Through the practice of Karma Yoga, different aspects of which have been discussed on this blog over the last weeks, we are exploring the authenticity of our being through action and meditation.
There are many, many elements that could be clarified through such a practice or, rather, such an approach to life. We spoke about what Karma Yoga truly is—an act of awareness.
Previous articles have recommended centering in the Heart Center and resting in the “I am” feeling as anchors to keep trying to remember this.
And yet the human experience is here, woven together like a Gordian knot, and the only way to untangle this set of natural tendencies and patterns is to cut through the knot entirely. Not to unravel it bit by bit but to simply cut right through it.
Those techniques that we’ve mentioned as pointers, those fingers pointing to the moon, are ways to cut through it. Asking the question “Who Am I?”, coming to the simplicity of the “I am,” resting in the Heart Center, is a direct way of cutting through.
Yet, at the same time, there are many things that may be unclear: what to do with our human experience? What do we do when we cannot feel or cannot rest as the “I am” feeling? What if we cannot connect with this sense of existence? For some of us and at certain times, it’s so obvious that it is here, whereas for others or in a moment of trouble, it’s not so clear. How then do we do Karma Yoga?
What to do when we try to focus on the Heart Center but we have a thousand to-do lists? When we are lost in the mind and every time we close our eyes, the thoughts pop up like champagne bubbles? How do we practice Karma Yoga from a human perspective, from an authentic place of where we are?
Descend with the View, Ascend with the Conduct
The great Buddhist master Padmashambava said that one should descend with the view and ascend with the conduct. In moments of quietness, we can always practice the deepest understanding, but then we must sometimes come from the other side. In moments of human identification, we must try to develop a mental attitude and behavior which, even though it is in the realm of identification, is like the thorn that is used to pick another thorn out of one’s foot.
These attitudes somehow start extracting us from a moment of being lost.
The truth is that we are mostly lost, and this is a compassionate, authentic thing to admit. We are mostly lost. It’s not that I am in this profound meditative state as a default, and sometimes I get lost. It’s the other way around for most of us, if we are honest with ourselves.
We must be very authentic with ourselves. This becomes paramount. Where am I? What is my authentic state of being right now? Try to see yourself as you are rather than as you wish you were, not in a judgmental way (this is detrimental to your own progress) but with love and compassion.
Karma Yoga, in the beginning, is used as an act of purification. It is a process of becoming more humble, more honest, and more understanding about what our conditioning is.
This runs in parallel with us taking moments of deep silence in formal practice—meditation retreats or Hatha Yoga—during which we test and increase our love and our trust in the Heart. This love, the unlimited love of the Self, is the love that increases our trust in the Path. It gives us momentum, reminding us of the direction we’re going every day while we are here in the human experience. Then, finally, we burn the path as well.
Be Still and Do Nothing
Ramana Maharshi said: “Be still and do nothing.”
How can we be still and do nothing and still practice Karma Yoga?
Ramana is not denying yoga in action, Karma Yoga. When he says, “Be still and do nothing,” he doesn’t mean become a clay pot. He says, become that Stillness. Don’t be the doer, don’t be the one who acts and strives for some result—but something will still be there moving, expressing.
The Heart is still wearing the glove of the human with its senses. And the Heart will move these fingers, move this glove, so we’ll be moved by the Heart. We simply have to allow for this movement to take place from a different space, or from a different perspective.
Karma Yoga means living from this understanding and this surrender more and more. At the same time, it means meeting authentically whatever resistance or desire is drawing us out of availability to the present moment—whatever movement of wanting things to be in one way or another, which is what brings the “I” into an experience of separation.
But what would it be like to respond to the world, to the Universe, without wanting but still allowing the doing to happen?
Moving through Distraction and Resistances
How many things can you do in one moment? Only one!
What do you need to do for that thing to happen? Nothing, it’s happening already. So why do you need anyone there? Why do I need “me,” the little “me,” there to do that? Let the work, whatever it may be, happen without the “me.”
When we let go of these things, a deep interconnectedness appears as “me,” as the sense of Beingness, of Existence. So we can connect with this sense of Surrender, with this sense of Existence, letting go of desires but letting the Universe, Existence itself, pull forth our actions. It will be a spontaneous act, not contrived by the ego.
This is not available all the time, but we can get glimpses of it.
For this to become a more stable experience, we will have to wake up to our resistances, to see what they are and how it feels to go through such a point of tension. What does it feel like to persist in an action when you would rather be doing something else, but while fully aware, open, and available, until you surrender?
I invite you to do this today: go through your resistances. Go through something that you don’t want, and let it be as it is. Be in a doing without a doer. Be still and do nothing while something is happening.
Claud is a senior Hridaya Yoga teacher.
