essay on karma yoga

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What Is Karma Yoga? Key Principles, Benefits, & Tips for Daily Practice

• Yoga & Vedic Philosophy
• What Is Karma Yoga? Key Principles, Benefits, & Tips for Daily Practice

February 9, 2016

Last updated : May 9, 2024

In yoga philosophy, Karma is the law of cause and effect. Every action you take has a consequence, whether immediate or in the future. Positive actions lead to positive karmic reactions, while negative actions result in what we know today as ‘bad karma’. Karma operates across lifetimes, with the consequences of actions in past lives coming back in the present life.

What Is the Meaning of Karma Yoga? 

“Do your duty without the concern to the fruit of it”

The 4 main principles of Karma Yoga are: 

• Expectation of reward

The main purpose of Karma Yoga is to control and let go of your ego, thereby purifying the mind and helping us realize our true Self. To do this, we need to engage with our duties without attachment or personal desires.

Misconceptions about Karma Yoga

Although volunteering our time to help others is a common example of selfless action, the true essence of this practice goes beyond simple acts of kindness. To clear up any misconceptions, here is what Karma Yoga is not:

A Transaction

Selfless action is not an exchange, where you provide a service in return for another, like a training course or accommodation. The essence of Karma Yoga is performing actions without the expectation of any rewards or returns. 

Simply working without fair compensation does not automatically qualify as selfless action . True Karma Yoga is about the internal detachment from the fruits of the action, not just the absence of a financial transaction. It's about selfless intent and not being attached to outcomes.

Cheap Labor

Just because someone is willing to work for less in the name of Karma Yoga, doesn't mean it aligns with its principles. True selfless action is never about undervaluing oneself or others but about performing your duty with pure intent.

Social Service

While social service aligns with the principles of Karma Yoga, not all acts of social service qualify as selfless action. The distinguishing factor is the internal motivation and detachment from the outcome. For instance, if someone helps in a community with the hope of recognition or personal satisfaction, it's not in the true spirit of this practice. 

So, while it is true that the Yoga of Action is rooted in the actions you make, if your intention is anything other than doing a duty without ego or attachment, it is not Karma Yoga.

The Four Principles of Karma Yoga Explained

1. duty .

Everybody has duties in life. Some are because of society or family, while others are choices we make, like being a good boss or supportive friend. In Karma Yoga, duties are known as dharma , and recognizing and ranking them is key.

While understanding our role in other people's lives is fundamental, the highest obligation you have is towards yourself. Only by ensuring your well-being can you effectively support others. Moreover, any duty you perform should be done with diligence. Whether tidying a room or completing a task at work, it should reflect your best efforts. 

Ego is your self-image and the thoughts you have about yourself and others, shaped by characteristics such as your likes, dislikes, and desires. Often, we base our actions on how they'll affect our image. While some believe ego helps them perform better, it can also be harmful. Ego can distort our view of reality and cloud our understanding.

In contrast, selfless action is about performing duties without thinking about yourself. The core goal of this practice is to manage and eventually free yourself from ego. 

3. Attachment

Karma Yoga is about doing your duty impartially, without getting attached to it. Whether you enjoy the task or not, you give it your all. For instance, as a teacher, you wouldn't favor one student over another. The focus is on performing the duty, without concern for the outcome or the process.

4. Expectation of Reward

We often act with the expectation of a return. This could be working for a paycheck or recognition, or even caring for loved ones in hopes of receiving their love and gratitude. But when you act without expecting rewards, the result doesn’t influence your actions. You do it because it's the right thing to do, not for personal gain. This is Karma Yoga. 

Read more: Karma and Dharma - Are you doing it right?

Benefits of Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga has many benefits. Some of these can be seen immediately, while others will only be realized after consistent regular practice. Here are three significant benefits of selfless action:  

Reduces Ego

Karma Yoga helps you act without letting your ego get in the way. You do what needs to be done rather than what you feel like doing. Over time, this reduces your ego and helps you think and act with pure intention.

Priorities Become Clearer

By practicing Karma Yoga, you get a clear idea of what's important. You understand your responsibilities and do them without getting too attached or making it about yourself.

Balances Karma

Since you're doing tasks without letting ego or personal desires interfere, you can fix past wrongs without creating new ones.

