Why is Getting Karma Yoga so Difficult?
Dear James,
I’m really having trouble with karma yoga. The knowledge of Vedanta I get. It’s simple but I’m really having trouble with karma yoga after all these years. Will you please explain why? I’m sorry to bother you because I know you’ve explained it before but please, just one more time. 🙂
James: Karma Yoga is a series of logical bits of common-sense knowledge strung together that should lead a person to accept it. But during the sequence, the ego resists. It is that “part” of you that is meant to question things. It wants to know why. So it is good. At the same time, it can fall in love with its doubts. So, when it is listening to the teaching, it senses that it is going to have to change in some way. It doesn’t think that change is necessarily good. It is that “part” of the self that loves FOMO, fear of missing out. It needs to cultivate JOMO, the joy of missing out. Anyway, if it’s negativity is at work it distracts the person. It generates an important memory so one’s attention goes to the memory and they miss one or more steps in the logical sequence. This provides the ego with an opportunity to not accept the conclusion, which isn’t good for it. The idea is to get the ego doing its doings (assuming they conform to dharma) in the Karma Yoga spirit. It’s all about the spirit first and foremost.
This is why we emphasize the discipline of mind control. You shouldn’t let the mind be distracted by an erroneous notion when you are listening. You should force it to listen to the teaching. This is why you should review the teaching many times. I just got an email from a person who attended the recent seminar at Mundo Sundaram who said, “I have just started listening to the recordings – sorry to say that there is a lot I missed even attending in person! Oh well.” This person is doing it right. Ignorance is persistent. You have to be committed to killing it. It takes a lot of discipline.
