Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Essence of Karma Yoga — the Yoga of Works
Transcript
- 0:02Humanity has relied on social action, technology and education
- 0:08as pillars of advancement and the development of humanity.
- 0:14Yet, if we examine things closely, we find that we are
- 0:18still driven primarily by the forces of ego and desire.
- 0:23Even when they cloak themselves in a veneer of altruism or
- 0:27philanthropy, All of our science, all of our religious
- 0:33ideals. All of our moral rules, all of
- 0:37our technological advancement, All of our education May improve
- 0:44the surface of life, but they have done very little.
- 0:48If anything to solve the problems, caused by greed,
- 0:53self-dealing possessiveness and a narrow approach that only
- 0:57seeks the short-term benefit of the individual and his close
- 1:02group of Associates whether Family Friends, Community,
- 1:06religious following ideological Brethren Etc, Without attending
- 1:12to The Wider needs of the rest of humanity, the environment.
- 1:16The other beings who share the planet with us or indeed, the
- 1:21universal creation and its ultimate intent and purposes
- 1:28what is required is something that has never been fully
- 1:31understood or implemented widely in humanity.
- 1:34And that is a conscious effort to change consciousness.
- 1:39To widen to embrace the Divine Purpose and to act from that
- 1:45standpoint, rather than from the ego personalities, own narrow
- 1:49vision. When we recognize that all of
- 1:53these outer attempts for Progress, do not address the
- 1:56underlying core issues. We begin to understand the
- 2:00message of the Gita and its view of Karma, Yoga with the inner
- 2:05standpoint, and view the essential determining Factor,
- 2:09not the outer work, Such a view recognizes that the illusion of
- 2:15importance is another ego screen that we raise up to continue the
- 2:21old patterns. We exercise a sense of vanity
- 2:26that we are doing something important or valuable.
- 2:30When we tackle the big issues and fail to recognize much of
- 2:35the time that we still have not succeeded in addressing the
- 2:39needed change in human nature. In reality, simple tasks
- 2:46undertaken from the Divine standpoint are essential to the
- 2:50needed transformation far, more than major projects undertaken
- 2:55in the spirit and under the impulsion of the ego.
- 3:01SRI aurobindo notes, quote. The only work that spiritually
- 3:06purifies is that, which is done without personal motives,
- 3:09without desire for fame or public recognition or worldly
- 3:13greatness without insistence on one's own mental motives or
- 3:18vital lusts and demands or physical preferences, without
- 3:23vanity or crude self-assertion or claim for position or
- 3:27Prestige done for the sake of the Alone all work done in an
- 3:34egoistic Spirit. However, good for people in the
- 3:37world of the ignorance is of no avail to the seeker of the yoga.
- 3:44All should be done quietly from within working speaking Reading
- 3:50Writing as part of the real Consciousness, not with the
- 3:55dispersed and unquiet movement of the ordinary consciousness.
- 4:01Of course, the idea of bigness and smallness is quite foreign
- 4:05to the spiritual truth spiritually.
- 4:09There is nothing, big or small. Such ideas are like those of the
- 4:14literary people who think, writing a poem is a high work
- 4:18and making shoes or cooking the dinner as a small and low one,
- 4:22but all is equal in the eyes of the spirit.
- 4:26And it is only the spirit within with which it is done.
- 4:31That matters. It is the same with a particular
- 4:35kind of work. There is nothing big or small in
- 4:39quote reference SRI aurobindo in the mother growing within the
- 4:46psychology of inner development. Chapter 5 growth of
- 4:51Consciousness means and methods Pages 96 to 97