Brahmrishi Vishvatma Bawra - Yoga in Action

The Vedas are an ancient compilation of universal truth and wisdom. The knowledge in the Vedas focuses on four subject areas, which correspond to four aspects of human life. The first three are related with the head, heart, and hands. Head indicates wisdom, heart represents love, and hands refer to action. The fourth focus is absolute truth, the supreme source of all.

A primary philosophical question is: Why do humans suffer? The Vedas answer: We suffer because we believe we will find happiness in worldly pleasures. We think our happiness depends on transitory situations, people and things. Every circumstance, relationship and possession is temporary. Everything found in human life has a beginning and an end. When these transitory means do not meet our expectations or, worse, when they satisfy us for a while but then change or cease to be, we suffer. The Vedas offer a scientific method to free us from our suffering and lead us toward lasting bliss. The teachings on absolute truth point us toward eternal happiness. Absolute truth is the source of life. Many names have been given to this source, but it remains one, absolute, infinite truth. If we are not aware of this supreme source then we use our head, heart, and hands to pursue transitory objects. But if we are aware of this unchanging, absolute level of existence, and we learn how to act in the world while aiming toward oneness with truth, then we move toward eternal happiness and peace.

Most often, we direct our wisdom, love, and action toward worldly objects, without thinking of absolute truth. When we do this, our love is associated with people and objects; it is temporary and cycles in and out of existence. When a person or object no longer satisfies us, we suffer because our love is lost, and we desire a replacement. This cycle of desire, action, attainment, and loss is endless.

W e act in every moment of life, but we are often unaware of what motivates our actions and we do not understand the consequences of our behavior. Our actions can drag us toward suffering or lift us toward supreme truth. Action or movement is inherent in nature and we cannot live a single moment without it. Our lives are made up of a series of actions: we breathe, we talk, we think, we sleep, we move. Even the decision to resist action is an action. Our choice is whether to act in order to feed the body and senses in a cycle of desire and loss, or to strive toward the highest good of eternal peace and happiness. We have all the means for action: intellect, ego, mind, senses, and body. Nature bestows these tools, which are necessary for experiencing the world and for achieving infinite wisdom and bliss. How we use these instruments depends on our understanding of reality, our motivation for action and our effort. When we are ignorant of truth and our actions are motivated by the external environment, we experience excitement and frustration, desire and fear, temporary pleasure and ultimate suffering in a cycle that spirals downward. But when our actions are inspired by an inner demand for infinite wisdom, we uplift ourselves toward eternal peace. The science of action presented in the Vedas teaches us how to use our human abilities to gain absolute truth.

When we disregard the divine aim of life and remain busy with worldly affairs, we waste the span of life bestowed by divinity. Life is not for accumulation, but for realizing our supreme source. We must understand the goal of life and the means for attaining this aim, and use all of our means to achieve the highest good. We can transform our humanity into divinity through thought, love, and action.

No transformation comes by isolating and developing only one aspect of ourselves: our thinking, emotions, or behavior. Practice includes head, heart and hands, and we use all three to reach toward the supreme source. Knowledge is powerless without application. Love without wisdom is passion or lust. And action without love and wisdom is meaningless. We are humans because of all three, head, heart and hands; all combine on one path to ultimate truth. This path of practice is called karma yoga .

When our intellect and heart are filled with divine knowledge and love, then our actions change from the pursuit of worldly objects to the search for divinity. Yoga is realizing union with the supreme source, which unites us all. We cannot in any moment be separate from our divine source of life, but we disconnect from our awareness of this truth.