Pariprasna
November 2019
QUESTION: I am told that one can attain Self-realization through Karma Yoga alone. It seems to me that Karma alone, without thought, is often blind. If this is admitted, we have to admit the supremacy of thought over Karma Yoga. what are your general views on this? MAHARAJ: Karma without thought is purely mechanical. It will not be Karma Yoga at all, for this word means ‘communion through work’ and communion always implies thought. The position can be clarified if we bestow our attention on the various types of work known to man. There is work done through the machine, which involves no thought and no reaction in the machine except wear and tear of the parts. Above this, there is animal labour and slave labour. Though the agents are living creatures, they are entirely passive and their only stimulation for work is the fear of the whip. Next higher in the scale is work done with the profit motive, which is the law at the human level and much of what we call human civilization has been motivated by this incentive. Here certainly there is a considerable play of thought but that is wholly directed to personal advantages. But real Karma Yoga begins only when the incentive of pure personal gain is felt as unworthy and some impersonal incentive (is sought) as the motivation for action. When a man feels that it is unworthy to live for his narrow self-interest alone, he seeks some impersonal motives like patriotism, social uplift, humanism etc., as the sanction for action. Here it is only thought and reflection that raise man to this higher level of life. While the work that a man does with these motives has a sure effect in the external world, it has got a beneficial effect on himself too. By identification with an impersonal cause his self expands and gets identified with higher and bigger ‘wholes’ like country, community, mankind etc. There is thus a kind of Yoga, communion, with these ‘wholes’ and where the identification is sincere and complete, such persons become a conduit for the expression of the energy of the spirit involved in these ‘wholes’. This ‘at-one-ment’ in thought and emotion is the source of the power we find expressing through great patriots, humanists and social revolutionaries. It was Swami Vivekananda who gave a new turn to the doctrine of Karma Yoga when he declared that it is in itself a self-sufficient path for the attainment of the spiritual goal. In the past it was always considered only as an indirect means or as a subsidiary aid. In Sankara’s system, Karma Yoga or detached and dedicated action leads to purification of mind which is the necessary psychological background for practising the discipline of Jnana or Knowledge of the unity of the Atman with Brahman. In the Bhakti school such action is a part of the practice of devotion to God. Actions are performed as offerings to God. Devotion in its maturity brings the grace of God on the devotees.
43 The Vedanta Kesari
PA G E S P O N S O R : S R I R AV I C H A M U T U R I , H Y D E R A B A D
Srimat Swami Tapasyananda Ji (1904 – 1991), was one of the Vice-Presidents of the Ramakrishna Order. His deeply convincing answers to devotees’ questions raised in spiritual retreats and in personal letters have been published in book form as Spiritual Quest: Questions & Answers. Pariprasna is a selection from this book.
