Sunday, February 4, 2018

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Click for PDF of Quotes & Notes from this talk

February is a month for study of Karma Yoga, a spiritual path leading to the abandonment of selfishness, and freedom form worry and care. As a karma yogi, you practice offering all your thoughts, actions, and perceptions to the Divine Presence.

Even before fully knowing this Presence, you hold firmly to the belief that the Presence is within each person or other living being that you interact with or serve. Working and abiding in this spirit, you are increasingly able to release attachment to your activities and their results. This yields the freedom promised by Karma Yoga.

In Chapter 13 of Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna tells his friend and disciple Arjuna:

“This body is called the Field, because a man sows seeds of action in it, and reaps their fruits. Wise men say the Knower of the Field is he who watches what takes place within this body.

Recognize me as the Knower of the Field in every body. I regard discrimination between the Field and the Knower as the highest kind of knowledge.”

Karma means action. Here, Sri Krishna defines the knowledge we must find within ourselves, to succeed as a karma yogi.

In this talk we explore and discuss the Field and its Knower (Chapter 13). This can help us understand why, in Chapter 3, Sri Krishna makes this tremendous, reassuring promise: “Even a little practice of this (karma) yoga will save you form the terrible wheel of rebirth and death …”