#212 How the identity of a Karma Yogi frees you from identities
As I sat with the 65 year old woman K who was a Vedanta student, her maid passed by and curtly said that she was leaving for the day. Seeing the look of disgust on her face after the door slammed shut, I asked, ‘What happened’? K exclaimed and explained– Maids these days! She is a new maid as the others have gone on leave. After she had done the dishes, I just asked her to wash the toilet. Look at her audacity. She said – Hum baaki ka kaam kar lete hain lekin aise kaam nahi karte, meaning, We do other kinds of work but we don’t do this kind of work. She is a maid, right? She should do all kinds of work’
I said – Looks like her idea of being a maid and the tasks that it involves does not fit your idea of a maid’s tasks. Hmmm…She became thoughtful and we continued speaking about other things.
You see, the tasks and activities we undertake are related to our identities, who we think we are.
Another person was dreading the time when her sister in law to come and live with the family. She told me – I am willing to do anything for my husband and his parents. But I cannot be expected to spend time with my sister in law. When her husband commented, ‘By the act of marriage you are related to everyone in my family, not just me so find a way to accommodate her’. But her relational identities included only herself as a wife and a daughter in law and not as a sister in law.
We have a strong binding like for certain identities and not others that might be there as a result of design or default.
Many conflicts arise because we don’t fully embrace our identities or we don’t fully see the likely tasks that the identity entails.
Our identities determine our actions and hence determine our choices.
Which is the identity that one is most close to?
If I say work professional, then I thrive on the identity of getting things done and working with the team. Since my professional identity is very dear to me, I am willing to learn new skills and upping my game. My willingness to go that extra mile is because it is a part of my identity.
Depending on actions associated with identities, our identities expand and contract as well.
If I find other additional tasks required of me in other roles, which I am not particularly fond of, I hesitate and sometimes outright refuse to do it. For example, when a lot of men who were used to the provider role by working outside home, started to work from home, their identities underwent a shift. Earlier, ‘I work outside the home. The wife works at home – this equation worked just fine.’ From ‘I don’t do this kind of work around the house’ to ‘I can assist in household chores’, a lot of men’s ideas of being a husband expanded to include other tasks as well.
Our repetitive actions shape and form our identities.
A newly married couple whose marriage was arranged by families and who had just a few meetings before marriage are learning to embrace the new identity of being partners. Doing things for each other, visiting temples together and seeking blessings as a couple from devatas and elders, calling each other, being intimate with each other etc repeated over a period of time strengthens the identity of being a couple. And to think of it, 6 weeks before their marriage they were complete strangers and identified as being single, ready to mingle. Their repetitive actions of doing things together and also appearing in different functions and occasions as a unit, strengthens their identities.
The play of actions feeding into an identity and identity extending to certain actions, goes on.
Experts on habit formation suggest that rather than just focusing on a repetitive task, let’s say waking up at 5 am daily and then pressing snooze almost every day and then berating oneself for lack of discipline, it is more effective to strengthen one’s identity of being a disciplined person who wakes up at 5 am. And so what does a disciplined person do about managing time? Wakes up most mornings to get things done and sleeps early in the night. Because of our need for consistency about our own identity, I will persist with waking up early rather than give up because a disciplined and persevering person does not give up.
While all identities have fulfillment and frustrations, the identity of a Karma Yogi is an all- encompassing one. The benefits of having the identity of being a Karma Yogi are –
Moksha is recognized as my ultimate goal while fulfilling other life priorities. As a bhakta, I am ever connected to Ishvara. My effort is to offer all my karma unto Ishvara and try to have a gracious acceptance even before the results of karma. Sure I am a work professional and a parent, and a son/daughter and a friend and a colleague and so on..But I am a bhakta, a devotee first and hence I become a devotee work professional, devotee parent, devotee son/daughter etc. All the time I am relating to Ishvara through all other roles.
As a Karma Yogi I see these identities as relational shaped by the law of karma and am willing to do what it takes in those identities to fulfill my responsibilities. Even my roles are prasada. ‘I get to relate to’ all these people rather than ‘having to’, by force.
