Karma Yoga: The Only Way to Get Through Any Storm Gracefully

Last updated on December 18th, 2023

Since my childhood, I have seen my mother reading Bhagavad Gita and talking about Karma Yoga. She still tells us to only focus on our actions honestly and leave rest of the things up to God. If you don’t know about it, I would like to mention that the secret of KARMA YOGA is taught by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita.

The principle of Karma Yoga states that ‘pick the right side, perform your duty, and don’t long for the fruits because you’ve no control over them. Karma Yoga also indirectly teaches you to have faith that if you do good, everything will be good to you in the long run even if doesn’t seem to be right now.

What is Karma Yoga

We all know about Karma Yoga described by Lord Krishna in Sri Bhagavad Gita. But if you don’t know, I am explaining it here.

Karma yoga means “yoga of action” which simply tells that your work is worship. You should do your work in the form of prayers. Whatever you do, do it with full devotion because you are destined for it. But do not attach yourself to its results.

Purpose of Karma Yoga

You have been appointed to fulfil your duties and to do it with all your efforts, your role ends here. Do not worry about its fruits and its results and don’t try to control its consequences. Leave it on to God/ universe.

And, even if you keep worrying, it is just useless. Because the Universe works in such a manner that the results of your actions cannot be controlled by your desires but only by the Supreme.

So, what is not in your control, is not worth giving a try either. It will only create unnecessary havoc.

Karma Yoga also tells good deeds always bring good results sooner or later. If your actions are good and not hurting others, you never need to worry about their consequences.

But if your actions or intentions are not good, you must have borne the bad consequences also, sooner or later.

In short, Karma Yoga focuses on performing actions without attaching yourself to them or worrying about their results.

About My Personal Experience

It would be unfair to you if I kept only lecturing on Karma Yoga and didn’t share my experience with you. My life has never been easy and so I always needed to try & follow this amazing principle. I would like to share my most recent experience in a nutshell.

It started in April 2022. I was lost and devastated, and it all led to losing my patience. One evening, I was crying and wondering what blunders of mine got me into this stuck situation. I wasn’t able to take any steps to come to get of out it because I hadn’t figured out anything till that date.

In anger and sadness, a big fight with my father led to the family breaking up. Since he was playing the victim, it was making me feel wrong. Though I knew my reasons were right, patriarchal society failed to understand our pain.

(It was not like he never loved us, it was more like he was brainwashed. Some bad decisions and trusting the wrong people turned him into a completely selfish person. He completely went neutral to us and ignored all his responsibilities.)

And our family broke. The house is divided into two portions. It shook my faith in Karma Yoga, in doing the right things. I, my mother, and my sister faced criticism, losing our rights, and whatnot. Krishna Bhagwan has said in Mahabharat if you remain silent on seeing wrong, you also become wrong. Therefore I wasn’t in the mood to keep silent.

No, I am not justifying my lost temper, not saying that I was right. I just knew that I was standing up for myself. I had guilt but I had to do it. Maybe because I wasn’t spiritual enough. If I were, I would have done things more gracefully without getting hurt and hurting him.

But this was also becoming very hard to keep Practicing Karma Yoga. Because I was just focusing on fighting against wrong and doing my karma, things kept getting worse. I will tell you later below how I ended up doing the right things in the wrong way. 

The Bad Things (The Practice Phase of Karma Yoga)

1. The first bad thing that happened was I lost my cool in anger. No matter what I shouldn’t have misbehaved with him. Though my reasons were right, I shouldn’t have spoken harsh words. We know that’s not a practical thing to do but anger makes us do horrible things we can’t even imagine doing in a normal state. and that’s why spirituality is important. It keeps purifying us and teaches us to control our senses. In good times, we don’t understand the importance of spirituality, but it’s only the good times when we can practice it so we become able to fight our bad times gracefully, keep our sanity, and follow the path of righteousness. 
2. After the family break up, we, 3 women, tried to move to a new city and we did too. Things went okay for one week, but some unexpected situations appeared and we had to come back to our house.
3. Things were getting worse & worse in July 2022, and I had to leave my room and adjust to my sister’s room which had no privacy either.
4. People started blaming only a woman as the culprit for the end of a marriage. Only a few understood that only the opposite was true.
5. Work-life was affected badly. I tried to grow my business on social media but couldn’t continue due to daily fights, lack of privacy, and daily new planning.
6. There are a lot of bad things that happened that I can’t share here. I, once pampered by the whole family, became the biggest villain.
7. I lost my confidence to start over because of no improvement in income.
8. I had no choice but to believe in Karma Yoga, so I continued doing my Karma despite facing a new struggle daily.

