Pujya Guruji – Karma Yoga explained

Chinmaya Mission is founded by devotees of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda. All of us, the devotees, are celebrating May 8, 2015 till Aug 3, 2016 as his centennial birthday celebration year. We were blessed with visit by the head of Chinmaya Mission worldwide, Swami Tejomayanandaji, who is called Pujya Guruji. Guruji visited us from July 11th to 15th. He offered a beautiful Silver Chatram to Lord Ganapathi, the deity at our ashram in Twin cities.

I was fortunate enough to attend Guruji’s discourses on Bhagavad Gita Chapter5. Every day families filled the hall eager to listen his message. Guruji in His own style, explained lucidly and in a simple manner, the meaning of shlokas in Chapter 5.. With my limited knowledge of Sanskrit, I could understand some of the paragraphs of Gita when he read it because right modulation.  That is really amazing for someone who knows so little about Sanskrit. Chapter 5 of Bhagavad Gita is about Karma Sanyas. I will try to summarize his explanation with my limited knowledge. I do welcome your feedback in the comment section below if I missed out something.

Chapter 5 starts with Arjuna’s question as to “Between Sanyasa yoga and Karma yoga, which path is greater for me?” Sri Krishna Bhagavan replies that “both paths lead to supreme goal of Moksha (liberation). But Arjuna, Karma Yoga is superior for you.” Guruji gave an example of bird flying to top of the tree versus an ant reaching the top of the tree. One is faster, but the destination is the same. Guruji also quoted Sri Sankara’s commentary in which Sankara exclaims that only the fool think that paths and hence destinations are different.

Doing one’s duty without attachment/ownership over the result creates purifies the mind. Raga-Dvesha (attachment and aversion about the objects – things and beings) disappears from mind. One of the main goal of Karma yoga is purification of the mind. If doing your duty creates more jealousy, anger then you are doing it wrong. We need to have right attitude. We should perform all our actions offering the result to Brahman. We should abandon attachment to the results. A Yogi performs action with the knowledge that actions are done by mere senses and intellect using body as an instrument and it is done for the purification of mind.

When Yogi abandons his desires for action, controls his senses, he becomes self-realized and lives in his body as realized person. He enjoys swarga right here on earth while living. Just like sun rises to take away the darkness, this knowledge removes the ignorance that “I am the body” from a yogi’s mind which has become pure with practice of Karma yoga. Guruji also talked about meditation as the end of chapter five introduces to the topic of meditation and goes in details in chapter six.

On the last day, we were blessed with small satsang with Guruji where we had a chance to ask Guruji some questions. Here are our question and Guruji’s answers:

Question: One of the beautiful songs that stuck to my head after watching the movie On The Quest was “Guru Deva Tava, Mahaneeya Kripa”. Can Guruji please elaborate on how Guruji wrote that song?

Guruji’s Answer: This song came to me just like that. I was travelling in a car to Baroda, Gujarat and this song along with the tune came to me. This song became a very big hit now. Normally you write a song and then you compose the tune. Other times, you compose the tune and the write the song. But this song, both words and tune came all at once.

Question: Today’s kids get more exposure with all the electronic gadgets than before. What should a teacher or parent do to guide them to limit the use gadgets and time away from it?

Guruji’s Answer: I talked about it yesterday to kids too. Every device has its uses, limits and purpose. For example, playing cards can be used to perform magic, but it can be used for gambling too. When we use it for magic, it is harmless and fun. But when the same cards are used for gambling it becomes harmful. We have to explain this to kids.

Question: When we step out the door of Chinmaya Ganapathi, we get bound by family thoughts and duties. How do we consistently carry our spiritual calmness we get at satsang to outside world?

Guruji’s Answer: We need to keep practicing what we learned in Satsang. We need to put a lot of effort. Nothing is automatic like we learned in Karma Yoga. Once a disciple went to Pujya Gurudev and told him that he has read Bhagavad Gita 20 times. Gurudev asked him “You have gone through Bhagavad Gita 20 times, but did Bhagavad Gita go through you?” Like that it takes a lot of effort and practice to follow the teachings of vedas.  

-Prabu Rao