Lately this title has been my mantra. As a yoga teacher I have had fear of causing catastrophic disharmony to many people who show up in my classes. People just like me who have many likes and dislikes. And God forbids that it should turn out they don't like me! So, I try to live responsibly. At the least I know I have done my best and there is no regret. Fortunately, yoga has laid out a path for a practitioner like me to follow. Specifically, the teaching of Bhagavad Gita gives you the answer to how to live your life responsibly. It is the path of karma yoga.
Responsible living is not only about doing your best but doing it with no personal interest and expect no personal gain. Karma yoga takes the concept of service to the greatest height. The practice of karma yoga may sound daunting but a deeper contemplation would result in the realization that it is simply the most effective way to live. What freedom and joy it is to be doing for the sake of doing. When you are genuinely curious and deeply interested in what you do, you do it impeccably. You simply savor the journey no matter where it takes you. On the other hand, what a drag it is to be dreading an imperfect result or anxiously hope for a perfect outcome. Your energy is dispersed in to the past and future. You fail to show up because you are too busy worrying about where you came from and what destination you will be arriving.
What prevents you from enjoying your journey is your own limiting beliefs. You feel ill at ease when you limit yourself to who you think you are- wife, husband, teacher, student, Asian, American, addict, famous, ordinary, beautiful, ugly, fat, skinny, intelligent, stupid, etc. Your story and other people's stories that have been feeding you are extremely convincing. But the more you limit yourself to what you are, the more you need fulfillment for what you are not. You convince yourself that you need him or her, a great career, a house, a vacation, children, pets, cup cakes, yoga classes, yoga teachers, whatever, to fill you up. Yet, after acquiring or experiencing them you still feel empty.
In journey to Ixtlan, Carlos Castaneda wrote about loosing self importance. When you feel ill at ease because of guilt, shame, anger, jealousy, etc., you are placing yourself above the rest. You are seeing and feeling from your own personal perspective. They are limited by your personal story. Can you tell yourself that who you think you are is not important; that you are not the center of attention? Not being enough or spiritually fulfilled produces an ongoing internal anxiety which at best creates discontentment and at worst a psychopath. You simply treat yourself and others (living or non-living) as "things". Yoga teaches that peace and happiness can only be found inside. No thing can give a permanent satisfaction because nothing is permanent.
Karma yoga teaches that all thing is divine and when you serve others you serve your highest self. When I get stressed out about teaching I tell myself that all I need to do is to show up and breath. And trust that my personal practice would see me through and serve others well. Whatever I experience in a class is a gift. Whatever the participants in the class experience is also a gift. Do I still get nervous? Sure. But the practice of karma yoga continues to strengthen my faith and fill me up with joy. Through living responsibly and taking nothing personally you orient yourself from the macrocosmic perspective. Your action has its cause and effect that ripples through the universe. The more you take the responsibility of your own action for the good of others the more it reflects back to you.
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