How is it possible to let go of attachment to results? This is a frightening proposition for many of us results-crazed folks. For me, access to multiple perspectives is essential for this karma-yoga process.
When I was job-hunting I noticed two different types of experience. If I was unemployed, desperate for a job, I approached an interview with way too much hope and trepidation. When I didn’t get the job, I was plunged into despair for some time. This rejection was striking at my need to survive, causing fear in the limbic brain.
However, if I had a secure job and was just browsing around for something more interesting, rejection was just a little blip in my confident move forward. My survival was not threatened, just my ego.
So here’s the beauty of adding yoga, and how its different approaches complement each other. Karma yoga says let go. You’re being pushed to the edge of the cliff and jumping is suggested. Your raja yoga practice has given you some sense – it’s okay if you’re not completely enlightened – of a stable witnessing awareness behind all the personality high jinks. This is the place to stand. Plant both feet firmly on that platform of awareness, and throw attachment to results over the side. It’s not you that’s going over. Just this pesky attachment you’re better off without.
We know, even if we don’t like to admit it much of the time, the universe can do whatever it likes with us at any moment. Or with our loved ones, even more frightening. The more we develop an experience of this solid inner platform, the less we operate from fear. Our desperation for results goes down because we know on a visceral level we won’t disappear if blah blah doesn’t happen. And the universe’s abundance gives us unending opportunities to practice letting go. There’s always some new blah blah to obsess over.
Adding bhakti yoga makes the inner platform more stable because you’re tapping into the heart core from which all your little loves come. Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita advises Arjuna, his friend,“Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou offerest in sacrifice, whatever thou givest away, whatever austerity thou practisest, O son of Kunti, do that as an offering unto Me.”
Adding the felt sense of offering actions to our higher self, or personal vision of the beloved, involves much more of our being. Love attracts. The experience of love is an end in itself, soothing and calming us. We don’t know whether we’ll become enlightened in this life, but we can enjoy playing the spiritual edge.