The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self- 5: Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 24, Aug 2024, 06:20.
Article
Scripture
The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self: 5.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on October 14, 1984)

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The karmas related to God are the various types of affection which we manifest in our devotions in respect of God the Almighty. We have navavidha bhakti, the ninefold method of devotion to God, and the five attitudes called bhavas. These are said to be the indications of the meaning of this particular verse. 

"Sravanam kirtanam visnoh smararam pada-sevanam 

arcanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam atma-nivedanam." 

(Bhagavata 7.5.23) is a slogam that occurs in the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapuranam. 

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Always listening to the glories of God, and not being interested in listing to anything else, is sravana. It is singing His glories. When we speak, we speak only the glory of God, and nothing else. We have nothing else to say. This may be said to be kirtanam. Smarana is continuous remembrance of the existence of God. It is a memory that shall never fail. There is a continuous awareness that there is something pervasive existing everywhere in the universe. This may be equated with japa yoga, which is also continuous remembrance, especially when japa becomes mental. Pada-sevana is explained by traditional followers of bhakti yoga as worship of the feet of the Almighty, which extreme traditionalists tell us is possible only to Mahalakshmi, Parvati or Saraswati because they are directly in contact with these forms of the Almighty. But this need not be the only meaning of pada-sevana if it means the worship of the feet of the Almighty, because in the Upanishad we are told that the Earth is the footstool of God.

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"Padbhyam prthivī hy esa sarva-bhuantaratma"(Mundaka 2.1.4) is the conclusion of a mantram occurring in the Mundaka Upanishad. 

The whole Earth is the feet of God, and therefore, everything that is on Earth may also be said to be so. 

"Sarvatah panipadam " (BG 13.14) says the Gita itself: 

Everywhere we have the feet of the Almighty. 

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The feet of everyone are the feet of Almighty God. Everything that we touch and sense is a finger of God and indicates the feet of God. Service of humanity, service of God's creation, and unselfish dedication to an altruistic cause may also be considered to be a part of pada-sevana, worship of the feet of God. Archana is ritualistic worship or mental worship. In places of religious pilgrimage, in temples and churches and mosques, worship is offered to God in a ritualistic traditional manner with gestures of performance. Where physical gestures like kneeling down, bending below, or offering flowers, waving a light, etc., are involved, we may say such a worship is the external form of worship.

In the Saiva Siddhanta School, especially as is prevalent in southern India, four types of worship are mentioned, and they go by the name of charya, kriya, yoga and jnana. Charya is externalised worship, a service that one can do in a temple, for instance, by collecting flowers from the garden or bhel leaves from the forest, by sweeping the outskirts of the temple, by cleaning the veranda, washing the vessels and other things. But there is an internal type of service which is carried on by people inside the temple, inside the holy place, within the holy of holies. You must have seen in temples that there are people who work outside, and there are also those who are directly connected with the worship itself. The internal association is clear, but both charya and kriya are external in the sense that they are performances with the limbs of the body.

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Continued

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