Fortunately or unfortunately we all perceive ourselves as individuals. During our individual lives, there are moments when we experience certain emptyness, i.e., moments when we are not aware of our individuality. These moments occur to everyone but only few realize their importance. These moments of emptyness and void have a very unique and powerful expression of "Who am I?" "Why all this?" "How did this creation came to be?" "When nothing and no one was there, then who and what was?" eventually boiling down to the question "Why?" which also implicitly contains the answer as "I Am" and "I".
Vedas points us to the beginnings of this creation, for example Nasadiya Suktam of Rig Veda mentions from nothingness everything was born. In other words, in the beginning there was only Supreme, then with a desire to know itself, a spark of Supreme imposed limitations on itself and became an ignorant Jiva and that primal desire (Maya) manifested as the Creation. This Jiva due to his ignorance fancies various limited expressions like anger, jealousy, passion, fear, attraction and so on so forth and starts experiencing them. Forgetting his true nature, he takes several births entangled in these limited expressions. After several births, Jiva finally realizes that these expressions are ephemeral in nature and are not at all real. Understanding the ephemeral nature of these expressions, he sets out to find out his own true nature and starts following various (Yogic) practices. Our scriptures broadly categorize these practices in to four categories, which are Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Kriya Yoga and Karma Yoga.
Each Yogic practice imposes its own conditions to bestow Liberation. Practice of Jnana Yoga requires a practitioner to have no doubts at all. Even a single doubt destroys all the Jnana that a practitioner acquires through Sadhana. On the other hand, Bhakti Yoga requires complete surrendering to the diety or guru. Even a single control over an individual interest destroys all the spiritual wealth acquired through this path. Whereas Kriya Yoga requires both individual Sadhana as well as Guru's blessings or divine will to succeed, absence of even a single dimension can destroy the merits of this practice. Karma Yoga imposes minimal restrictions on the practitioner. Karma Yogi only knows to perform action without caring about the outcome of the action, without attaching to the past memories and past outcomes. Hence, in terms of restrictions imposed to bestow merits, Karma Yoga is the most effective when compared to all other Yogic paths.
Once we understand the importance of Karma Yoga. Now let's understand the nature of work and it's relationship to Liberation. To begin with, it would not be silly to ask question "What is work?". But answer is certainly simple, work is simply be defined as an action. Hence, it can be written as "Work = Action". Action can be defined as "Cause and a Certain Effect". This definition of Action directly corresponds to the definition of Karma as given by our scriptures.
Once we define Work, it is natural to ask question "How can we define un-productive work?". Un-productive work can simply be defined as bad action which means "Cause and its undesire-able Effect". Because desire is involved here, this is a bad Karma. On the other hand, if we define productive work as good action, meaning "Cause and its desire-able Effect". Even here, because desire is involved, even this can be seen as bad Karma because desire creates bondage. Is there a better definition of productive work? Well, if productive work is defined simply as "Cause and its Effect (no desire-able or undesire-able)" then because there is no expectation or desire is involved here, this is certainly a good Karma because it bestows freedom. But, scriptures proclaim that practicing action without any expectation of an outcome is Karma Yoga. That means that productive work is equivalent to Karma Yoga.
With these above definitions we can relate productive work, Karma Yoga, Action, and Work as following:
Productive Work
= Karma Yoga
= Action - Expectation
= Work - Expectation
Expectations correspond to future, but what about past? Doesn't past memories affect Karma? Let us understand why past and future are important components here to consider.
Jiva or an individual is essentially made up of three components (one real and two illusory). These three components are Past, Present and Future. Past and Future are illusory components that create bondage, whereas Present is a real component that bestows ultimate freedom or liberation. Desires of the Jiva form Future component whereas Past component is composed of memories and emotional baggage.
Liberation can be defined as following:
Liberation
= Jiva - (Future+Past)
= Jiva - (desires + emotional baggage + memories)
Because Work or Karma is directly associated with Jiva. Above equations can be rewritten as:
Liberation
= Jiva - (Future+Past)
= Work - (Future + Past)
= Work - (desires + emotional baggage + memories)
As discussed before this directly is also the definition of productive work also Karma Yoga.
Liberation
= Work - (Future + Past)
= Work - (desires + emotional baggage + memories)
= Productive work
= Karma Yoga
In summary, there is a direct relationship between Karma and Liberation. Productive work or good Karma always liberates whereas Un-productive work or bad Karma creates bondage.