How to Practice Karma Yoga Daily

To practice karma yoga in your daily life, follow these simple steps:

1. List Your Core Duties

Everyone plays multiple roles in their lives. In order to practice Karma Yoga, you first need to inspect your relationships in the light of yoga philosophy and distinguish between the roles we play for personal gain from those we do without expecting anything in return. Identifying your duty in your relationships helps you make the right choices. 

2. Rank & Prioritize Them

Not all roles and duties carry the same weight in different phases of life. By prioritizing them, you don't just organize them based on their importance, but you also reflect on the significance of your contribution to each role. This can also help in allocating your time and energy more effectively. Recognizing the importance of each role can also instill a sense of purpose, aligning more closely with the principles of Karma Yoga.

3. Fulfill Your Duties

Final thought.

Incorporating Karma Yoga in daily life is about consistent selfless action and detaching yourself from the outcomes. By reflecting on our roles, understanding their significance, and approaching them with a pure intent, we can  build stronger relationships  and cultivate a  happier, more meaningful life .

About the author

Born into a Jain family where yoga has been the way of life for five generations , my formal yoga journey began at age of eight at a Vedic school in India . There I received a solid foundation in ancient scriptures, including Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Yoga Sutras (to name a few). In 2009, I founded Arhanta Yoga Ashrams . I see yoga as a way to master the five senses, so I named our ashrams 'Arhanta Yoga,' the yoga to master the five senses! In 2017, I also founded Arhanta Yoga Online Academy  so that people who can not visit our ashrams can follow our courses remotely. At Arhanta, we don't just teach yoga. We teach you how to reach your potential, deepen your knowledge, build your confidence, and take charge of your life.

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Karma Yoga: the Path of Selfless Action

The yogic concept of Karma has become commonplace all around the globe. Most likely because the  law of karma is simple and understandable–you reap what you sow. Karma yoga is one of the four main branches of yoga that uses the intent of one’s action to control the chain reaction of cause and effect. It is an ancient practice that uses the law of karma to make you a better person and to make the entire world a happier and kinder place. Karma yoga is best suited for persons who are naturally generous and kind, but anyone can easily start this practice. It can provide many of the same benefits as the other yoga practices  without as much of the physical or mental challenges.

What is Karma Yoga?

Karma yoga is often defined as “the yoga of action” or “the path of selfless service.” The Sanskrit word “Karma” is derived from the root word “Kru,” which translates as “work, deed or action.” Yoga is a set of practices to unite the body, mind, and heart into a state of oneness. Karma yoga is a disciplined and conscious path to attaining this unitive state through unselfish, kind, and generous actions. This yoga of action involves renouncing the future fruits of our efforts as a spiritual offering rather than letting the ego to become attached to the results of our actions.

What is Karma Yoga’s Purpose?

Karma yoga’s primary goal is to attain moksha (enlightenment) through one’s actions and work in the world. One does not need to wish for wisdom in order to practice this yoga. This yoga is a way to help others while lessening our own suffering and our egoistic tendencies . When practicing Karma Yoga, one’s actions are viewed as a form of prayer or worship to deepen one’s spiritual connection to the Divine or to the oneness of all life.

Benefits of Karma Yoga

Karma yoga is said to purify the mind and cleanse the heart . It promotes positive feelings like humility, kindness, compassion, honor, gratefulness, generosity, love, and joy. Karma yoga reduces and removes negative emotions like envy, hatred, fear, greed, selfishness, and jealousy. As Swami Vivekananda writes, “Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.” Karma yoga also has the power to transform your ordinary everyday actions into mighty acts of spiritual connection and mindfulness. It is also a great way to create and build a strong community of similar-minded folks around you.

History of Karma Yoga

The foundations of Karma yoga were laid in one of the first Upanishadic scriptures, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which was composed around 500 BCE. The yoga of action was further explained in the epic text,  the Bhagavad Gita . Krishna explains the practice of Karma yoga and links it to one’s fulfillment of Dharma or personal duty . He associates this yoga as a form of worship when one’s actions are selfless, given to the right causes or like-minded others, and with a positive feeling and attitude.

