Karma Yoga: the Yoga of Action

The book consists of lectures delivered by Swami Vivekananda in New York City, USA. Transcribed and compiled by Joseph Josiah Goodwin, it brings to the 21st century ancient wisdom looked at through the lens of Navya-Vedanta.

Despite being grounded in Vedanta and the Bhagwat Gita, Swami Vivekananda's Karma Yoga offers the knowledge, importance, and philosophy around work (or karma) to all those who seek it.

An Indian response to Aurelius' Meditation, it sets down a more practical method to realise existence through work, discipline and contemplate the common concerns about the meaning and goal of life. Among many healthy traits, he promotes the exercise of finding contentment through work itself, as opposed to being attached to the temporary fruits it springs. It urges the reader to use the external world as nothing more than a suggestion to find solutions and meaning to questions from within, and to not differentiate between work of any kind as long as it assists the individual in forgetting one's ego. The story of the Butcher and Saint in Chapter 4 (Vyadha-gita) is the most illuminating instance that makes the resounding case for work where everyone, irrespective of background, can use Karma Yoga as a means of elevating one's self achieving the same results of a renunciant steeped in Bhakti Yoga. However, the last chapter, The Ideal of Karma Yoga, houses less than appropriate tones about civilizations and pre-natal intelligence that was as valid then as it is today, that is to say not at all despite voicing his support for social equality in Jnana yoga. Work, as explained in the book, should not be confused for the toxic culture of ‘hustling', nor be used as an excuse for eager managers to squeeze their employees. Work should be a state of internal existence to reach a higher goal that leads one to understand the Self. Karma Yoga demands the individual be ready for work and not minimise it in the hopes of short-lived pleasure.

Published in 1896, the book can come across as sharp in its tone (which works well given the subject of the book). Some points must be understood with nuance and not applied literally. For instance, the deification of family elders is noble, but one must not engage in the radical application of this maxim. The book, along with other seminal works of Swami Vivekananda must be re-adapted for the 21st century with commentary from scholars.

Overall, a must-read for all those who feel their goals thwarted by modern-day distractions, self-induced lethargy and aimlessness.