What is Karma Yoga in Bhagavad Gita?

Have you ever wondered about the secret to living a fulfilled and meaningful life? The Path of Selfless Service or Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita consistently states the importance of an ‘action’. Moreover, you must have heard a common statement you could relate to: ‘What goes around comes around’.

But have you wondered what Karma Yoga is and how it can change our lives? Let’s dig in and explore!

Understanding Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga, or the path of action, encourages performing actions without concern for their outcome. According to the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna advises, “Do your duty without thinking for the fruits of it.”

Therefore, Karma Yoga is all about performing daily duties with commitment and devotion. It also lets go of the ego and increases the focus on your responsibilities.

Principles of Karma Yoga

There are a few principles that a person should follow while practising Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita. Let’s see what are those –

Have the right attitude towards your tasks.
Focus on the action and not on the motive.
Fulfil your duties or responsibilities.
Make sure to do your best while executing the task or responsibility.
Accept the results, whether they are good or bad.
Be happy while doing something, and don’t take it as a burden.

Also Read: How Adhi Yoga is Formed in Kundli in Astrology?

What are the Types of Karma in Gita?

As we have understood Karma Yoga, let us move ahead and learn about the types of Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita. These are Sanchita, Aagami, Prabhadha and Kriyaman.

1. Sanchita Karma

Sanchita Karma is the collection of actions from this life and all the past lives. It has stored all the Karmas for which you have not received any results or fruit. However, you should also know that good and bad Karma go hand in hand; thus, it doesn’t remove the bad Karma if you do good deeds in your current life.

2. Aagami Karma

Aagami Karma refers to the actions that we perform in our current lives and also shapes our future. It shows how our current choices and behaviours influence future experiences and outcomes. This helps us in creating a new Karma which will manifest in our future lives.

3. Prabhadha Karma

Prabhadha Karma is part of Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita. It is the past action that shapes our current life circumstances and experiences. This Karma includes the events and situations we experience from our past actions. Thus, we face the results of our actions of past life in our current life.

4. Kriyaman Karma

Kriyaman Karma refers to our current actions or Karma, which can result in favourable and unfavourable results. As mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, these actions lead to consequences for everybody. However, the selfless actions that we do for others can help neutralise the negative effects.

Benefits of Karma Yoga

We have now understood the types of Karma mentioned in the Gita. But do you also know Karma yoga has several benefits? Let’s move ahead and explore each point.

1. Increased awareness and activeness

People work daily to finish their tasks. However, when people practice Karma Yoga, they perform their functions with awareness, focus, and energy. This approach helps them complete their work and improves their physical and mental well-being.

2. Success in achieving goals

Practising Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita helps achieve goals by enjoying the task, giving your best, and detaching from the outcome. It brings success, recognition, and rewards professionally and personally. In personal relationships, dedicating yourself without expecting anything in return strengthens bonds and improves relationships.

3. Boosts your sense of calmness

Detaching from the results of your actions prevents anger, sadness, and disappointment, freeing your mind and making it more flexible. Practising Karma Yoga increases wisdom and patience, helping you become calmer and more tolerant.

4. Experience joy & fulfilment

People mistakenly think Karma Yoga is just about service and duty and that detaching from results means no happiness or fulfilment. Instead, enjoying work for its own sake brings focus and awareness. This approach helps you embrace the present, leading to joy, fulfilment, and peace.

5. Physical and Mental Growth

You move beyond personal preferences, becoming more balanced, loving, and calm. You develop a stronger sense of responsibility, feeling a deep connection with yourself that brings satisfaction and joy. Your perspective on life widens, making you more flexible and tolerant.

Lord Krishna about Karma

1. Karma Yogi has a firm determination for god realisation only.

Meaning: A Karma Yogi has a firm determination for God’s realisation only, but the desires of one who works to enjoy the fruits of work are endless.

2. Free yourself from attachment.

Meaning: Karma Yogi – who is free from the attachment, whose mind is fixed in self-knowledge, and who does work as a service to the Lord merges entirely in the knowledge form as Brahman.

3. Focus on the Process, not the results.

Meaning: Those motivated only by a desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.

4. If you do Karma with selfless action, you are free from desire.

Meaning: If you do Karma with selfless action, you can free yourself from the bondage of desires.

5. If you do any good work, then that good work never comes to a bad end.

Meaning: No one who does good work will ever come to a wrong end, either here or in the world to come.

Also Read: Magical Effects Of Almighty Vipreet Raja Yoga

Steps to Implement Karma Yoga

You can take a few steps to implement Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita in your daily life. Therefore, this will help you grow. Let’s move ahead and see the details.

At Work: Focus on doing your best without worrying about results. Enjoy your tasks and be present in the moment.
In Relationships: Perform your tasks with love without expecting anything in return. This strengthens bonds and understanding.
Personal Growth: Practice self-awareness and mindfulness. Let go of individual preferences and develop a calm, balanced state.

Gita Shloka on Karma

1. arjuna uvācha jyāyasī chet karmaṇas te matā buddhir janārdana tat kiṁ karmaṇi ghore māṁ niyojayasi keśhava

Translation: Arjuna said: If you think that knowledge is superior to action, O Krishna, why then, O Kesava, do you ask me to engage in this terrible action?

2. śhrī bhagavān uvācha loke’smin dvi-vidhā niṣhṭhā purā proktā mayānagha jñāna-yogena sāṅkhyānāṁ karma-yogena yoginām

Translation: The Blessed Lord said, “In this world, there are two paths, as I have explained before, O sinless one: the path of knowledge for the Sankhyas and the path of action for the Yogis.”

3. karmendriyāṇi sanyamya ya āste manasā smaran indriyārthān vimūḍhātmā mithyāchāraḥ sa uchyate

Translation: While controlling the organs of action, sits thinking about sense-objects in his mind is of misguided understanding and is called a hypocrite.