How to Practice Karma Yoga

You often hear yoga teachers talk about taking “yoga off the mat” and into the world. Karma yoga is one of the easiest and simplest ways to practice yoga outside of the yoga studio. Ideally, any type of yoga practice will have the best success through constant and dedicated effort, but any effort that you can put towards this will move you towards attaining more unity and peace in your life. Karma yoga can be fun and easy, but if you are not a naturally humble, kind, and generous person, you will find it challenging. Notice where the practice feels challenging and difficult for you, as this is where you should focus your work.

You can approach the practice of Karma yoga in many ways. Big or small acts of kindness and generosity can be woven through our everyday work and actions. The size and frequency of your actions do not matter as much as having pure motives to help others with no expectation of receiving any benefits for yourself.

How to start

The best way to start is to look at ways to be kind and generous to yourself and your loved ones. Pay attention to your attitude towards chores and work duties. Try to approach all of these actions with a positive attitude. Realign your goals to be less focused on your ego and more centered on benefiting others around you. As you get comfortable with the practice, expand this circle outwards to include more people and organizations. Look for opportunities to volunteer or help out non-profits and charities. If you practice hatha yoga , your local studio may have Karma yoga classes and events you can participate in.

Reflection questions

It will be necessary to check-in and reflect on your intentions and attitude throughout your practice. Asking yourself, “What is in this for me?” will help root out any egotistical motives.  Here is a list of other questions to help guide and refine your karma yoga practice:

• How can I share my gifts and talents with others?
• What would be most helpful to this person or organization?
• What is most needed right now?
• Who has the greatest need for help?
• Are there any underserved places in my community that could use more help?
• When do I have the most free time or feel the most ease to help others?
• Who or what do I feel the most compassion towards?
• What are my motivations and intentions in giving this help?
• What actions will best serve all people everywhere?
• Are my actions respectful and considerate to others?
• Are my actions kind, loving, and generous?
• How does my heart feel when I do this work?

Karma yoga is a powerful way to broaden your spiritual pathway. Rather than boxing yourself in with want, desire, and need, you can instead create freedom, ease, and joy through selfless action. If we focus on being genuinely good to all that is around us and consider how our actions affect each other, we will slowly make our way to being a better person and move closer towards enlightenment.

If you have given Karma yoga a shot, let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. We would love to hear how you are spreading your love and kindness out into the world!

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6 responses to “karma yoga: the path of selfless action”.

The questions which guides and refines the Karma yoga practice is brought out very well and opt. In this modern days we cut our connections with our brothers and sister, relations and friends in the run for well being. I am trying to connect again but family members are hurdles. I request your guidance to understand whether family is first?. Your services in Karma yoga practice.is well spread. Thanking you.

When we practice Karma yoga we need to primarily put our actions, words and thoughts in a same state. In short we must be openhearted in such three conditions of thoughts, words and actions. Then automatically positive feelings will be born. Those who are with positive feelings will definitely succeed in a peaceful way. They can live lives spiritually even though they are in such a perishable material world.

Wonderful post! I have always believed that karma yoga is not only about doing good deeds but also about being good to others. There are so many people who do good things for others without expecting anything in return. These people go through life with a smile on their face because they know that what they did was good for them and everyone around them.

I think it would be very difficult to practice without some kind of reward or incentive. But what do you get out of karma yoga? Is there any benefit other than helping others?

The reward is enlightenment.

When we have previously evolved in an environment where the setting and achieving of goals (ego-based, scarcity mindset based thinking and acting) is applauded we may feel challenged by the concept of doing something for nothing. From another perspective, the taking of intuitively inspired action without looking for anything in return May in itself be considered an objective and as a result be flattering to the ego. From experience I’d say if an idea is born from the heart, then tempered by reason and carried out without expecting so much as a thank you in return, you are practicing karma yoga. Then if you do receive a thank you in some form it will be a bonus and feel all the more exhilarating for not having requested it. And that gratitude might appear in many forms other than that which you expect.

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Karma Yoga By Swami Vivekananda

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Now in Audio Format from Sri Ram Publishing: The Spirit of Karma Yoga by Baba Hari Dass

This classic essay on Karma Yoga is brought to life by a 30-minute, soothing narration from Dhanya Shankar, with a modern soundscape backdrop.

In this Essay, The Spirit of Karma Yoga, Sri Baba Hari Dass reveals the basics of Selfless Service and its role in Yoga practice (Sadhana).

