The Essence of Enlightenment: Vedanta, The Science of Consciousness by James Swartz

Author:James Swartz [Swartz, James]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781591812838
Publisher: Sentient Publications
Published: 2015-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

Work Is Worship

So far we have explained the logic of karma yoga. But logic is only the beginning. Before we give karma yoga some teeth it is helpful to examine a recent misleading yoga notion. It is natural to think that different yogas are intended for different personality types. This idea was introduced about one hundred years ago by Swami Vivekananda, who could be said to be the father of “New” Vedanta or “Modern” Vedanta, the precursor to Neo-Advaita, the most popular iteration—dare I say corruption—of traditional Vedanta today. This fallacy is called the multi-path confusion and reveals a basic misunderstanding about the nature of the self. It arose about the time of Freud, hence its peculiar psychological bent.

To think that Vedanta and yoga should adapt to the times is a mistake because people are fundamentally no different today from what they ever were: awareness plus three bodies. Vedanta addresses the core person, the universal person, not the conditioned person. Yes we have iPads and enjoy jet travel and live in complex societies but as the poet says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” A human being is a human being. To add or subtract from the core logic or twist the teachings to make them fit with the experience of a specific human being or to conform to the times is not helpful.

The multi-path confusion claims that karma yoga is for active types, devotional yoga—popularly known as the path of love—is prescribed for devotional types and knowledge yoga is suggested for intellectual types. This “teaching” is patently absurd because every individual has an ego, emotions and an intellect. So to practice one yoga at the expense of the others only increases the structural distortion of the Subtle Body. All the centers should be harmoniously developed in tandem, yoked behind a single idea: I am whole and complete, ordinary, nondual, actionless awareness. Additionally, when you understand the nature of reality you cannot distinguish between love, action and knowledge. Unfortunately, people identify with different aspects of the Subtle Body and develop limited identities based on the kind of activities their ignorance causes them to favor.

Karma yoga also is devotional yoga. It is simply love for one’s self in the form of the creation. The love you have for life is not self-created. It is not “your” love. It is consciousness, which is love, loving in you and through you as you. In the case of karma yoga, the self, under the spell of Maya, thinks it is a person with love—which is just willing attention—to invest in objects, and because this does not work, the attention it invests in life in the form of action needs to be offered back to the creation in the same spirit in which it was given—to complete the cosmic cycle.

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