Convert Work into Worship

Self-Inquiry: What are my Karma Yogi / Dharma Scores?

(a) Grade yourself 1-9 (see scale) for each of the 16 items below,

based on the extent you are doing that in life.

Never 1------2------3------4------5------6------7------8------9 Always

(b) Now give yourself an overall grade (A, B, C, D, E, F -) "A" for best

grade, "F" for failing, on how well you are currently following your own Dharma in life: ______.

(c) What’s your plan for raising your grades?

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In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna teaches:

“All humanity is born for ultimately achieving perfection…

___ 1) Your purpose in life, the very purpose of all humanity, is to achieve spiritual perfection.

___ 2) Be fully devoted to your duties and you will find perfection; abhor your duties and you will never find it.

___ 3) Do not accept as true the common but incorrect notion that work and worship are separate.

___ 4) Perform your work selflessly with no attachment to the outcome. Do it as an act of devotion to the Divine. This is the way to fulfillment and spiritual perfection.

___ 5) Live your whole life and do your work in a certain attitude, an attitude of adoration of the Divine.

___ 6) Do each and every act for the sake of the Divine.

___ 7) Love God in everything, everything you do!

___ 8) Convert your earthly existence into worship and you become, in effect, an in-the-world yogi, truly united with Me, the Godhead.

___ 9) Your natural calling, your dharma, consists of duties attuned to your nature.

___10) Your very nature will dictate that you perform duties that are aligned with your basic disposition.

___11) Do your own dharma, even imperfectly, rather than try to master the work of another.

___12) Perform the duties called for by your obligations even if those duties seem of little merit—then you will be able to do the duties with less effort, which releases consciousness that can be directed toward Divinity.

___13) Just as fire produces smoke, your actions produce effects. These can be negative as well as positive.

___14) Do not abandon your duties even though they may seem tainted. No activities, regardless of how good, are completely free of blemish.

___15) When you discharge your duties faithfully as acts of devotion to the Divine, it frees you of any karmic contamination.

___16) You attain the supreme state of being liberated [moksha] from the bondage of karma when:

Your mind and intellect are no longer attached to anything whatsoever,
You have subdued and gone beyond your sense of self (your ego),
You have gone beyond your desire for enjoyment.

Then you become an instrument of Divinity!”

– Krishna

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