39 - Characteristics of a Karma-Yogi | Swami Tattwamayananda

-4th chapter: verses 20, 21, 22, 23, 24<br />The lecture was given by Swami Tattwamayananda on May 29, 2020.<br />-A karma-yogi is free from kama (desires) and sankalpa (mental worry about results). He is also free from the sense of doer-ship and enjoyer-ship. He may have a high spiritual ideal as goal, he may work with total efficiency, but he works non-attached. His body and mind are always under control, and he is not affected by the success or failure of his actions.<br />-Karma Yoga helps us work with a sense of total relaxation. It allows us to work with more focus and concentration, and thereby achieve better results. Work done as karma-yoga, purifies our chittam, and takes us a step forward in fulfilling our spiritual goal of lasting inner contentment.<br />-For a karma-yogi, work becomes play, and work becomes an experience of relaxation. To achieve this state, one has to give up desires. One should start by first developing higher, noble desires – it helps open up the spiritual path. Once desires are promoted, in the next stage, one can go beyond desires.<br />-A karma-yogi is always working, but always contented. A lazy man who claims contentment is a hypocrite. Epoch makers - Buddha, Shankaracharya, Sri Ramakrishna, Jesus Christ, Vivekananda – were always active and worked for the good of others.<br />-22nd verse: “Such a karma-yogi is always content with whatever comes to him; he is unaffected by pain/pleasure, good/bad, misery/joy, profit/loss; he is free from envy; he is unperturbed in success or failure; he is always active, but free from bondage.”<br />-Shankaracharya discusses the characteristics of a spiritually enlightened person in second chapter. These characteristics constitute the road by which we should travel to reach the goal that the enlightened person has reached.<br />-One should read scriptures that provide a picture of such enlightened Yogis, and their characteristics. Then one should try to develop the same qualities.<br />-The real test of spiritual values happens in secular cont