I was having a tough time with work last week – it still is tough, but my mindset is better equipped to handle the situation now. My father has been a part of different corporates (or rather, so called corporates) for 35+ years now (which is more than the age of the organization I currently work for) out of which the last 10 odd years has been as a part of the top management that makes policy & vision oriented decisions. I thought I’ll have a chat with him to get myself out of this work oriented difficulties.

When I narrated my troubles, my father started explaining about the various Yogas that are available to be adopted as the way of life for better life. Basically, there are three major Yogas:

Bhakthi Yoga: The path of pure spiritual devotion, love and surrender.

Gyana Yoga: The path of right knowledge, reaching the ultimate truth through cessation of mental modifications by negation.

Karma Yoga: The path of selfless devotion.

Raja Yoga: The path where centralized thought combined with spiritual reflection allows the withdrawal from sensory perceptions, leading to deep meditation (dhyana) and samadhi.

While it seems tangential to the topic at hand, I assure relevancy. It is assumed that most yogis can be classified between these four yogas (through their motives, objectives & actions) and it is important to be a yogi to be happy in life – this has been tried, tested and prooved since time immemorial.

While Raja yogis are naturally blessed, Bhakthi yoga and Gyana yoga require strong vairagya (resolve) of mind and concentrated efforts. Karma yoga, on the other hand is the easiest to adopt and is often called the layman’s yoga due to the ease with which one can adopt it.

Karma yoga is amply explained by one of Lord Krishna’s famous verses from the Bhagavad Gita:

“Karmanyeva adhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana
Ma karmaphalahetur bhurma te sangostvakarmani”

Meaning: “Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits; so let not the fruits of action be thy motive, nor be thou to inaction attached.” Gita: Chapter II-47.

Detailed explanation can be found here, but coming back to my context, my father asked me one simple question: “Are you satisfied with the quality of your work?” or in other words, “Can you say that you have discharged your duties perfectly?” My immediate answer was an big and emphatic no.

Then, he says, there is nothing to worry – the discomfort in my mind rose because my mind was wavering – while it was supposed to only worry about my work, it was unnecessarily burdening itself with worries about others’ work. He advised a simple solution – “Mind your Business” & then “If there is a time when you have done your business to perfection, then I’ll tell you the next things to do.”

So there you go – Do your job perfectly and everything would fall into place slowly but surely. That is a big relief.