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Karma yoga is the best

A satsang discourse on the spiritual discipline of Karma Yoga.

"Karma is not just sitting and looking. It is working with the hands, legs, mouth, and eyes—moving here and there, engaging in all kinds of activity."

"Yogaha karmasu kauśalam. Those who work as karma yogīs will be successful."

A spiritual teacher addresses a gathering at sunset, passionately expounding on the principle of selfless work as the highest yoga. He illustrates the necessity of constant, dedicated action using examples from the lives of divine figures like Krishna and Rama, daily human life, and a parable about a sādhu in the Himalayas. The core message is that disciplined work—physical, mental, and spiritual—until the last breath is the path to success and purpose, leading into an evening prayer and viewing of the Mahābhārata.

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is still here, but sunset will come soon, and with it, the time for prayer. Today’s theme is Karma Yoga. Yogaha karmasu kauśalam. Those who work as karma yogīs will be successful. Karma is not just sitting and looking. It is working with the hands, legs, mouth, and eyes—moving here and there, engaging in all kinds of activity. That is what we call karma. Karma is the best of the best. Even the great saints are working. Even God Himself works to accomplish things. Consider Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa in the Mahābhārata. See how much hard work he did, and the difficulties faced by his mother and father. Even God works very hard. With just a little hand, He can make everything okay, yet He said, "I should do work and do very, very hard work." Think of Kṛṣṇa with his stepmother when he was young. Bhagavān also went to school. Kṛṣṇa was with his friends at Mahākālaśiva. If God is hardworking and faces difficulties, what of us? Consider God Rāma and how much he suffered—or rather, the hard work he undertook. It is not that God simply arrives and finishes everything easily. No. It was hard, hard work for everyone. Think of all the gods. Think of Jesus and how hard he worked until the last moment—carrying the wood up the hill, being put on the cross. That, my dear, is called karma. That is why Karma Yoga is called the best. Atha yogānuśāsanam. Yoga kauśalam means you will be successful. If you are working, that is the purpose. It does not matter what the work is; one must work oneself. Do not depend on your parents. While children are little, it is okay—parents look after them. But finally, you must get up, learn, and work. Similarly, everyone must work until the end. Yes, you may have a partner, a wife; she will do something, but still you must do your part. Similarly, a wife should not depend entirely on her husband; she also must work. And so must the children, the parents, our neighbors—everyone. It concerns all of us. We are here to work. If we do not work, we are lost. Yogaha karmasu kauśalam—this applies until the last moment of life. Do you know what dying is? Perhaps you are very old and fragile. You cannot get up and must ask, "Please, can you bring me water?" Yet, you do not want to die. You are trying, working to stay alive. So we must work through the body, the mind, and our knowledge. All of it is very important. Yogaha karmasu kauśalam. So, oh my dear, work, work, work. Every time, it is said: work, work, work. This also applies in yoga. If we think we can do all our exercises one day and be finished, no. Every day, out of twenty-four hours, we must give at least three hours for our body—or maybe more. Drinking, eating, going to the bathroom, cleaning, exercising—everything. We must be active all the time. That too is working: work on the body and work throughout your whole life. This is what we call Yogaha karmasu kauśalam. It means that when you do your karma, you will be successful. Otherwise, you can sit and say, "Yes, I am like this," and nothing will happen. Even the great saints are hardworking. There is a story told by Holī Gurujī. A sādhu in the Himalayas had a nice rock. Every day, he would build a cottage on it with grass and wood. It was very nice. When finished, he would sleep there for a day or two. Then he would begin to destroy it, take the materials, and build another cottage. When that was finished, he would close it again. People asked, "Gurujī, why? What are you doing? You build a cottage and then break it, again and again." He replied, "It is because I have no other work, so I destroy and rebuild. This coming, going, coming, going… If I had only one cottage and just sat inside, I would become very lazy." We do the same. We eat, then we go to the toilet. We are taking and giving, every time new things. Therefore, we should think deeply about karma. It is said that if anyone takes anything from our hand, no one can take it from my mind. I will simply do it again. So what? We have material things; anyone can take them away. But what we have in our knowledge, no one can take away. This is why we say every day: practice, practice, practice. There are many stories about work. We do the Kriyā, Kriyā Anuṣṭhān; we practice prāṇāyāma and āsanas; we practice concentration and try to reach meditation. We work hard for our parents, children, and neighbors. We work on our farm, growing vegetables and taking care of animals. This is life. That is it. Even a stone is working. The stone is not just as it is forever; we do not know how it will change. Time—do not think of time as standing still. Sooner or later, it will go. So we say: practice, practice, practice. Practice is one of the best things we can have. Today is the day to work and be active. We are alive inside, and when the soul leaves, the still body is working. Yes, the liquid in liquid, the hard bones going there, the prāṇas—everything. These are the five elements. These five elements come close together and go away again. And what is inside? There is the Ātmā. Through that ātmā, we want to come to Paramātmā. That is what you did today: Karma Yoga. Yesterday was a little bit like a half-Sunday, and then Monday. Everyone did karma. Some did not do very much, because I know you still lacked knowledge. You were going there, drinking coffee, sitting. Someone was in their room, slowly brushing their teeth. Someone sat and came out a little to work. That is called laziness. Then I came out and went for a walk to Swamiji. Why? I wanted to see if anyone was working here. So, if you worked, you have worked. And of course, you go to eat, you sit, you work—everything. This karma is the best thing you did. We will see tomorrow how it is. Today we thought it is white, very nice; the sky is very nice, so we think we will sit outside. But you know, we have to work on ourselves. What do we have to work on? Put on warm clothes. Then we will see how the Pāṇḍavas are doing. So, Atha Yogānuśāsanam. Therefore, it is Aṣṭāṅga Yogānuśāsanam. That Anuśāsanam is very disciplined. Now we will do our prayer. After the prayer, we will watch the Mahābhārata. It is very good; you can always see it, and it is very good that you can follow it. Karma is just karma. You have seen the word karma mentioned many times in the Mahābhārata. That is why I say it again and again: Yogaha karmasu kauśalam. If someone else is sitting and meditating, and the mother is sitting down sleeping, going somewhere just to eat, placing leaf plates and going away—who will wash? Who will clean? Then sleep again. That cannot be successful. There are many people in the room sleeping. That is called laziness. Lazy means lost. If we are standing here, we are standing. In the morning, you stand here, but still you are here. If you take three steps, you are working. So you are there. Everything, even our body, is working very much. And then some days, what will happen? Many organs will be working. If we did not practice āsanas, did not practice prāṇāyāma, did not practice concentration, and did not make good food, and afterward we say, "Oh, I have cancer. Oh, I have this problem"—why? Why? Because we did not work on our body. We worked only to feed the body: feed, feed, feed. In eighty years, how much have you eaten? One day, how much do you eat? One kilo, half a kilo, a quarter kilo, two kilos? Morning with milk, all milk and fruits—everything. How much do we eat in one day? Then in one month? Then in one year? Likewise, for eighty years. How many tons is that? My God, it is like a truck. How did you get all this? What have you done with it? We have to count everything. How much water did we use? We have to understand everything. God said, "You know what you are doing, what you did, how this, that, everything." It is not about whether my friend is good or I am hanging with you; that is okay. But what we put into our body, that is what we are living on. That is that. So, Yogaha karmasu kauśalam. That is it. Now please come for prayer. Who is leading the prayer?

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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