ways; Yog is union, coming together of the many. So, when you talk of Union, which is actually reunion, first of all, you have to figure out what is it that is divided or fragmented. Otherwise, it is absurd to talk of putting things together if we do not know what is it that is scattered and fragmented. What is it that is scattered and fragmented in our lives? What is it that remains scattered? It's the mind, right? Mind. So, mind keeps wandering, mind keeps going hither thither in search of something elusive.
Yog, therefore, is about giving mind that which it really wants; all the stuff that the mind can think of, the mind has already tried it - maybe not all the variants that are possible, but fundamentally, principally, all that is materially available to be tried, the mind has already tried it. It's just that, in absence of attention, the mind does not quite see that any future attempts at self-gratification will not bear fruit, because those attempts will just be a repetition of the past attempts.
So, whatsoever is available in the world, in the Realm of the Mind itself, the mind has already tried it an infinite number of times, exhausted all the possibilities. The mind has been trying all those things since millions of years. And those things have not quite succeeded in satisfying the mind. Therefore, Yog is about encouraging the mind to look at its own quest.
In layman language, Yog then is then about inquiring into one's desires: what's going on? What do I want? Why do I keep looking this way and that way? What is that one piece of news my ears are eager to hear? What is that one thing I am so desperate to lay my hands on? What's that one place that I want to reach and cannot reach? The more you inquire, the more the nature of the enquirer becomes clear to you - not that you start getting an answer in the form of an address, or a thing, or a sound, or a person, or a place.
It's just that the intensity of the question itself starts reducing, and the intensity of the question is the strength of the questioner. If the intensity of the question dwindles, then the questioner - who is his own trouble too - starts losing strength and that is Yog - the questioner is his own separation from the solution, the questioner is the problem. The more you go into this problem, the more you find it losing its hold upon you. Then there is a solution - this solution is a dissolution of the questioner or the problemed one - this is Yog. Now the scattering has ceased, now there is a Oneness - what does that Oneness mean? That one, that one who could give me peace has been found - this is Yog.
Karma Yog specifically refers to the direction of Your action - inquiry into the direction of your action. The mind is running haywire at all places, right? And the movement of mind is the action of the mind-body apparatus.
So, if you just look at what you are doing, you come to see who you are - inquire into why you are doing whatever you keep doing and see what is it that you will get from it. You figure out that the recipient of all your actions, the recipient of the fruit of all your actions has remained the same. Who is that recipient? The little ego. You have worked so hard all your life just to bring some relief to the ego. All your time is being spent in just feeding the ego.
Why does man earn? For himself. In various ways direct and indirect. Why do you travel? Why do you speak? Why do you run? Why do you do whatever you do? For yourself. And no harm in working for yourself, had such an approach brought you peace and relief, but such approach has failed in bringing any relief. Therefore, karma Yog is about no more working for your own sake.
The more you work for your own sake, the more you just keep working without any real gain. Work, work and work and put all that you get from your work into an endless abyss - that endless abyss is the ego. You keep feeding it all your life and yet it keeps looking at you with a gaping mouth - always hungry, always discontented, always complaining.
So, karma Yog says, “No, no, no, I'm not going to feed this monster anymore. What am I going to rather feed? That I don't know of, but of one thing I am pretty certain - I'll not work for my own sake.” When I say my own sake, I mean for the sake of the ego. In other words, I will not work to maintain my bondages. Now I'll work for the sake of my liberation - that is karma Yog.
Every single man works - there is no individual you do not find working - but closer scrutiny tells us that most people work most of the time in a way that sadly keeps reinforcing their problems, their bondages. Karma Yog is to work in a way that brings you solutions rather than miseries, Freedom rather than further incarceration.
