Foundations · Reading
Karma Yog
Action without grasping: acting fully and letting go of the fruit.
Awaiting subject reviewWritten from our source material and not yet checked by a teacher of this practice. Read it as reference, and learn the practice from someone who teaches it.
Philosophy
Karma means action, and also the chain of cause and effect that action sets moving. Every act, outward or inward, leaves a trace that ripens later.
Karma Yog does not ask you to withdraw from the world. In the Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that his right is to the action alone, never to its fruit. The work is done fully, as an offering, and the result is let go. The Gita calls this skill in action.
Seva, selfless service, is Karma Yog in its simplest form: work done for others, with nothing asked in return.
Terms
- Karma
- Action, and its consequences.
- Seva
- Selfless service.
- Yogah karmasu kaushalam
- Yog is skill in action (Gita 2.50).
Further reading
- Bhagavad Gita 2.47
- Bhagavad Gita 2.50
Ideas behind it
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, p. 3, written sample card
- Bhagavad Gita, 2.47, 2.50