KARMA YOGA 13

Attachment and detachment---these are the two modes in which we may work. Each one of us has a fund of universal energy backing him up. It is this energy that empowers us to work and it is this very energy that attaches us to the work we do by concentrating us on it without giving us the vision whereby we may perform it free of expectation. As we concentrate on the task at hand we so enter into its field that we are trapped in its vibrations and it holds us ' to grace in captive bonds its chariot wheels '. Our nerves are saturated with the vibrations of the work and we can barely shake them off. Such is the lot of us held in the captivity of work and its inevitable fruits with no room for respite even for a moment, our lives dragged along by the resolutions of our past and present Karma into the abyss of an uncertain future. Our ambitions are fuelled by desire, our aspirations tainted by delusive dreams, our objectives and goals defined by erroneous perception of the world and its true nature. This is the fluid foundation of our work, the quicksand basis on which we attempt to build the edifice of our vain imaginings, the finite means from which we hope to achieve our endless ends. And inevitable is the failure that follows these ephemeral dreams casting us into the abyss of frustrated fury or a restless resignation which is far from a settled peacefulness of the mind. We suffer and we know not the cause, that is the lot of the majority of us. That attachment is the evil that besets us is unknown to the multitude and the few that are aware of its noxious influence can scarcely cast it away by discrimination and will-force so enfeebled have they become by their loss of independence owing to this dreadful virus that plagues the minds of men. Out of the vast populace then steps forth the man of wisdom, the mystic, the man with a mission, the Karma Yogi who shall cast his life in a fresher mould, cut the bonds of Karma with the understanding that stems from virtue and a purity of purpose and living and set the balance of Karma right to arrive at the golden mean of realization. Blessed, blessed indeed is such a man, the living-free soul, the Jeevanmukta. His Karma is at an end and he stands liberated beholding the cosmic phenomena as a fantastic tale of no consequence and witnessing in mute wonder the magic of Maya that so enthralls the mass of mankind, mesmerized even as they are.