Karma means Work or profession, Karma Yoga is a path of devotion to the work. This is very close to the saying “Do your duty, don’t expect results/rewards”. When we involve truly in our duty we lose our identity, only selfless work remains. It is not easy to achieve this state. Usually some incentives or rewards are the basic motive or attachment to work. This is not the Karma Yoga that it is meant to be. The work with non-attachment has to be the perfect medium of the super consciousness in this universal manifestation, and that is the ultimate goal of Karma Yoga.
All of us pass through the initial stages of Karma Yoga, where we possess a strong sense of ego and a sense of attachment to the fruits of our efforts or at least praise or recognition either consciously or unconsciously. But by our continuous involvement in the duty and conscious efforts to change in mental attitude, we can slowly disassociate ourselves from the ego and elevate to Karma yoga for sure.
When we reach the state of Karma Yoga, the work itself becomes a worship to the God, it terms to spiritual, also we transform to an expert, skilled and finally a Yogi. In this stage we achieve stability of mind in all aspects, we are not disturbed or excited or happy in any of those conditions. The abstract of Karma Yoga is evolved from ‘Bhagavad Gita’. To summarize these thoughts, here is a popular verse in sanskrit;
yatkṛitaṁ yatkariṣhyāmi tatsarvaṁ na mayā kṛitam
tvayā kṛitaṁ tu phalabhuk tvameva madhusūdana [v41]
[Whatever I have achieved and wish to achieve, I am not the doer of them.
O Madhusudana, you are the real doer, and you alone are the enjoyer of its fruits]
This modern world is confined in its own activities except treating their actions as a worship of God. Therefore we must perform our duty sacramentally and has to be free from the attachments to the results.