The Mid Phase of Practicing Karma Yoga

1. Till the end of July, we had seen innumerable worse things, changing faces, and much more. I had decided that I wouldn’t plan anything on my own. If I am right, I should choose faith & my Karma that the Universe will help me. Finally, August month, my birthday month came with some good news.
2. I decided to take my mother on a Vrindavan trip which was very relaxing for her.
3. We came to know suddenly that people still were in our support, but surprisingly we didn’t know about it earlier.
4. I found Vrindavan City where I can live for the rest of my life. God made me meet the people who came as angels in my life to show me that there will be less judgment freedom, and absolute safety.
5. My mother got the due respect for standing right for a longer time. Though I was suffering losses thanks to disturbance we are shifting to a better place where I can start even with zero. Moreover, we have savings which can last for 3 years easily.
6. And the best thing is my mom decided to start her career at 60. She is a woman with self-respect and she doesn’t want to remain dependent on her daughters after her savings ends. So she started her YouTube soon.
7. This made me trust Karma yoga. I no longer trust people, I trust only doing the right thing even if I see no results at the moment. People can come & leave but your right decisions, your Karma Yoga & faith in God will remain with you forever. 
8. But little did we know that there was a long road to travel. It was destined because we were making a mistake, the mistake that we became selfish while fighting against selfishness. The mistake was that I developed hate towards him. it was both love and hate. The universe wanted to teach us more. Consequently, after 3 months of shifting to Vrinavan, we again faced miseries and disasters.
9. We got the news from our hometown that my father was getting ill. At that time we didn’t know that his high diabetes had attacked his mind, all we knew was we had to go and take care of him. It seems very easy to say now but it meant going back to that hell and living with him again.
10. The struggle was much more than it seems now. He had kicked us out of his property, we were facing financial problems because in this chaos our work was suffering, the rent here and many other things. And this, just when we were trying to get our business out of loss, this new chaos.

The Final Phase, and Finding the Purpose of Life, and Good Things Came

1. Here, again came the test of practicing Karma Yoga which says doing your karma rightfully and leaving everything up to God. That night, we chose to crush and forget all our struggles and decided to go back to travel that uneasy and indefinite path. I didn’t know what would happen next, all I realized was that no one was there for us. Taking the name of God (Shri Hari), I came back to our town leaving everything in between.
2. It wasn’t easy for me because I hated him at that time and I had to ruin everything again because of his carelessness and his unhealthy lifestyle that deteriorated his health. My whole life turned into a joke that night. But, one thing that I knew I don’t have to leave the right path even if it seems very unpleasing. Even if I have to ruin myself I will go back and take care of him. And let me tell you, taking care of him wasn’t easy at all. It was a very unusual struggle. I chose to follow Karma Yoga which tells us to do the right thing and leave everything up to God. 
3. This went on for about 2-2.5 months. During that period, I took my father to Vrindavan, and sent him back, again trying to keep him with us. Nothing seemed to work. The mistake I made was that I hated him and said harsh words to him during his illness. I should have given it a thought that he would speak selfishly and say harsh words because it has been his nature for some time. But his words kept triggering me and made me lose my temper. But at the same time, I would worry like hell for him so this went on for 2 months. I was neither able to leave him nor to ruin myself completely and take care of him. It was very much complicated and none was able to find the solution.
4. We all know every phase has to come to an end so we got a solution and found a person who would take care of him. We hired him and assigned him duties. we found a sigh of some relief but I was yet to get the punishment for my mistakes that the Universe was planning to give me.
5. Here starts my punishment. I got it in the same manner as my father suffered without us. It started in October 2023. Since I told you that we were juggling between two places due to his illness. I came to my hometown in the last week of October. After 5-6 days, my punishment got started. Because I was the decision maker in everything, I was directly affected and received the consequences for my mistakes.
6. It started with a Dengue fever. I thought it was a normal fever so took paracetamol but it didn’t end and I developed itchiness very bad skin rashes so went to the doctor. She asked me to get admitted but the fever brought down. I was very anxious but escaped that time but new problems and punishment were awaiting me.
7. Let me tell you I have very bad health anxiety due to my past experiences. I developed a very unusual health issue after the fever which triggered my health anxiety like hell. I went to 3 doctors, and rushed to AIIMS India, they all said everything was okay but the problem gave me the same type and amount of anxiety that my father suffered a year ago.
8. I experienced fear of death, getting seriously ill, anxiety, and whatnot. I lost all my confidence in doing any work. My brain became my enemy. even though I am experiencing fear this time while recalling those experiences I have to tell you that no matter what you have to trust the path of the right Karma.
9. When my brain was playing tricks on me, I decided to divert it with the help of spirituality. I realized too many things and my heart finally forgave my father as well as my mistakes. I was in so much pain that I decided to get rid of malice with some people I was having in my heart. I wrote 3 gratitude letters. 
10. I again went to Max Hospital Delhi, and there was again a panic attack on me due to a false positive report. Now, that all the reports are normal now (by God’s grace), I somehow have gained the courage to get back to work and update this article. 
11. And the most important thing is that I found the purpose of my life out of this pain. I exactly know what I have to do with my life. I asked Mummy to reshift our hometown and because my father is again a loving person and mentally stable, he is ready to give me some portion of his land to me. I am ready to build something on it which would heal people both physically and mentally.
12. I am sharing it in detail because I want to let you assure even if you have made some mistakes in past, things would turn out beautiful out of pain also. Because I chose to follow Karma Yoga and left everything up to God, He gave me the purpose of my life. Though He punished me because I made mistakes, He took the evil out of me through this punishment.
13. If you have managed to read the article so far, I encourage you to follow Karma Yoga and the rest of the things will follow you automatically. Even your pain will give you purpose and you will come out a pure soul.

