“May you all attain purity of heart through constant selfless service. May you all shine as dynamic Karma Yogins radiating joy, peace and bliss everywhere. May you all rejoice in the welfare of all beings. May your minds be fixed in the lord while your hands are in the service of humanity. May you all understand the principles and techniques of Karma Yoga. May all your actions become offerings unto the lord. May you all attain Kaivalya Moksha through the practice of Karma Yoga in this very birth.” Swami SivanandaI am a yogin of the lineage of
Kabir. My yogic guides are
Sri Aurobindo,
Swami Sivananda,
Swami Vivekananda, and Yogi Paul. My orientation is Tantra. All yogins will have leanings towards certain expressions of Yoga, and my leaning is towards Jnana. I find, at some stage in every stage, that all forms of Yoga’s expression lead me to Jnana.
And it is on a path I have not experimented that I must now travel. The path of the Karma Yogin. The one who offers his action in selfless pursuit of service. I must enter into a new economy – always there will be an exchange of value, but some flows/currencies are more pure than others. The success of an economy is told by the consequences of the contemporary perception of the currency of that economy. I have seen enough to know, from a high level, that this is Shiva’s path, and my journey is that of Vishnu.
And what do I have to offer? Language, labour, love. Yoga.
Each day feels like a step closer to what emerges time and again as my dream: to live an intensely authentic karma yoga practice. I desire it, and in my desire lies the first thread of the twine. Three threads to the twine: Wanting, Knowing, Willing... The Jnani in me knows the life about me. The desire in me wants another, and soon, the Willer in me will make the delicate move, extraction, and I will become a gardener forever.
I feel, in this paid-for-working day life, that I am living someone else’s lie. I have dug and scratched at this barren patch of land, but no fruits beyond substance are forthcoming. And I have not fought it, I have embraced it. Successful. Embraced it as the collective expression of a stage in the evolution of human understanding. But I am choosing now, from an integral perspective, to live a life different to the one I am living. In a different place, with a different fabric. For I, the me that writes, have this one life and I can, knowingly, choose where and with whom I’d like to share my finite expression of functionality. And what am I? I am like a ghost that visits many. The ghost of Kabir, inspiring rebellion and daunting thought. Holy Ghost. How you interpret me reflects a stage in the development of your psyche, only time, in this realm, stops your inevitable realization. And then, in an instant, the ultimate success.
We all travel. It is what defines us. Why are people so open and engaging to the karmic traveller? She finds a home wherever help is needed. She is a trader in the commodity most pure, and her home is everywhere.
Now I must build the strength, repair the debts, neutralize my emissions, and practice seeing God in every face.
I know that my perception of success will be diluted by many, mixed by others, and never be understood by anyone as is it by me, the conscious liver of the notion. What folly it would be to judge you or any other. I know this: that when I look upon a man outside of judgement, I begin to see the beauty in even the ugliest of things. Even in the gavel of a wretched justice.
So, my journey is to change. No longer to be about me, but, even though I know it to be about the Relationship, I will now experiment with a life about others, until there is no ‘other’ and there is no ‘me’.
Namaste
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