Whereas earlier, hesitation and reluctance stemming from ragas and dveshas determined what I do or not do, like in the examples above, now I am objective. I try to rise above my identities and focus more on what needs to be done. This does not mean that I only become task centred and to hell with people. It means that I see the identities as more fluid rather than entrenched and am willing to add or chop the list of tasks different roles require.
As a Karma Yogi and a Vedanta student, I make the time to attend classes during the week, listen to the podcast, attend biannual Vedanta camps, have discussions with my peers, do the allied prescribed sadhanas, schedule one-one sessions with the guru occasionally, seek to clarify my understanding and so on. Attending Vedanta class or doing the sadhana of Shravanam is not just a weekly task for the busy work professional or the stressed out mother of two children. If Vedanta class is looked upon as a task, with other identities being primary, the first thing that goes out of the schedule when things get busy is you know what?
As a Karma Yogi, I look upon the pursuits of Dharma, Artha and Kaama not as goals in themselves but as a means to the goal, the goal being antah-karana shuddhi and antah-karana- naischalyam (freedom from raga-dveshas and steadiness of the mind) in preparation to assimilate the vision
As a Karma Yogi I work on learning to be in harmony with Ishvara Srishti, by coming to terms with people, situations and myself. This is not left to chance or one fine day, 20 years later when one seemingly has more time.
As a Karma Yogi, I am the doer and the experiencer of karmas and situations across all identities. Karma is possible due to Ishvara’s grace as Karmadhyaksha and karma phala equally is possible due to Ishvara’s grace him being Karma phala daata.
It is the inclusive identity of Karma Yogi across all roles, who can enquire into the reality of the person, obsessing over different identities.
With growing understanding, I see myself as I-consciousness that is more than the body-mind. I am more than the different situations and experiences.
Unlike other role identities which may lead to more entrenchment, rigidity and frustration born of exclusivity, the identity of a Karma Yogi frees you from stress and frustration.
As a Karma Yogi, one can appreciate the cosmic order as Bhagavan, pervading all laws of nature and hence one drops resistance to it. Can I really complain that fire burns if I put my finger in it or people including me do a lot of things out of insecurity? I see that it is the nature of fire to burn and human beings do things out of insecurity because they think they are limited due to ignorance.
As a Karma Yogi, I can hold the identities of the doer and experiencer lightly
As a Karma Yogi, the one whose goal is moksha, I am the seeker of the reality which reveals that I was never bound.
Vedanta is 24×7. Not in the sense of being alert and stressed but situations looked upon as opportunities to practice Karma yoga across all identities. In so doing, one stumbles over one’s ragas, is blinded by one’s dveshas but plods on, nevertheless.
And so, having seen the benefits of being a Karma Yogi let me say that it is at once both an easy and difficult identity to navigate.
It is easy because of the growing devotion that one has as well as insights into the Atma that one is.
It may appear difficult if one tries to bypass this phase and only dwell in the Consciousness that one is. How then does one interact in the world? What might the norms be?
We develop our paatrata, our eligibility for the knowledge. In the 1960s a young bachelor had moved to the city and was living on rent in an apartment complex. He had seen his mother prepare tandoori naan on a stove with burning coals and so he knocked on the neighbour’s door asking for burning coal. The neighbour said – Sure. I can give it to you. Please bring me something to hold. The bachelor returns to his room and looks around. He finds a newspaper and takes it to the neighbour. She looks at him quizzically and waiting to watch the fun, picks up some firecoals with her tongs and puts it on the newspaper. He rushes back to his room and as you can well visualize, there is no newspaper and he almost escaped stamping on the red hot coals himself. He asked for something but was not ready to receive it. The same thing applies to the knowledge of Vedanta.
We want the wisdom but sometimes we are not adequately ready for it. Neither has Karma Yoga become spontaneous for me nor is the vision of the Atma as everything become clear for me. Then what to do? We always go back to basics.
Karma yoga is both the disposition as well as the lifestyle. The Karma Yogi identity can truly be the one where you see that you were always free from all identities.
