Karma Yoga and Awakening Service: Modern Approaches to an Ancient Practice

Keywords: hinduism, global crises, karma yoga, service, spirituality

Continuous unbroken practice is widely regarded across the world’s contemplative traditions as essential for rapid progress and advanced development. The challenge is therefore how to use daily activities as part of one’s practice. The answer is given systematically in Hinduism’s discipline of karma yoga: the yoga of work and action in the world. However, traditional instructions are somewhat vague and are not specifically oriented towards service. This article therefore offers a more detailed and precise ten step program by which all activities can be used for both contemplative practice and service, and thereby become a practice that can be called awakening service‖ . Our contemporary global crises are then examined and recognized as global symptoms: symptoms of, in part, our individual and collective psychological immaturities and pathologies. Addressing these crises effectively will therefore require addressing both the external problems—such as nuclear weapons and ecological destruction—as well as their psychological and cultural roots. Karma yoga and awakening service

Roger Walsh                                                                           The Author is professor of psychiatry, philosophy and anthropology at the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. University of California Irvine College of Medicine. Irvine, CA and Distinguished Research Professor at SRISIIM Email: rwalsh@uci.edu