Is karma yoga practical when even the people for whom we sacrifice consider it insane?

From Sunil Goel

can you please explain the essence/importance/relativity of  NISKAM KARMYOG in this material world where it is treated no more than INSANITY, even by those to whom you do the favour by sacrificing your own self – interests. in that case, how it will be better than fulfilling your own desires and making him a loser instead…..

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Questions from Sunil Goyal. Is Karma Yoga practical? Can you please explain the importance, essence, relativity of Karma Yoga in the material world when it is treated no more than insanity, even by those to whom you do favor by sacrificing your own self-interest? In that case, how is it better than fulfilling one’s own desires and making the other person a loser? Answer, the essence of Karma Yoga is not to make oneself a loser, but it is to not lose sight of one’s spiritual progress while pursuing one’s material duties.
So, if one misunderstands Karma Yoga and thinks that one should let oneself be exploited by others or trampled upon by others, then that is actually a misunderstanding of Karma Yoga. We see that, if we look at the Mahabharata or we look at Arjuna, Arjuna did not allow himself to be trampled by the Kauravas. He fought against them.
So, was it not, would it have been better for him to sacrifice his interests? He would not have been doing Karma Yoga. He would have been doing, as Krishna pointed out, vikarma. And Krishna said this will lead to disruption in society.
So, the essence of Karma Yoga is the yoga part. How to make our karma into a yoga? So, yoga means keeping the spiritual goal in mind and focusing on that spiritual goal. And actually, a more developed form of Karma Yoga is Bhakti Yoga, where we just don’t have, in Karma Yoga often, the yoga, yoga means connection and connection with whom? Connection with the spiritual truth.
So, what is that spiritual truth is often not very easily known. But when one comes to Bhakti Yoga, one understands that that ultimate spiritual truth is Krishna and one surrenders to, one offers the fruits of one’s work to Krishna. So, if one is offering the fruits of one’s work to Krishna, that means one is endeavouring to get the fruits.
When Bhagavata says we are not attached to the fruits, that doesn’t mean that we don’t care for the fruits. It means that we don’t care for the fruits for our own sake. But we definitely care for the fruits for Krishna’s sake.
And we want to offer the best to Krishna. So, there’s no question of we letting others exploit us in the name of Karma Yoga. When, for example, some people would try to steal Krishna’s property and Prabhupada was in Juhu and the owner tried to defraud the devotees, took the money and not give the land also.
So, then Prabhupada fought. So, he was not, he didn’t allow himself to be exploited in the name of Karma Yoga. So, Karma Yoga essentially means that we don’t let just the Karma part completely occupy our consciousness and forget the Yoga part.
And the best way to apply the Yoga part in today’s social context is to get a proper understanding of Krishna and to work for his pleasure, to work to offer him the things of this world according to our capacity and resources. And how that can be done will vary from time, place, circumstance. So, certainly, if we start thinking that I should be completely apathetic towards the results of my work and if somebody else, say, if I write a research paper and then this Karma Yoga means that somebody else takes the paper, plagiarizes and publishes in that person’s name and I think no, that is not Karma Yoga.
If I am doing a particular research, then the way I do Karma Yoga is that I do it well and whatever results, if my hard work is producing, I accept the results, but don’t accept it for my own egoistic gratification, but use them for Krishna’s service, for Krishna’s glorification. Just as Maharaja Yudhishthira performed the Rajasuya Yajna and then used the position and power that he had got from the Rajasuya Yajna to glorify Krishna as the topmost person in the whole universe. So, we should do our work well and when we do the work well and we get the results, it is not that we just toss away the results, but then whatever credit and glory we get from the results, we say that what makes you tick? It’s actually my Krishna connection.
It’s my Krishna consciousness. It’s my understanding of the Bhagavad Gita. It’s my chanting Hare Krishna and in that way, we offer the glory of what we are doing to Krishna.
So, that is Karma Yoga and is letting the other person become a loser and pursuing one’s own interests better than Karma Yoga? No, no, no, because that would become not just Karma Karna, that may even become V-Karma. It depends on what the situation is and how we are pursuing our interests. But the important point is, it’s not that our material interests have to be just neglected and trashed away in the name of practicing Karma Yoga.
So, one has to clearly understand how to practice Karma Yoga. That means to do our material duties in such a way that they are in harmony with the spiritual purpose of life. That our Karma enables us to do Yoga with Krishna.
That is Karma Yoga. Thank you.