Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga is about altering our attitude towards work in such a manner that all our actions start leading us to God. Whether we earn for our family, engage in non-profit organizations, or are a homemaker, Karma Yoga teaches us how to gain spiritual advancement from every action. And the procedure to concurrently get in touch with divinity while working is simple: we have to give up our affection to profits or favorable results. … For believers in the laws of karma, attachment to results is worth being sacrificed as we do not have any control over the results of our actions anyway—only God does.

Whenever we are placed in a set of circumstances, we only have the freedom to make a decision and perform an action, but we do not enjoy the right to its results (2: 47). While God gives us fruits according to our own actions of the past, he expects us not to get involved in or attached to the results so that we can reach the spiritual plane where actions do not cause binding to the world anymore. Surrendering or leaving the outcome of our actions to God by not being attached to the outcome is termed as Karma Yoga.

Excerpted from Devotional Hinduism by M.S. Goel (2008), p. 9.