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BHAGAVAD GITA
whatever austerity thou dost practice, perform the work as an offering to Me [the Divine Being]"; 114 i.e., resign it, hand it over, together with its fruits. Everything that is done is to be regarded as a willing offering to the Lord.
Thus it appears that there are two kinds of Karma Yoga, conducing to the same goal: 1. a primarily mental discipline, conducted on the pattern and basis of the Sankhya, whereby the distinction between the gunas and the Self is realized, and 2. an emotional, devotional discipline of surrender to the Lord (iśvara). The latter is an elementary, more popular, preliminary stage, to be continued until one has realized the phenomenal character of the Lord himself, as well as of the worshiping ego. These two (the Lord and ego) are, as two, annihilated in Brahman-Atman, which is without form, name, personality, or the gentle movements of the heart.
"Resign mentally all of thine activities to Me. Taking Me as the highest goal, resort to the yoga-practice of inner awareness (buddhi-yoga), 115 and keep the mind always fixed on Me." 116
"To all beings I am the same. To Me there is none either hateful or dear. Yet those who devote [and assign] themselves to Me with utter devotion (bhakti)-they are in Me, and I also am in them." 117
The consoling, enlightening wisdom of Krsna is well summarized in the phrase mattaḥ sarvam pravartate, "from Me
114 Bhagavad Gitā 9. 27.
The device of making an offering to God of all one's activities is familiar to the Roman Catholic Church, where exercises of mental asceticism and spiritual love (Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga) play a prominent
role.
115 Instead of the yoga of bodily penance, self-starvation, and mortification, of Jainism, or those demonic concentrations of energy for the winning of universal power discussed supra, pp. 399-400.
116 Bhagavad Gitā 18. 57.
117 lb. 9. 29.
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