Sivananda says "serve love give purify meditate realise". These words are based on his view that karma, bhakti and jnana yoga need to be combined for spiritual progress.
He used to say selfless service of humanity (protracted lengthy service in fact) was absolutely indispensible in cleaning the mind of impurities of lust, anger and greed. I have to keep reminding myself of this to make my daily work as a doctor into a sadhana, not just a means of earning a living. When the hours are long, and the work exhausting, it is easy to wish one could hide away and just do japa all day long. But we each have a duty to perform. And in my case, being a doctor is one of my duties. At least, it feels right to me to combine it with japa for now. It is good to serve the living God. As they say, Nara seva, Narayana seva. In those that the mind calls "friends" and in those it calls "enemies", in both exists the same Narayana.
I feel japa is essential for attempting karma yoga. My understanding of karma yoga is where you feel you do nothing, but are simply an instrument of God. We cannot live a day longer than we are meant to live. We cannot control how long our hearts will beat. When the body itself operates of its own accord, how can we imagine that we really do anything? We don't even really do the circulation, digestion, respiration etc....it all happens 'automatically' as ordained by the Creator. So we do nothing really. It's all divine energy. Mantra energy! May the 'I' step aside, and let the mantra take over. The mantra is the real doer anyway.
Om Namo Bhagavate Sivanandaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
