KARMA YOGA 12

The world is whirling on the Wheel of Work. Relentless is the progression of karma, individual and collective forces resolving to carve out the pathway, the career of the soul. Intricate is the motion, endless the meanderings and subtle the interactions that fuel the machinery whose web is the cosmic dream. Once sucked in to this wheel, there is for aeons no escape from the trans-migratory cycle of birth and death, life and re-life. But if there is a way in to this wheel, there must be a way out as well. And the science of Karma Yoga has discovered the way. It is to work one's way to the centre of the wheel where there is no rotation, no motion, only absolute stillness. One must work one's way in and this implies that karma must be performed to overcome karmic bonds and that karma may never be given up before liberation, as such abstinence from work will forge fresh karmic bonds which will force the soul outwards on to the outer fringes of the mighty karmic wheel.

There are two forces: 1. the inward force of the aspirant's will pulling the soul inwards towards the centre of the Wheel of Karma. 2. the force of Nature pushing the soul outwards towards the fringes of the Wheel of Karma. This is a simplified model of karma used to illustrate the karmic tendencies. The real picture is so complex, so profound that only the equations of mathematical physics may, perhaps, ever draw an approximate model of the real state of things and that also up to a level of refinement where human understanding may reach beyond which the laws of mathematics and physics will fail to accurately depict the state of things as relativity becomes too subtle for description. However, in the simplified model we may assume these two forces are holding the struggling soul in a tug-of-war where the resolution determines the soul's direction of motion, inwards or outwards with respect to the centre of the Wheel of Karma. These two tendencies in classical Indian parlance are called 'nivritti' and 'pravritti'. 'Nivritti' is the inward phase of radial dynamism, that is, the contracting circle of karma and 'pravritti' is the outward phase of radial dynamism, that is, the expanding circle of karma. These two opposite tendencies by their constant resolutions buffet the soul till it consciously starts controlling its karmic motions. And therein begins karma yoga.