How to Do Karma Yoga

I answered it on Quora about 4 years ago. In Gita. Arjun’s mind was occupied with negative energy at the time of Mahabharata.

Despite being the best archer of his time, why was he surrounded by negativity?

Answer: Because he didn’t understand how to do Karma Yoga.

How could he turn his negativity into actions?

Answer: After receiving the Gita Gyan (knowledge) from Lord Krishna who has taught us Karma Yoga.

The satrue me is with us. Whenever we are negative, we forget some absolute truths, facts & predetermined rules of the Universe. Thus we continue to suffer.

And it happens because our brain is in panicking mode.

What are those predetermined rules that come along with Karma Yoga?

Well, you already know them but you forget when you need them most. So, train your mind the way that when adverse situations trigger your mind to think, your brain may automatically retrieve those facts and rules.

You can do this by identifying the root cause of your problem.

1. If you are failing to practice Karma Yoga because you are trying hard and not getting results, you forget the rule which says hard work always pays off. Remember Universe has set this for everyone. And nobody can change it. If you work hard enough, you are going the reap fruits too. So why worry? Yes, but sometimes, you probably need to change your ways to accomplish your goals.
2. If you lose focus on doing your karma because everyone is moving ahead in life except you, you are forgetting the absolute truth that nothing is permanent. You are not going to stay here forever. But still, if you are stuck, it’s possibly because the best things take time. Life might be teaching you not to settle down with just ‘good’ but to wait for the ‘best’. It probably wants you to learn ‘patience’.
3. If are not able to do your Karma Yoga because everyone left you & nobody is going to love you ever, you forget the absolute truth that God never leaves you alone. Believe it or not, He is not blind to your sorrows. He will bring justice to your life and make you meet the person who is made for you only- but at the right time.
4. If you are stuck in negative thinking about this Karma principle because life did not bless you with certain things, remember other blessings of yours. You have been gifted with the qualities others don’t have. You just need to find them out and work on them to excellence.
5. If you have lost your money in a business. Remember that you are born with a fighting spirit. This spirit will help you come out of your mess.
6. If You are thinking ‘Why,’ you are forgetting that only warriors can withstand the storm.
7. Next time when you fail to practice Karma Yoga don’t fight with your thoughts. Instead, remind yourself that the rules of the Universe are the same for everyone. If you are right at your place, things must change and work in your favour. And this is the definite truth. It is as true as the fact that at Sun Rises in the east. So why worry?
8. If you are looking for some more practical ways to fight negative thinking, this article might interest you:

A Healing Technique

Karma yoga is the most powerful healing technique in the world. It frees your soul from the burden of the fruits of karma. It helps you to address and resolve the Karmic issues attached to the soul.

Karma Yoga says that inaction is also a form of action with consequences and karmic impact, and the nature of human existence is such that we are always performing actions such as eating food, sleeping, tbathsg bath, etc. So, we can never go in non-acting mode.

Karma Yoga teaches you how to perform actions without disturbing yourself. It awakens your soul and your thoughts become powerful with heightened awareness. You know the purpose of your existand ence, your duties to your society, family and the Universe.

You come to know what your ultimate goal is. This makes you free of all burdens. In short, you work but you free yourself from attachments.

For depression & other mental disorders

• For people who are suffering from schizophrenia, it enlightens the way. It teaches how to acknowledge their souls and their Kama, and neutralize the bad effects of it through Karma Healing.
• If a person is going through anxiety, it calms the mind which has been aggravated due to some effects of Karma.
• If a person is going through depression, he/she occasionally feels an unknown kind of fear. It helps in removing negative emotions, traumatic experiences, and fears from the soul
• Improves mental health like Yoga does by stabilising your emotions (1).
• You remain focused and you develop the ability to take direct decisions.
• You find yourself able to release the suppressed grief/ sadness from your soul.
• It makes you a more sensible, compassionate and a more loving person. So, you improve the bonding and relationship with your family.
• Counters the bad effects of deeds by the ancestors or of previous births.

You can know more about it by reading Bhagavad Gita. If you do not have one, you can go to the market and can purchase it, It’s available in every language.

And, you can also purchase it online.

You may also like,

• 40 positive things to say to yourself daily
• Healthy habits to improve mental health
• How to get peace of mind
• Chant these life mantras daily
• Meditation guide for beginners
• How to control your anger
• X-ray of thoughts
• Lost your peace of mind? Figure out why you are not happy
• Self-acceptance: what it means & how to achieve it
• 3stress-busterer activities to help you get mental happiness
• Learn to ignore things & be happy

If you liked the article, share it with someone you care about and want to see happy!