How does one serve others, serve one's own self-development, and the creation as well? What are the essential keys to the practice of selfless service and what are its benefits? Why is Karma Yoga so central to the full practice of Yoga? These questions are addressed in this essay.

Books by Baba Hari Dass include annotations of Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Samkhya Karika, as well as both children's stories and adult fiction.

Both the full 30-minute narration and printed version of Spirit of Karma Yoga, as well as other writings from Baba Hari Dass are available from Sri Ram Publishing at the following link:

When we rise above the mind by shunning our personal interest, we live in the spirit. This is our rebirth in the Spirit, the divine birth, and service to others becomes our divine work.

Baba Hari Dass

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The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Karma-Yoga/The Ideal of Karma-Yoga

CHAPTER VIII

THE IDEAL OF KARMA-YOGA

The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalised into four, viz those of work, love, psychology, and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the other. But according to the type which prevails, we name the divisions. It is not that you can find men who have no other faculty than that of work, nor that you can find men who are no more than devoted worshippers only, nor that there are men who have no more than mere knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal.

I have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I understand it. Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the result of this struggle for freedom. In all combinations every particle is trying to go on its own way, to fly from the other particles; but the others are holding it in check. Our earth is trying to fly away from the sun, and the moon from the earth. Everything has a tendency to infinite dispersion. All that we see in the universe has for its basis this one struggle towards freedom; it is under the impulse of this tendency that the saint prays and the robber robs. When the line of action taken is not a proper one, we call it evil; and when the manifestation of it is proper and high, we call it good. But the impulse is the same, the struggle towards freedom. The saint is oppressed with the knowledge of his condition of bondage, and he wants to get rid of it; so he worships God. The thief is oppressed with the idea that he does not possess certain things, and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from it; so he steals. Freedom is the one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient; and consciously or unconsciously, everything is struggling towards that goal. The freedom which the saint seeks is very different from that which the robber seeks; the freedom loved by the saint leads him to the enjoyment of infinite, unspeakable bliss, while that on which the robber has set his heart only forges other bonds for his soul.

There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of this struggle towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that men are the same as their little body. When we see a man doing good work, helping others, it means that he cannot be confined within the limited circle of "me and mine". There is no limit to this getting out of selfishness. All the great systems of ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this absolute unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of him? He is no more the little Mr. So-and-so; he has acquired infinite expansion. The little personality which he had before is now lost to him for ever; he has become infinite, and the attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all religions and of all moral and philosophical teachings. The personalist, when he hears this idea philosophically put, gets frightened. At the same time, if he preaches morality, he after all teaches the very same idea himself. He puts no limit to the unselfishness of man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish under the personalistic system, how are we to distinguish him from the perfected ones in other system? He has become one with the universe and to become that is the goal of all; only the poor personalist has not the courage to follow out his own reasoning to its right conclusion. Karma-Yoga is the attaining through unselfish work of that freedom which is the goal of all human nature. Every selfish action, therefore, retards our reaching the goal, and every unselfish action takes us towards the goal; that is why the only definition that can be given of morality is this: That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

But, if you come to details, the matter will not be seen to be quite so simple. For instance, environment often makes the details different as I have already mentioned. The same action under one set of circumstances may be unselfish, and under another set quite selfish. So we can give only a general definition, and leave the details to be worked out by taking into consideration the differences in time, place, and circumstances. In one country one kind of conduct is considered moral, and in another the very same is immoral, because the circumstances differ. The goal of all nature is freedom, and freedom is to be attained only by perfect unselfishness; every thought, word, or deed that is unselfish takes us towards the goal, and, as such, is called moral. That definition, you will find, holds good in every religion and every system of ethics. In some systems of thought morality is derived from a Superior Being — God. If you ask why a man ought to do this and not that, their answer is: "Because such is the command of God." But whatever be the source from which it is derived, their code of ethics also has the same central idea — not to think of self but to give up self. And yet some persons, in spite of this high ethical idea, are frightened at the thought of having to give up their little personalities. We may ask the man who clings to the idea of little personalities to consider the case of a person who has become perfectly unselfish, who has no thought for himself, who does no deed for himself, who speaks no word for himself, and then say where his "himself" is. That "himself" is known to him only so long as he thinks, acts, or speaks for himself. If he is only conscious of others, of the universe, and of the all, where is his "himself"? It is gone for ever.

