“Let’s talk about Karma Yoga, as promised, specifically what distinguishes it from Kundalini Tantra Yoga.”
What do you think distinguishes them?
“I have no idea. I didn’t even know their names till you mentioned them.”
What if I told you the only obvious thing they share is our talking about them?
“I’d say they probably share more than that.”
My introduction to Karma Yoga came three years into an anxiety-eradication effort.
Somewhere, or manywheres, someone(s) wrote: most anxiety reduces to narcissism. Not the disorder that brings megalomania, but rather the workaday, natural tendency we all have to fret when we imagine ourselves through others’ eyes.
A search for some direct path away from myself brought me to Swami Vivekananda’s lovely Karma Yoga: The Yoga of action (art of living), a book published about a century and a quarter ago that somehow reads contemporary.
Somewhere in Swami Vivekananda’s words, and perhaps exactly in his words, came a durable thought that goes: Work without expectation of reward.
It’s a generous, selfless thought. It helps one approach the euphoria of vocation, a thing that is never not-wonderful to behold in others.
“Do you experience this?”
In myself, only in rare, rare moments. But in others with some frequency.
“Not at work?”
Not at my work, no. But at others’ work, specifically the work of Catholic nuns at the Interfaith Welcome Coalition.
There is a tireless quality to their service. It is what a calling looks like.
“And there’s no anxiety?”
There is less anxiety.