Karma-Yoga, therefore, is a system of ethics and religion intended to attain freedom through unselfishness, and by good works. The Karma-Yogi need not believe in any doctrine whatever. He may not believe even in God, may not ask what his soul is, nor think of any metaphysical speculation. He has got his own special aim of realising selflessness; and he has to work it out himself. Every moment of his life must be realisation, because he has to solve by mere work, without the help of doctrine or theory, the very same problem to which the Jnâni applies his reason and inspiration and the Bhakta his love.

Now comes the next question: What is this work? What is this doing good to the world? Can we do good to the world? In an absolute sense, no; in a relative sense, yes. No permanent or everlasting good can be done to the world; if it could be done, the world would not be this world. We may satisfy the hunger of a man for five minutes, but he will be hungry again. Every pleasure with which we supply a man may be seen to be momentary. No one can permanently cure this ever-recurring fever of pleasure and pain. Can any permanent happiness be given to the world? In the ocean we cannot raise a wave without causing a hollow somewhere else. The sum total of the good things in the world has been the same throughout in its relation to man's need and greed. It cannot be increased or decreased. Take the history of the human race as we know it today. Do we not find the same miseries and the same happiness, the same pleasures and pains, the same differences in position? Are not some rich, some poor, some high, some low, some healthy, some unhealthy? All this was just the same with the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans in ancient times as it is with the Americans today. So far as history is known, it has always been the same; yet at the same time we find that, running along with all these incurable differences of pleasure and pain, there has ever been the struggle to alleviate them. Every period of history has given birth to thousands of men and women who have worked hard to smooth the passage of life for others. And how far have they succeeded? We can only play at driving the ball from one place to another. We take away pain from the physical plane, and it goes to the mental one. It is like that picture in Dante's hell where the misers were given a mass of gold to roll up a hill. Every time they rolled it up a little, it again rolled down. All our talks about the millennium are very nice as school-boys' stories, but they are no better than that. All nations that dream of the millennium also think that, of all peoples in the world, they will have the best of it then for themselves. This is the wonderfully unselfish idea of the millennium!

We cannot add happiness to this world; similarly, we cannot add pain to it either. The sum total of the energies of pleasure and pain displayed here on earth will be the same throughout. We just push it from this side to the other side, and from that side to this, but it will remain the same, because to remain so is its very nature. This ebb and flow, this rising and falling, is in the world's very nature; it would be as logical to hold otherwise as to say that we may have life without death. This is complete nonsense, because the very idea of life implies death and the very idea of pleasure implies pain. The lamp is constantly burning out, and that is its life. If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole. One looks at the "fall" side and becomes a pessimist another looks at the "rise" side and becomes an optimist. When a boy is going to school and his father and mother are taking care of him, everything seems blessed to him; his wants are simple, he is a great optimist. But the old man, with his varied experience, becomes calmer and is sure to have his warmth considerably cooled down. So, old nations, with signs of decay all around them, are apt to be less hopeful than new nations. There is a proverb in India: "A thousand years a city, and a thousand years a forest." This change of city into forest and vice versa is going on everywhere, and it makes people optimists or pessimists according to the side they see of it.

The next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These millennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many religions preach this as an element in them — that God is coming to rule the universe, and that then there will be no difference at all in conditions. The people who preach this doctrine are mere fanatics, and fanatics are indeed the sincerest of mankind. Christianity was preached just on the basis of the fascination of this fanaticism, and that is what made it so attractive to the Greek and the Roman slaves. They believed that under the millennial religion there would be no more slavery, that there would be plenty to eat and drink; and, therefore, they flocked round the Christian standard. Those who preached the idea first were of course ignorant fanatics, but very sincere. In modern times this millennial aspiration takes the form of equality — of liberty, equality, and fraternity. This is also fanaticism. True equality has never been and never can be on earth. How can we all be equal here? This impossible kind of equality implies total death. What makes this world what it is? Lost balance. In the primal state, which is called chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all the formative forces of the universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose that all the particles of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be then any process of creation? We know from science that it is impossible. Disturb a sheet of water, and there you find every particle of the water trying to become calm again, one rushing against the other; and in the same way all the phenomena which we call the universe — all things therein — are struggling to get back to the state of perfect balance. Again a disturbance comes, and again we have combination and creation. Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the same time the forces struggling to obtain equality are as much a necessity of creation as those which destroy it.

Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction. What makes the difference between man and man? It is largely the difference in the brain. Nowadays no one but a lunatic will say that we are all born with the same brain power. We come into the world with unequal endowments; we come as greater men or as lesser men, and there is no getting away from that pre-natally determined condition. The American Indians were in this country for thousands of years, and a few handfuls of your ancestors came to their land. What difference they have caused in the appearance of the country! Why did not the Indians make improvements and build cities, if all were equal? With your ancestors a different sort of brain power came into the land, different bundles of past impressions came, and they worked out and manifested themselves. Absolute non-differentiation is death. So long as this world lasts, differentiation there will and must be, and the millennium of perfect equality will come only when a cycle of creation comes to its end. Before that, equality cannot be. Yet this idea of realising the millennium is a great motive power. Just as inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God, there would be no creation either. It is the difference between these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom.

This world's wheel within wheel is a terrible mechanism; if we put our hands in it, as soon as we are caught we are gone. We all think that when we have done a certain duty, we shall be at rest; but before we have done a part of that duty, another is already in waiting. We are all being dragged along by this mighty, complex world-machine. There are only two ways out of it; one is to give up all concerns with the machine, to let it go and stand aside, to give up our desires. That is very easy to say, but is almost impossible to do. I do not know whether in twenty millions of men one can do that. The other way is to plunge into the world and learn the secret of work, and that is the way of Karma-Yoga. Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come out. Through this machinery itself is the way out.

We have now seen what work is. It is a part of natures foundation, and goes on always. Those that believe in God understand this better, because they know that God is not such an incapable being as will need our help. Although this universe will go on always, our goal is freedom, our goal is unselfishness; and according to Karma-Yoga, that goal is to be reached through work. All ideas of making the world perfectly happy may be good as motive powers for fanatics; but we must know that fanaticism brings forth as much evil as good. The Karma-Yogi asks why you require any motive to work other than the inborn love of freedom. Be beyond the common worldly motives. "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof." Man can train himself to know and to practice that, says the Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part of his very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside. Let us do good because it is good to do good; he who does good work even in order to get to heaven binds himself down, says the Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with any the least selfish motive, instead of making us free, forges one more chain for our feet.

So the only way is to give up all the fruits of work, to be unattached to them. Know that this world is not we, nor are we this world; that we are really not the body; that we really do not work. We are the Self, eternally at rest and at peace. Why should we be bound by anything? It is very good to say that we should be perfectly non-attached, but what is the way to do it? Every good work we do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a new chain, will break one of the links in the existing chains. Every good thought that we send to the world without thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break one link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become the purest of mortals. Yet all this may seem to be rather quixotic and too philosophical, more theoretical than practical. I have read many arguments against the Bhagavad-Gita, and many have said that without motives you cannot work. They have never seen unselfish work except under the influence of fanaticism, and, therefore, they speak in that way.

Let me tell you in conclusion a few words about one man who actually carried this teaching of Karma-Yoga into practice. That man is Buddha. He is the one man who ever carried this into perfect practice. All the prophets of the world, except Buddha, had external motives to move them to unselfish action. The prophets of the world, with this single exception, may be divided into two sets, one set holding that they are incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other holding that they are only messengers from God; and both draw their impetus for work from outside, expect reward from outside, however highly spiritual may be the language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet who said, "I do not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is." He was, in the conduct of his life, absolutely without personal motives; and what man worked more than he? Show me in history one character who has soared so high above all. The whole human race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy, such wide sympathy. This great philosopher, preaching the highest philosophy, yet had the deepest sympathy for the lowest of animals, and never put forth any claims for himself. He is the ideal Karma-Yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the history of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever born; beyond compare the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the greatest soul-power that has even been manifested. He is the first great reformer the world has seen. He was the first who dared to say, "Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, because you have been made to believe it from your childhood; but reason it all out, and after you have analysed it, then, if you find that it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it." He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world. This man represents the very highest ideal of Karma-Yoga.

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